September 8: Stanley Kunitz, "End of Summer," Summer Person

End of Summer

by:  Stanley Kunitz

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

 

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

 

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

 

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

___________________________

Yes, it feels like the end of summer this morning.  The high temperature of the day is only going to be 61 degrees.  I'm going to cut my grass one more time this afternoon.  Unless we get a spell of 80- and 90-degree days with a lot of rain, this will probably be the last mow of the summer season for me.  (Thank God!)

I used to be a winter person.  Then I switched to autumn for several years.  Now, I am totally a summer person.  I love the heat and light and length of the days.  Love being able to go for a 45-minute walk at 10 o'clock at night and return with light still in the sky.

I guess what I'm saying is that I accept that the leaves are changing colors and there will be frost on the morning windows soon.  I don't have to like it.

Saint Marty wants a vacation to Hawaii.  For the next nine months.

January 23: Another Sharon Olds Poem, Stanley Kunitz, "Stanley Kunitz Ode"

The poem from Best American Poetry 2014 is by Sharon Olds.  I know what you're thinking:  "Another Sharon Olds poem?!"

The reason I chose this poem tonight is that I heard Sharon read a draft of it in California seven or eight years ago.  I was taking a week-long poetry workshop from Sharon in Big Sur.  Every morning and every night, I got to sit in a room with Sharon Olds and talk about poetry.  It seems like a dream now.  Like it never happened.  Every once in a while though, I come across reminders that it really happened.

When I read the poem below, I had a clear memory of sitting with Sharon one afternoon.  She took out her spiral notebook, and she started reading this beautiful tribute to her friend, the poet Stanley Kunitz.  It was so moving.  When she was done reading, she closed her notebook and said, "I have to run this one by Stanley."

Saint Marty did not dream that.

Stanley Kunitz Ode

by:  Sharon Olds

Ninety-five years before he died,
Stanley found an abandoned kitten
in the woods of Worcester.  Stanley's father
had drunk Drano in a public park, while
Stanley had still been turning, a nebula
slowly taking human form
inside his mother.  And when he found
the lost cat, he took it home
and gave it a box in the attic, under
the stars where his father was wheeling, and he raised
his feline companion--I don't know girl
or boy--without his mother much noticing,
hard as she worked, silent as she kept.
And his pet grew, and when they got to the woods he would
take off the collar and leash and they would
frolic together, she-he/he-she would
teach Stanley, already sinuous,
to slink and hunt.  And I don't know who it
was who suddenly saw that Stanley's
companion, growing stronger and bigger and
lither, was a bobcat, and none of us
was there the night Stanley released her-him
or there when it rose in him, the desire
to seek a feline of his own species.
And when he was 98, and Elise
had gone ahead, leaving her words and
images behind her, casting the skin of them,
I saw, in city in Ohio, an elegant
shaving-brush-soft replica bobcat,
and brought it back to West 12th, along with the
usual chocolates, and flowers, and a demo of my
latest progress toward a model's sashay on the catwalk.
And after that, when I'd come over, in those
outfits I wore then, Diana-ing
for a man, Stanley would be holding the stuffed
animal, and petting it,
nape to rump, nape to rump,
stub of the bob tail--98,
99, 100, those huge old beautiful
hands, stroking the world, which hummed when Stanley stroked it.

Stanley's hands

July 6: Saint Maria Goretti, Panel Discussion, Humility

Today's feast saint is Maria Goretti.  I believe I have written about her before.  She was an Italian peasant girl who, at the age of eleven, was fatally stabbed during an attempted rape.  People reported that before she died in the hospital on July 6, 1902, she forgave her attacker and said she hoped to see him in heaven.  Maria was canonized in 1950, with her mother, brothers, and sisters in attendance.  Her murderer eventually repented and became a Capuchin laybrother.

The story, on its surface, is astounding.  Young girl dies defending her virtue, proclaiming her forgiveness for her rapist/killer with her final breaths.  However, feminist scholars and critics have a problem with what has been done with Maria's story.  Over the years, she has been used by the Church as an example to prove the importance of chastity to young girls and women.  The message, according to the critics, is, "It's better to die than lose your virginity."

Granted, the message of Maria's tale is problematic.  It's problematic because it's been over-simplified.  The Church wants to use her as an example of holy virtue.  Critics and scholars want to use her as an example of female victimization.  I think both sides skip right over the most amazing part of Maria Goretti's tragic death.  Ultimately, her story is about forgiveness.  An eleven-year-old girl, on her death bed, forgives the person who tried to rape her and fatally wounded her.  That's an astounding, humbling act.  That her forgiveness eventually bore fruit in the heart of her killer is an even greater testament to her legacy.

The incorrupt body of Maria Goretti

Maria Goretti humbles me, which continues the lesson in humility I received last night.

The panel of writers I was a part of last night at Peter White Library was sort of astounding.  One writer had won the $10,000 Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review.  Another writer had his first book named a Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan.  The other poet on the panel had worked with former Poet Laureate of the United States Stanley Kunitz.  And there was the TV writer who'd been nominated for Emmy Awards three times.

Then there was me, with my handful of publications and one book of poetry, published a few years ago.  Talk about feeling humble.  Remember the Sesame Street song "One of These Things is Not Like the Other"?   I was the rhombus with all the circles.

Of course I tried to compensate by being funny, and it seemed to work.  I don't think I made a complete fool of myself, and I may have even come across as charmingly self-deprecating.  I don't know.  One of my friends in the audience said I stole the show, but I think she was just being kind.  I truly did eat a lot of humble pie last night.  (Actually, I started eating humble pie yesterday afternoon when I googled the bios of all the other writers.  I almost didn't want to show up.)

Humility is not a bad thing.  Everyone should be reminded every once in a while that, no matter how smart or talented you may think you are, there will always be someone else smarter and more talented.  That was my lesson last night and today.

Saint Marty is still feeling like a rhombus.

Where are all the other rhombuses?