July 27: "The Drive," Supreme Act of Trust, "Precious Cargo"

Billy Collins goes for a ride . . . 

The Drive

by: Billy Collins

There were four of us in the car

early that summer evening,

short-hopping from one place to another,

thrown together by a light toss of circumstance.

I was in the backseat

directly behind the driver who was talking

about one thing and another

while his wife smiled quietly at the windshield.

I was happy to be paying attention

to the rows of tall hedges

and the gravel driveways we were passing

and then the yellow signs on the roadside stores.

It was only when he began to belittle you

that I found myself shifting my focus

to the back of his head,

a head that was large and expansively held.

As he continued talking

and the car continued along the highway,

I began to divide his head into sections

by means of dotted lines,

the kind you see on the diagram of a steer.

Only here, I was not interested in short loin,

rump, shank, or sirloin tip,

but curious about what region of his cranium

housed the hard nugget of his malice.

Tom, my friend, you would have enjoyed the sight--

the car turning this way and that,

the sunlight low in the trees,

the man going on about your many failings,

and me sitting quietly behind him

wearing my white butcher's apron

and my small, regulation butcher's hat.

I'm not a good passenger in a car.  Prefer to be behind the wheel.  It's very difficult for me to give up that control, unless I have complete confidence in the driver's skills or am incapacitated in some way (it happens with insulin-dependent diabetics).  But, given the choice, I will always drive.

Letting another person drive me somewhere is a supreme act of trust--that the driver will not go all Fast & Furious on me and that the driver knows where the hell we're going.  I once saw President Obama's motorcade traveling from the local airport to a speaking engagement at the university.  The vehicles in that convoy were going at least 80 to 90 miles per hour along the highway with a police escort, which convinced me that I would never want to be President of the United States.

Today, I didn't drive too much.  My wife had the car at work, so much of my ambulation was by foot.  I mowed my lawn, took my puppy for a long walk, and, in the afternoon, strolled up to church to play the pipe organ for Saturday evening Mass.  It was close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I ended up sweating in impolite places for a good portion of my waking hours.

Now Saint Marty's feet are a little sore tonight.

Precious Cargo

by: Martin Achatz

Every time I picked up her daughter

for a date, my future mother-in-law

would tell me, "Drive safe.  You have

precious cargo."  Her words stuck

with me as I got behind the wheel,

turned the key in the ignition.  It was

a matter of trust, the way a mother robin

pushes her baby out of the nest, trusts

air and feather and instinct to keep

that fledgling safe from gravity's hunger.

I would take her daughter to dinner, a movie,

maybe skinny-dipping in Lake Superior, then,

late on some dark road, parked, slipped

into the back seat with her, pressed against

this precious cargo, felt breath and heartbeat

fluttering on my fingertips, a winged thing

trying to take flight for the first time

into the freckled heavens of my body.

March 25: Simpler Times, Ted Kooser, "A Room in the Past"

A quick poem this morning about the past.  I have been feeling nostalgia for simpler times, an easier life, when people cared about each other.  Watched out for each other.  When I felt safe and happy all the time.  You know, when President Obama was in the White House.

Saint Marty wishes everybody a happy, grace-filled day.

A Room in the Past

by:  Ted Kooser

It’s a kitchen. Its curtains fill

with a morning light so bright   

you can’t see beyond its windows   

into the afternoon. A kitchen   

falling through time with its things   

in their places, the dishes jingling   

up in the cupboard, the bucket   

of drinking water rippled as if

a truck had just gone past, but that truck   

was thirty years. No one’s at home   

in this room. Its counter is wiped,   

and the dishrag hangs from its nail,   

a dry leaf. In housedresses of mist,   

blue aprons of rain, my grandmother   

moved through this life like a ghost,   

and when she had finished her years,   

she put them all back in their places

and wiped out the sink, turning her back   

on the rest of us, forever.

