December 13: A Bear Who Went Over the Mountain, Polar Vortex, Land of Poetry

Like the bear who went over the mountain, I went out to see what I could see.  And, I might as well warn you, like the bear, all that I could see was the other side of the mountain:  more of the same . . .

The pretty much describes winter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Snow sort of washes away most features of the landscape.  Hills, fields, bushes, rocks, ruts, roads--all blank sheets of paper until a car plows through or a third grader tromps through.  Each side of the mountain is the same.

You have to be pretty hardy to live in this place.  The common joke is that we get nine months of winter and three months of relatives.  There's a polar vortex spinning over a good portion of the country.  Tonight, the wind chills are supposed to be about 20 below zero.  That means that, after about 30 minutes, any exposed skin will develop frostbite.

This morning, after the plows went through, I spent about 40 minutes shoveling.  That was about 3:30 a.m.  It was pretty friggin' cold.  By the time I was done, my hands were numb, even though I was wearing gloves.  Tomorrow, the cold is supposed to be even worse.

I've been thinking about what it means to be the Poet Laureate of this region.  It's not a place that's overrun by poets and poetry lovers.  The Green Bay Packers are religion up here.  Even pastors know that, on game Sundays, sermons have to be shorter.  Opening day of whitetail deer season is pretty much a national holiday, as well.  Some schools even close down.

Yet, I think that the Upper Peninsula is a land of poetry.  Grendel could prowl the shores of Lake Superior.  Whitman could floss his teeth with our leaves of grass.  King David could dance naked on our beaches and mountains, through our pine forests.  I step outside my front door every morning and see poetry.

That's what being the Poet Laureate of the U. P. means.

Please vote for Saint Marty at the link below:

Martin Achatz for Poet Laureate of the U. P.

September 14: Genghis Khan, Superpowers, Wisdom

In the deepest part of the woods was a stand of ferns.  I had just been reading in Donald Culross Peattie that the so-called "seed" of ferns was formerly thought to bestow the gift of invisibility on its bearer, and that Genghis Khan wore such a seed in his ring, "and by it understood the speech of birds." . . . 

Pretty cool little passage.  Dillard writing about superpowers.  Invisibility.  Understanding the language of feathers.  These few little sentences prove to me that everybody thinks about having extraordinary powers, even a Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer who can compose paragraphs that can literally, to quote Emily Dickinson, make me "feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off."

I'm not sure what superpower I would want.  Flying would be pretty cool, but limited.  Sure, I could fly across the Atlantic to have some fish and chips in London, but then I would just have to fly back and return to my normal life.  Super strength?  No thank you.  It would come in handy in the kitchen when the lid of a jar gets stuck, but who really needs to lift cars off the ground or leap tall buildings?  Invisibility would have attracted me as a teenager.  I wouldn't have minded slipping into the girls' locker room at school every once in a while.

When God offered to grant King Solomon a gift, Solomon didn't ask for great wealth or long life.  He didn't ask Yahweh to smite his enemies with syphilis or hangnails.  At the time, Solomon was really young, and he had just inherited the throne from his father, King David.  Solomon wasn't too sure he knew how to rule properly, so he asked God to grant him wisdom.  And God did.  Jehovah made Solomon the wisest person who ever lived.  (He still messed up plenty, worshiping other gods and lusting after too many women.  Wisdom and common sense are sometimes mutually exclusive.)

Despite Solomon's failings, I think wisdom would be a pretty awesome superpower.  To be able to discern the secrets of the universe like Einstein or write profound books like William Faulkner.  To be able to answer any question with truth and authority.  Everybody in Solomon's time knew he was the smartest guy around.  He would have killed on Celebrity Jeopardy.  That's my kind of superpower.

I'm teaching Intro to Film tonight.  I have to share my limited understanding of cinema.  The only saving grace is that I know quite a bit more than most of my students when it comes to movies.  Therefore, I will be Professor Solomon this evening, spreading the Gospel of Quentin Tarantino.  For a little while, anyway, I can pretend that I am the wisest person on the planet.  At least until about 9:30 p.m.

Then Saint Marty will go home to his wife and kids, and his teenage daughter will remind him that he's an idiot.

Super wisdom . . .

July 22: Throng of Praise, Boyne Mountain Resort, Nickelodeon

Under the world's conifers--under the creekside cedar behind where I sit--a mantle of fungus wraps the soil in a weft, shooting out blind thread after frail thread of palest dissolved white.  From root tip to root tip, root hair to root hair, these filaments loop and wind; the thought of them always reminds me of Rimbaud's "I have stretched cords from steeple to steeple, garlands from window to window, chains of gold from star to star, and I dance."  King David leaped and danced naked before the ark of the Lord in a barren desert.  Here the very looped soil is an intricate throng of praise.  Make connections; let rip; and dance where you can.

Dillard is all about praise.  She praises God for the whole universe, from the roots in the ground to cosmic dust expanding through the cosmos.  Everything is an opportunity to dance like King David, shake your booty before the ark of the Lord.  It's all a matter of connecting the dots, seeing the picture that emerges, and then celebrating.

Greetings from the Boyne Mountain Resort.  It's been a day of travel and reunion.  The sun was shining, sky so blue it hurt the eyes.  When we stopped at a rest area, my son went wading in Lake Michigan.  When we were walking up from the beach, a lady who'd been watching him in the water said to me, "That reminded me of when I was a little girl on a trip with my dad."

We picked up our daughter in Gaylord, Michigan.  She's been on a trip all week with a friend's family.  There was a water park, a bowling alley, an arcade.  She went to a music museum and learned what a real nickelodeon was (not the cable kids' channel, but a nickel jukebox).  Yet, when she was sitting next to me having lunch, she said, "I was like homesick on Tuesday."  She missed us.  Amazing.

We are in a condo right now that has a private hot tub.  We went water parking tonight, and then we just walked around.  My daughter got thirsty, so I went up to little outdoor bar and asked if I could have a cup of water.  He didn't have cups of water, but he reached into his refrigerator and took out a bottled water.  I shook my head and said, "I don't have money to pay for that."  The bartender smiled and said, "Naw, man.  Don't worry about it.  Have a great night."

Are you getting the picture?  I encountered moments of grace all day long.

So Saint Marty is dancing tonight, shaking it for all the day's goodness.