February 14: "Pupil," Ash Wednesday, "an ode to patience"

Billy Collins meditates on flowers, eyes, and students . . . 

Pupil

by:  Billy Collins

A hole in the eye,

the black well in the middle

of a flower, an iris,

or she who gives you the eye

sidelong on her way

out of the classroom, after the others.

This poem is all about seeing.  In an eye, the pupil is an opening that passes light through the lens.  For an iris, it's where the purple petals gather at the center--a "black well" where light gets eaten.  And, in school, it's the student who glances furtively around as she leaves the room after her classmates, perhaps in a state of enlightenment, confusion, or somewhere in between.   One poem.  Three different pupils.  Light.  Darkness.

Today is Valentine's Day.  It's also Ash Wednesday.  The last time these two celebrations occurred on the same day was in 2018, six days after my father died.  And there it is again:  light and darkness together.  Somehow, this pairing seems appropriate.  I mean, all great love eventually results in great grief.  Think about it.  If you truly love someone, you've set yourself up for heartbreak.  Inevitably, there will be a cleaving because of desertion, divorce, or death.  No way 'round it.  

Me?  I have so much love in my life--people who care about me deeply.  I'm a lucky guy.  I'm not sure I deserve all of the love I receive.  There're many things about me that aren't all that lovable.  Yet, I try to be a good person.  Treat everyone I meet with compassion and respect, even individuals who seem to be in my life simply to test my patience.  And perhaps I'm the pebble in someone's shoe, as well.

I once spent an entire Lenten season praying for people who had hurt me in some way.  I'm not talking about a thirty-second "Hail Mary."  No, it was more like an hour of meditation, forgiveness, and atonement.  Some days, this practice would literally make me physically ill.  Other days, I would feel like a kite dancing in the clouds.  Ash Wednesday and Saint Valentine's Day.  Dark and light.

Saint Marty wishes all of his disciples patience and love.

an ode to patience

after Ross Gay

by:  Martin Achatz

I include "an" in the title

because this poem is not

the ode to patience, not

a culmination of a lifelong

study, more like a stab at it, 

the way as a kid in Biology

I stabbed oak leaves or moth

wings onto cream-colored

paper, labeled them with their

common names and their Latin

family names for my Museum

of Natural Patience filled 

with sixth-grade notes to sixth-

grade crushes, the smell of my

mother's bread baking in the oven,

the wash of breaths from my sister's

lungs as she was dying, the watery

cannon fire of my son's heart

in my wife's belly, telling me

wait, wait, wait, wait because

the best is yet to come.

February 14: Stealing Kisses, St. Valentine's Day, New Cartoon

Leavng Macy's, they spent an hour walking uptown and lingered by the Rockefeller Center ice-skating rink, on the promenade, directly across from the bronze statue of Prometheus reclining, the great tree, a Maine pine, some fifty feet high and as wide as a house, covered with thousands of lights, towering cheerfully over the scene.  Down below, a hundred skaters, of all ages, circled the ice, some gracefully as professionals, others clumsily, their faces and twisting bodies in colored caps and suits, vivid in the surrounding floodlights.  Leaning against the railing, Annie and Ives were caught up, as were so many others, by the romance of the setting, and, ever so happy, held each other tightly, nudging one another with their chilled noses and stealing kisses, until laughing, she said, "Oh, Eddie, you make me feel like a kid again."

Ives and Annie love each other. Deeply.  In just a couple of pages, their son, Robert, will be dead, and they will be thrown into an entirely new universe.  Grief will be their guiding star for years.  Ives will wallow in sadness, and, eventually, Annie will contemplate leaving him.  But she doesn't.  Her love is too strong for Ives.  She holds on, praying and hoping that her husband will make her feel like a kid again.

It is St. Valentine's Day.  A blizzard has been tearing through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan all day long.  The civil authorities issued a warning, telling people to stay off the roads.  I've lived here most of my life, except for a brief sojourn in Kalamazoo, and I can't remember that ever happening before.

Of course, that did not stop my wife and I from having a lunch date this afternoon.  We went to a local restaurant and ordered cheese soup and cheesy pretzels and hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps.  And we talked.  We hardly ever get a chance to sit across from each other and just talk.  I'm not sure it made us feel like kids again, but it felt really good.

We've been through a lot together.  This year will be our twentieth anniversary.  It hasn't all been roses and chocolates, as long-time disciples of this blog know.  We've had separations and close encounters with divorce.  But, through it all, I've always held on to this:  the young girl I met over 25 years ago.  How I looked at her and immediately felt like I'd never be the same again.

Saint Marty wishes all his disciples a happy Valentine's Day.

Confessions of Saint Marty

February 14: St. Valentine's Day, Give My Life, Valentine Fairy Tale

It's a snowy St. Valentine's Day in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I started hearing the snowplows roar past my house at about 5 a.m.  When the plows are out that early, it means a lot of snow has fallen.

On this cold winter day, I want to take the few moments I have your attention to tell you about the love of my life.

My wife and I will be celebrating our nineteenth anniversary this year.  We were together five years before we got married.  If you do the math, that's 24 years of togetherness.  That's a long time.

I'm not going to candy coat this Valentine's Day post.  My wife and I have had our share of problems.  We have endured struggles with mental illness, sexual addictions, separation.  I was a single father for nearly a year of our marriage.  It hasn't always been easy.

Yet, our love is intact.  A little bruised, but intact.  Even when we were living apart, we still cared about each other through all the darkness.  I have stood by my love through these 24 years, even when everyone else was turning away, giving up.

At the end of Charlotte's Web, Wilbur reflects on his friendship with Charlotte:

"Well," said Wilbur.  "I'm no good at making speeches.  I haven't got your gift for words.  But you have saved me, Charlotte, and I would gladly give my life for you--I really would."

Charlotte has saved her friend's life, and Wilbur pledges his undying love for her.  Charlotte tells him, "...By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle..."


That's what I think my devotion to my wife has done for me.  It's lifted up my life a trifle.  I am a better person for being her husband.

Once upon a time, there lived a saint in a snowy kingdom.  This saint had the good fortune to be married to the love of his life.

And he lived happily ever after.

Moral of the story:  Saint Marty is the luckiest guy alive.

Happy Valentine's Day!