January 20: On the Third Day, Be Extra Kind, President Obama

And on the third day of wandering, somebody shot at the four from far away--shot four times as they crossed a narrow brick road.  One shot was for the scouts.  The next one was for the antitank gunner, whose name was Roland Weary.

The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear.  Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance.  It was his addled understanding of the rules of warfare that the marksman should be given a second chance.  The next shot missed Billy's kneecaps by inches, going end-on-end, from the sound of it.

Roland Weary and the scouts were safe in a ditch, and Weary growled at Billy, "Get out of the road, you dumb motherfucker."  The last word was still a novelty in the speech of white people in 1944.  It was fresh and astonishing to Billy, who had never fucked anybody--and it did its job.  It woke him up and got him off the road.

There's something oddly sweet about Billy's reaction to this sniper attack.  Billy, who never expected to be shot at as a chaplain's assistant, is stunned into immobility, not sure what his response should be.  He's only twenty-one years old, a virgin in more ways than one.  For Billy, the world is still a kind place.  A beautiful orange that needs to be peeled.

Today, Donald Trump became President of the United States.  You may be expecting a post full of venom, mean humor, jabs at Trump's racism and sexism and homophobia and Islamophobia, not to mention his bad hair and thin skin.  I will not be doing that today.  I will try to take a more Billy Pilgrim approach and hope I don't get shot at.

I have friends who have been urging me to be extra kind to everyone today--Hillary supporters, Bernie supporters, and Trump supporters alike.  I suppose the idea is to combat hatred with kindness.  To dispel the darkness with a little light.  I understand that impulse and appreciate the advice, for I woke this morning feeling fairly . . . unhopeful.  I have tried for most of the day to avoid television screens and media posts.  Haven't even listened to NPR.

I cannot promise that, for the next four years, I will remain silent about Donald Trump.  In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that won't happen.  However, I am trying, as Samuel L. Jackson says at the end of Pulp Fiction, REAL HARD.

So, tonight, I wish everybody kindness and understanding.

Saint Marty is grateful tonight for President Barack Obama and his family.  For eight years of steady, calm, moral leadership.

January 9: Invasion, Poet of the Week, Tracy K. Smith, "The Weather in Space"

My wife and I took our son to McDonald's this evening.  We were killing some time before my son's dance class.  My son went immediately to the kids' area when he got there.  There's a large play structure with slides, soft mats, steps, tubes to climb through. 

Well, when my son started moving through the play structure, he discovered that some person had taken a permanent marker and written messages all through it.  He found the words "tit" and "Fuck Hillary."  And scrawled on one wall was the word "nigger."

We immediately told the manager, who came in, examined the graffiti, took pictures, and then scribbled the words out with another permanent marker.  My son went through the rest of the restaurant, looking for other messages.

I can't explain to my eight-year-old son how the incoming President of the United States has given free license for the worst elements of society to be expressed.  It's okay to hate in the United States of America right now.  To call people names because of race or ethnicity or sexual preference or religious affiliation.  After eight years of President Obama, it feels like I'm living on another planet, like I'm in some kind of alternate universe.

I got a book from a good friend for Christmas.  It is Tracy K. Smith's poetry collection Life on Mars.  It's half science, half science fiction.  An elegy to Smith's scientist father, a nostalgic summoning of the space operas of the 1950s. 

I thought this book would be a good follow-up to seeing Rogue One this weekend, and also help me deal with the incoming invasion from Planet Trump in a few weeks.  Therefore, Tracy K. Smith is Poet of the Week.

Saint Marty wants to remind his disciples:  in space no one can hear you scream.

The Weather in Space

by:  Tracy K. Smith

Is God  being or pure force?  The wind

Or what commands it?  When our lives slow

And we can hold all that we love, it sprawls

In our laps like a gangly doll.  When the storm

Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing

After all we're certain to lose, so alive--

Faces radiant with panic.

November 24: Hope for the Future, Miller Williams, "Of History and Hope"

I think a good way to end this Thanksgiving night is with the poem Miller Williams wrote for the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton.

I must admit to having not a whole lot of hope for the future of the United States in the last few weeks.  The prospect of a Trump presidency fills me with dread.  President Obama, in his Thanksgiving message, called for all citizens to find common ground.  So did Donald Trump.  I'm not quite there yet.

But Miller Williams' poem reminds me that hope is still within reach. 

For Saint Marty, hope is about four years away.

Of History and Hope

by:  Miller Williams

We have memorized America,

how it was born and who we have been and where.

In ceremonies and silence we say the words,

telling the stories, singing the old songs.

We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.

The great and all the anonymous dead are there.

We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.

The rich taste of it is on our tongues.

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?

The disenfranchised dead want to know.

We mean to be the people we meant to be,

to keep on going where we meant to go.

But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how

except in the minds of those who will call it Now?

The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?

With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row—

and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.

Who were many people coming together

cannot become one people falling apart.

Who dreamed for every child an even chance

cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.

Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head

cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.

Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child

cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.

We know what we have done and what we have said,

and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,

believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—

just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.

All this in the hands of children, eyes already set

on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—

but looking through their eyes, we can see

what our long gift to them may come to be.

If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

November 14: Poet of the Week, Richard Blanco, "One Today"

I have chosen a Poet of the Week who makes me feel hope.  Richard Blanco--Cuban immigrant, gay, inaugural poet for President Obama's second term.  I was sick the morning of that inauguration.  Throwing up.  But I remember hearing Blanco read his inaugural poem "One Today" on the television.  Like Elizabeth Alexander's poem four years earlier, Blanco's lines filled me with hope for America.  All America.

That's why I chose Richard Blanco today.  For the hope that kindness will prevail in the world.  That people won't learn to tolerate intolerance.  I need some hope tonight.  It's been a long, disappointing day.

Saint Marty wishes he could go back to that morning in January four years ago, when hope fogged the air like the breath of the tired, hungry, huddled masses, yearning to be free.

One Today

by:  Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

June 13: Isak Dinesen, Orlando Shootings, Grief

I stood, alone, and the world swayed.  I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs.  Isak Dinesen in Kenya, her heart utterly broken by loss, stepped out of the house at sunrise, seeking a sign.  She saw a rooster lunge and rip a chameleon's tongue from its root in the throat and gobble it down.  And then Isak Dinesen had to pick up a stone and smash the chameleon.  But I had seen that sign, more times than I had ever sought it; today I saw an inspiring thing, a pretty thing, really, and small.

Isak Dinesen, broken by loss.  Anyone who has seen the film Out of Africa has an idea of what Dinesen is mourning.  The love of her life has just died, and she is consumed with violent grief.  She is hurting, and she wants the world to hurt, as well.  At least, that's the way I interpret this little tale.  Grief in action.

Yesterday, I did not comment on the shootings in Orlando, Florida.  I was not ignoring the tragedy.  I simply didn't know what to say.  Still don't.  Of course, all sides of the political spectrum are weighing in.  Donald Trump is blaming terrorists and reiterating the need to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.  Hillary Clinton is focusing on the need for stricter control of weapons like the assault rifle used in Orlando.  And President Obama just sounds tired of standing in front of the White House Press Corps, talking about yet another senseless gun tragedy. 

It is a sad day.  Fifty innocent people dead.  Fifty more wounded.  There is nothing to say that can come close to expressing that amount of grief.  It's not a Republican/Democrat thing.  Not a heterosexual/homosexual thing.  Not a West/East thing.  It's a human thing.  Loss doesn't really discriminate. 

Do I believe there should be stricter gun laws in the United States?  Yes, I do.  However, tonight is not the time to argue and point fingers.  Tonight is a time for prayer and healing and love.  Lots of love.

Saint Marty feels like smashing chameleon tonight.

May 31: Pinochle Game, President Obama, Hibakusha

In lieu of a pinochle game, I'll walk a step before bed.  No hesitation about gloves now; I swath myself in wool and down from head to foot, and step into the night.

It is evening, and Dillard is trying to relax, ready herself for a long winter's nap.  She spends her days in active writer mode, exploring Tinker Creek and its surroundings.  She catalogues and contemplates, meditates and composes.  And at night, she must slow down, put her busy brain to bed, so to speak.  So, she plays pinochle or goes for a walk in the brisk gloaming.

Night time is blog time for me.  After a day of medical clerking and professoring and fathering, I allow myself a few hours to pull inward, pretend that I have something profound to say.  These moments that I spend with my laptop are a form of therapy for me, like Dillard's evening walk.  I'm able to unburden myself of anything that is cluttering up my cranial space.

For example, yesterday I had a discussion about President Obama's recent visit to Hiroshima, Japan.  On one side of the discussion, I had people insisting that President Obama had apologized for the United States' bombing of the city.  On the other side of the discussion, I (who had watched the full video of Mr. Obama's remarks at the Hiroshima memorial) stood there, insisting that no apology had been offered.  For a few seconds, the exchange became a little heated.  It ended amicably, though, my final remark something like, "Watch the video."

I can only assume that the conversation was fueled by Sarah Palin's recent comments at a Donald Trump rally in which she, in her folksy, antichrist way, accused the President of the United States of "dissing" the veterans of World War II.  Once again, Palin opened her mouth and spewed untruths like Linda Blair after a dinner of pea soup.  And people pay attention for some reason.  I can only assume it's the same reason thousands show up for Donald Trump campaign rallies.  It's easier to get swept up in falsehoods rather than facts.

President Obama did not apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima.  He spoke about the terrible cost of war.  About humankind's need to embrace peace and diplomacy, or else face nuclear annihilation.  He used the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing as examples of the grace that can emerge from tragedy.  Rather than embrace hatred and anger, the hibakusha turned to love and understanding and moral responsibility.  That was President Obama's message. 

Love and understanding and moral responsibility.  That sounds like a message that a guy from Nazareth delivered over 2,000 years ago.  And that's what Sarah Palin is pissed off about.  Big conflicts begin when ignorance becomes the guiding principle.  I prefer to remain hopeful that the people of the United States will choose love and understanding over ignorance.  Or we may just end up with a President Trump.

There.  Saint Marty feels unburdened. 

October 1: Glorious Life Ending, Umpqua Community College, President Obama, Prayer

Glorious life ending.  There must have been a moment when his son had gasped for air, the last time, as Jesus must have.  But as Jesus had risen, he wanted his son to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact, and everything to be as it had been not so long ago.

Ives in mourning, not long after his son's death.  He wants his son back.  He wants to hit rewind and put his arms around his son.  Not let go.  That's what Ives wants.  He doesn't want revenge or justice.  Ives wants Robert, organs and spirit and mind.  Whole.

I'm not going to make jokes tonight or try to be clever.  I've spent a good portion of this evening watching and reading news reports about another school shooting in the United States.  Roseburg, Oregon.  Umpqua Community College.  Ten people dead.  Ten wounded.

There are quite a few people like Ives in Oregon tonight.  Fathers and mothers who are suddenly childless.  I watched President Obama talk about how tired he is of standing in front of a podium to talk about another senseless massacre.  He was angry.  He talked about politicians quibbling over gun rights while people are dying in churches and school campuses and movie theaters.

I am going to pray for the people in Roseburg tonight.  For the students of Umpqua Community College.  Something needs to change.  I am not anti-gun.  I am pro-common sense.  The shootings in Oregon today did not have to happen.  We should have learned from Columbine.  From Sandy Hook.  From Emanuel AME Church.

To everybody reading this post, I want you to pray for the victims of Umpqua and their families.  And I want you to get pissed because there are a whole lot of politicians in Washington, D. C., tonight who should be ashamed of themselves.  They are at home with their spouses and children, eating dinner, watching TV, listening to the names on the news.  Names of young persons who should be at home, eating dinner, watching TV.

Saint Marty isn't doing a cartoon tonight.  It's not a night for laughter.  It's a night for taking stock, making decisions.  Being sad.  Getting mad.

Maybe we need to put all our kids in towers to keep them safe...

Rapunzel's Fall

by:  Lisa Russ Spaar

At night, falsetto,
he'll mimic the Crone.
Believing it's her,
she's tempted not to answer.
Finally, her candle licking
the window's black hole,
the uncoiling snake of braid
will hurtle down,
blue as the cord that bound her,
once, to her own lost mother,
its fringes brushing his boots.
Up he'll clamber, hungrily,
ferret-quick, toward the song
he's heard--Go dig my grave,
both long and deep,
lay a marble stone 
at my head and feet--
his body on the sill
blotting out entirely
any world outside the trembling
garden of her body
she's about to step beyond.

January 20: Hive of Falling Snow, State of the Union, Prayer Updates

When they stepped outside together, the snow was already more than six inches high and rising.  A beautiful night, the streets in every direction impassable to traffic.  Hardly anything moved save for the occasional snow plow on the avenue, bus engines whirring, strained, somewhere in the immense, agitated hive of falling snow, a kind of violet light puzzled them.  Down the street dozens of children who'd swarmed out of their apartment houses, were in the midst of a snow fight, the scene lit by wrought iron street lamps, snowballs bursting against hooded, gleeful faces, and dropping, soft as flowers, behind them.

I love this description of the streets of New York.  Muffled by snow.  Filled with kids throwing snowballs and laughing.  It's a scene right out of Currier & Ives or a Normal Rockwell painting.  There's a pervading nostalgia in Hijuelos' words.  Something both happy and sad.  Sad and hopeful.

I'm sitting in my living room tonight, watching President Obama deliver his penultimate State of the Union address.  I still find Mr. Obama an inspiring figure.  A symbol of everything that's good about the United States of America.  Whether he's able to raise the minimum wage or bring free health care to every citizen in this country, he is talking about hope tonight.  Hope for a better life for everyone on this planet.  Republican or Democrat, nobody can argue against that aspiration.

Tonight, I'm going to give you some updates on people for whom I've recently asked you to pray.

My sister came home from the hospital last week.  She's still very weak, but getting stronger.  She will be starting physical therapy next week.  Her mental state is greatly improved, as well.  However, I think she's still struggling with depression.

My daughter's friend who was in the car accident is still at the University of Michigan hospital.  Late last week, she underwent facial reconstruction surgery and repair of a laceration on her brain.  The last I heard, she was still on a ventilator, but she was responding to her mother.  The doctors were very pleased with the results of her surgeries, but she still needs a lot of prayer.

And Sara, my friend who's struggling with her bipolar son.  On Sunday, she was laughing and making plans for the future.  I'm not sure how her son is doing, but Sara has started to take care of Sara, and that's a step in the right direction.

There is hope in there tonight, at least in my house.  I hope you feel it, even a little bit.  It doesn't have to be a partisan thing.  I don't care if you voted for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama in the last presidential election.  Everyone deserves to feel positive, uplifted.

And Saint Marty feels positive that Hillary Clinton should be uplifted to the Presidency of the United States in two years.

Is it me, or does John Boehner look a little jaundiced and constipated?

October 24: So Damn Sleepy, Daughter's Ear, Piece of Mind

...It wasn't that I was bored or anything--I wasn't--but I was so damn sleepy all of a sudden...

That pretty much describes my current state at the moment.  The members of my book club left about an hour or so ago.  We had a good meeting about Stephen King's sequel to The Shining.  Everybody loved Dr. Sleep.  My sister, who didn't read it, loved the reviews about Dr. Sleep.  (My sister rarely finishes the books for book club, but she spends a lot of time reading about the books we read for book club.)

Today, I'm supposed to give you a piece of my mind.  I'm too damn tired to voice a strong opinion about anything.  However, I am a little disgusted by the high costs of medical care.  My daughter ripped the earring out of her ear this morning.  She did a pretty good job.  She split her earlobe in two cleanly.  My wife took her to the pediatrician.  The pediatrician wouldn't touch it; he said she needs to see a plastic surgeon.

So, I went to the office of a plastic surgeon I know, and I found out that, to get my daughter's ear fixed properly, I have to pay $250.  It's considered cosmetic surgery, so the office won't even bill my medical insurance.  Obviously, that's going to be a problem.  I can barely buy a stamp at the moment.  I don't have an earlobe fund in the bank.

Medicine in this country is too damn expensive.  Way too expensive.  I guess I'm considered middle class.  I make too much money to qualify for food stamps or to get my kids free hot lunch at school.  Yet, I can't afford to get my daughter's ear sewn back together.  That's pretty depressing.

The healthcare industry in the United States needs to be scrapped.  It doesn't need to be reformed.  Reformation indicates that it used to work and needs to be returned to a former state.  The healthcare industry in the U.S.has never really worked all that well.  And now, when a twelve-year-old girl has an open wound on her head, the fix is so expensive that she may have to live with it for a while.

President Obama didn't go far enough with healthcare reform.  He should have mothballed the whole system.and started over.

That's a piece of Saint Marty's mind.

I don't know how to get to either of these streets

September 10: On the Brink of War?

I'm sitting here, listening to President Obama on TV.  He's speaking about Syria.

I'm not going to get political in this post.  I'm not going to say whether I agree or disagree with the idea of any kind of military action against Syria.  We are at a very frightening moment:  to bomb or not to bomb an oppressive dictator who uses chemical weapons against his own people.  It feels like the United States is once again on the brink of war.

I'm going to pray for the world tonight.  I'm going to pray for the world's leaders.  I'm going to pray for those victims of the chemical weapons in Syria.  Those men and women and children.

Saint Marty hopes you all will say prayer for peace tonight.

Amen.

April 15: The Pulitzer Prize for Blogging

At 3 p.m. this afternoon, just as I'm beginning to teach my Intro to Film class, the winners of the 2013 Pulitzer Prizes are going to be announced.  That means, at 3:10 p.m., someone is going to burst into the lecture hall and shout, "You've just won the first Pulitzer Prize for Blogging!"  That someone will be followed by a throng of reporters, snapping pictures and shouting questions.

"How does it feel, being a writing pioneer?" 

"What are you going to do with the prize money?"

"Can you pose for People Magazine's Sexiest People Alive issue?"

"Do all your friends know how lucky they are?"

"How do you keep your girlish figure?"

Yes, it's going to be a hectic afternoon.  I'll need a bodyguard to get to my car.  When I get home, Oprah Winfrey will be sitting in my living room to interview me.  Then I'll get a call from President Obama and Pope Francis.

Saint Marty will eventually get to bed after midnight, listening to his furnace hum ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

It's a cross I'm willing to bear

January 21: Inaugurations Day, Sickness, "Rye" Dip Monday

I woke up this morning with every intention of going to work.  I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth.  When I started flossing, it was all over.  I don't want to go into great deal here.  Suffice to say, the toilet and I have been on a first-name basis all day long.  Thank goodness I didn't have to teach today because of Martin Luther King Day.  I was able to lie in bed and listen to the Inauguration festivities on the TV.

I listened to President Obama's speech.  I listened to James Taylor and Kelly Clarkson and Beyonce sing.  The only thing I watched was Richard Blanco read his inauguration poem, "One Today."  At first, I wasn't sure I liked it, but it built momentum and ended up being quite moving.  You judge for yourself:

One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,

buon giorno |howdy |namaste |or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together 

I'm not sure if the line and stanza breaks are correct, but this is the full text of the poem, delivered by Richard Blanco this morning at President Obama's second inauguration.  He is the first Cuban American to deliver an inaugural poem.  He is the first gay American to deliver an inaugural poem.  He is the youngest person to ever deliver an inaugural poem (he's younger than me).  And I officially hate him.

Well, it is Monday, which means I owe you a Rye dip.  My question today is very simple:

Will my body stop exploding any time soon?

And the answer from Holden and company is:

...She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the pillow.  She had her mouth way open.  It's funny.  You take adults, they look lousy when they're asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don't.  Kids look all right.  They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right.

There you go.  Phoebe looks all right asleep, not sick or throwing up or rushing to the toilet.  That means I'm going to be all right soon.

Saint Marty's going to take that one to the bank.  Or at least to the bathroom.

My newest person to hate

October 22: On the Limn of Possibility, "Carol" Dip

I've always liked the word "limn."  It gives me a sense of comfort, and I don't know why.  It's a verb, meaning, "to represent in drawing or painting" or "to portray in words; describe."  Because it is so close to the word "limb," many people get the two confused.  I, personally, think there should be a noun version of "limn," so that, if you are on the limn of something, you are on the edge of it.  You are on the line that marks the outer most reaches of the object or person or place or space.  So, if I say to you some time, "That's on the limn of possibility," that means it is within the realm of possibility.  It could happen.

This morning, I would like to think of things on the limn of possibility.  Some people may call them dreams or pipe dreams or wishes or fantasies.  However, I prefer to exist on the limn, because that's where the interesting things of the world happen.

Let me give you a few examples.  It was on the limn of possibility that peasant parents in China might give birth to a Nobel Prize winning writer.  Mo Yan won the Nobel this year.  It was also on the limn of possibility that a young, African American man from Hawaii might grow up to be President of the United States.  President Obama was elected in 2008.  Finally, it was on the limn of possibility that the Son of God might be born to an unwed mother in a barn in an obscure little village.  Over two thousand years ago, you know what happened.

Thus, I will give you a few things on the limn of possibility that give me a little happiness.

It is on the limn of possibility that I will be hired by the university as a tenure-track professor of poetry.  (One of my favorite things on the limn.)

It is on the limn of possibility that I will win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  (Hey, if Mo Yan or Pearl S. Buck or Dario Fo can win, so can I.)

It is on the limn of possibility that I will write a bestselling memoir.  (Everybody wants to read about a middle-aged poet living in the middle of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  In the movie adaptation, I will be played by George Clooney or Brad Pitt.)

It is on the limn of possibility that I will have pizza for lunch.  (Actually, this one is more than on the limn.  I have two pieces of pizza in the fridge right now.  I just wanted to throw in one thing that would come true today, even if it does involve three-day-old pepperoni from Little Caesar's.)

It is on the limn of possibility that Saint Marty will be named a Blog of Note.  (I haven't harped on this one for quite some time, so I thought I'd throw it in.)

It is on the limn of possibility that I will lose 40 pounds and be named one of People Magazine's 100 sexiest people.  (I can see the title to my photo already:  "Sexiest Blogger" or "Sexiest Poet" or "Sexiest Nobel Prize Winner."  Hey, it's always possible.)

OK, I have lifted my spirits with this little list of things on the limn.  Now, it is time for a Carol dip.  I will focus on something else within the limn of possibility:

Will Barack Obama be reelected as President of the United States?

And the answer from the great Charles Dickens is:

Sort of looks like Mitt, doesn't it?

Well, my finger landed on a picture of Scrooge before the knocker on his front door.  The subtitle to the illustration is this:  The ghostly knocker which presages a terrifying Christmas Eve for Ebenezer Scrooge.

I don't really like that answer.  It sort of hints at something terrifying to come (i.e., the election of Mitt Romney).

Saint Marty prefers to exist on the limn today:  President Obama will dominate the last debate this evening and soundly defeat Mr. Romney come November.  That's a limn Saint Marty can live with.

June 4: One of Those Tired Posts, "Carol" Dip Monday, Politics

Yes, it's going to be one of those posts where I complain about how tired I am.  Four o'clock comes way too early in the morning.  My eyes are burning right now, and I'm kicking myself for not having any caffeine on hand.  The idea of a tall cup of Diet Mountain Dew is making my eyelids thirsty.  I said eyelids.  That is not a typo.  It seems my eyelids are the parts of my body that are the most tired.  While I am sitting at my laptop, typing away, my eyelids want to crawl back into bed for a few more hours.  It's going to be a very long day at work.

Well, today is Monday, and that means it's time for a Carol dip.  I've been examining my conscience, reviewing my life, trying to come up with a good question to ask the great book of Scrooge.  I haven't really come up with anything earth-shattering, or even that interesting.  Therefore, I will turn to national politics.  Now, the presidential election in the United States is pretty much a horse race between two candidates--President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. 

Long-time disciples of Saint Marty know that I tend to be a little liberal in my leanings, as any intelligent person should be.  I make no apologies for this fact.  I have strong beliefs.  For instance, I believe that health care should be a right, not a privilege.  I don't think you should have to go bankrupt if you get sick.  I believe that everyone deserves a place to live, clothes to wear, and decent food to eat.  I live in a very wealthy nation.  The fact that we have people starving in the United States is criminal.  Speaking of wealth, I believe rich people should pay higher taxes (at least higher taxes than the middle and lower classes).  As Christ said, "Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand more."  That's a pretty clear statement about the distribution of resources.

Anyway, I'm climbing down off my soapbox now, and I'm going to ask my question.

Well, I just have one more thing I want to say.  It concerns Mitt Romney.  He's the son of a former Michigan governor.  He grew up in Michigan, with his dad running a car company and the entire state for a while.  Yet, he's the former governor of Massachusetts, and he was against the auto industry bail-out.  But he wants me to believe that he considers Michigan his "home," and that he's pro-Michigan.  What's up with that?

OK, now I'm really climbing down off my soapbox to ask my question.  My question is this:

Will Barack Obama be elected President of the United States for a second term?

And the answer from Charles Dickens, that great voice for the poor and struggling of the world, is:

Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted!  How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, out-pouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach.

Well, let's see.  Mirth.  Generous hand.  Blessings.  Exultation.  Looks like four more years for President Obama.

And Saint Marty says "amen" to that.

Even Charles Dickens wants this guy reelected

March 15: Derived Good, Not Profited, Fred for Prez

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew:  "Christmas among the rest.  But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good time:  a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.  And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

This speech is one of the most famous in A Christmas Carol.  It's delivered by Fred, Scrooge's nephew, and pretty much puts Scrooge in his place for about five seconds.  But it's a good speech, full of principles that, if followed by everyone all the time, would make the world a much better place.  Scrooge comments to Fred in the next paragraph that the nephew should go into Parliament, and, in this year of presidential politics in the United States, Fred does sound like a presidential nominee at a campaign stop, eating grits or pancakes and telling the common folk where he stands on the issue of Christmas.

The portion of the above passage that always strikes me is about people opening up their "shut-up hearts" and thinking of "people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."  Its a very Kum-ba-yah sentiment, Fred reminding Scrooge (and us) that we're all in the same boat.  If my neighbor doesn't have the means to buy food, and I just walk by him, wave, and say, "Have a nice day," then I'm part of the problem.  And I'm an asshole.

If Fred were running for President of the United States right now, I'd vote for him.  Of course, given his little exchange with his uncle above, it sounds like Fred would be a Democrat.  If there was a person running for the office who I truly believed shared Fred's convictions about treating everyone as "fellow-passengers," I'd vote for her/him in the blink of an eye, regardless of party affiliation.  I haven't seen a man or woman like that so far during this election.  The person who comes closest is President Obama.  (He is the guy who pushed for universal health care, after all.)

Maybe I should start a write-in campaign to get Fred elected to the presidency.  Think about the Christmas parties at the White House!  He could make putting a Christmas goose on everyone's dinner table part of his platform.  We could wear goose hats and sing Christmas carols at his campaign rallies.  We'd play blind man's bluff at his Inaugural Ball.

Saint Marty is voting for President Fred this year.

This guy's voting for Fred!