December 6: "The Gift," Breathed Its Bones, Great Friendship

If you have been reading this blog all year long, following my journey through Mary Oliver's Devotions:  The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, you will have read every poem in the book by now.  And you will have also read my reflections on each of those poems.

But poetry is not a dead thing.  Reading a poem is not like staring at the skeleton of Sue the T. Rex at the Field Museum in Chicago.  No, each time a poem is read, it breathes again.  Lives again.  Becomes something completely different.  Take this poem, for instance . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.

Earth and heaven both are still watching

though time is draining from the clock

and your walk, that was confident and quick,

has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let

the heart still play its true part.

Love still as once you loved, deeply

and without patience.  Let God and the world

know you are grateful.

That the gift has been given.

Oliver is reflecting on aging in this poem.  The inevitable process of becoming slower as time drains from the clock.  Yet, it is also a reflection on being steadfast in love and gratitude.  Being thankful for the gifts that you have been given.

When I wrote about this poem at the beginning of 2023, I focused on the slog of the day--making it through another 24 hours with concerns and worries and illness.  I was weighed down by a lot of things:  a sick son, meetings at work, teaching, and a struggling friend.

Today, when I reread the poem, breathed its bones into new life, I found myself thinking, instead, of one of my great friendships with a fellow poet.  Almost every week, this friend and I meet in my library office to write together, unless the universe gets in the way.  We talk, scribble, share, and laugh.  For a little over an hour, all the noise of the world fades, and we simply celebrate in words the complex, heartbreaking, wonderful lives we both lead.

I met with my friend this morning for a little less than an hour.  However, in that time, we wrote two poems, discussed our current struggles, and laughed good, true, cleansing laughs.  It set the tone for the rest of my day, right up until this evening when I was sitting in a jazz Christmas concert.  I had a day filled with sunlight and a night filled with moonlight.  No darkness.

I'm not sure my poet friend knows how grateful I am for our long and steady friendship through some very difficult times in both our lives.  We never put impossible demands or expectations on each other.  We don't challenge each other.  We never have to forgive each other because we never feel slighted.

She has been a rock in my life for going on ten years.  And seen me through a lot of shit.  I hope she can say the same for me.  

She is "The Gift" in Saint Marty's life tonight.

May 22: "The Gift," Storytelling, Singing Bowls

Mary Oliver finds a small gift from the sea . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

After the wind-bruised sea

     furrowed itself back

          into folds of blue, I found

               in the black wrack

a shell called the Neptune--

     tawny and white,

          spherical,

               with a tail

and a tower

     and a dark door,

          and all of it

               no larger

than my fist.

     It looked, you might say,

          very expensive.

               I thought of its travels

in the Atlantic's 

     wind-pounded bowl

          and wondered

               that it was still intact.

Ah yes, there was

     that door

          that held only the eventual, inevitable

               emptiness.

There's that--there's always that.

     Still, what a house

          to leave behind!

               I held it

like the wisest of books

     and imagined

          its travels toward my hand.

               And now, your hand.

Oliver finds the Neptune and gives us its story as only she can--full of wisdom and astonishment.  Everything and everyone in this world has a story, from the tiniest of seashells on a beach to the Himalayas.  It's very easy to walk through a day without thinking of any of those stories.  Let's face it, human beings are pretty self-absorbed creatures, myself included.

Perhaps that's why I like hanging around poets and writers.  Poets and writers train themselves to tell stories that nobody else may notice or care about.  In a poet's hands, a tiny shell on a beach suddenly becomes an astounding odyssey of survival akin to anything that Homer sang about.  (Yes, I just used the word "akin."  I'm a poet, so I'm allowed.)  There's real power in storytelling, because it's difficult to dismiss the worth of anyone and anything if you know the "once upon a times."

This evening, I attended a session of singing bowls meditation.  If you don't know that that is, don't feel bad.  Until a couple years ago, I had never even heard the term before.  Singing bowls are bowls made out of hammered metal that, when struck with a mallet, create a ringing and chiming.  The sound creates vibrations that are supposed to heal and relax.  When you have many of these bowls (and gongs) singing together in a space, it creates an energy difficult to describe.

The most amazing part of a singing bowls meditation is that the bowls make different sounds, depending on the people present.  Each individual brings a unique story and energy to a place, and the bowls respond to that story/energy.  The gentleman who led the meditation tonight told me a story.

Once upon a time, he was leading a singing bowls meditation at a local Episcopal church.  He set up his bowls and gongs in the basement of the building at first, and they did their thing, singing and vibrating.  But then he moved into the sanctuary of the church.  When he began striking his instruments, the man said, "The energy was so powerful."  The pastor of the church told him, "When you pray in a place for over 100 years, that prayer has to make a difference."

Think about that.  All the sick and dying relatives.  Griefs and joys.  Baptisms and funerals and weddings.  Christmases and Easters.  All those stories swirling around you as you sit in a pew.  When I attend Mass at my home church, I can sometimes still hear my mother's soprano voice above the organ, feel my father sitting in his place in the choir loft.  Their stories are still there, the wisest of books, as Oliver says.

The singing bowls vibrate with those stories.

We should all do the same.  The next time you see a homeless person sitting in a library or outside a gas station, remember that person has a story, just like you, full of happiness and heartache.  When you see a dandelion growing on your lawn, think of the impossible process of photosynthesis that allows it to exist.  Your story.  My story.  The dandelion's story.  The homeless person's story.  They're all chambers of the same Neptune shell.  Chorusing and humming.

Saint Marty hopes you all sleep happily ever after tonight.

January 11: "The Gift," Pushing through Tar, Weighing Me Down

Mary Oliver on being steadfast . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.

Earth and heaven both are still watching

though time is draining from the clock

and your walk, that was confident and quick,

has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let

the heart still play its true part.

Love still as once you loved, deeply

and without patience.  Let God and the world

know you are grateful.

That the gift has been given.

Some days I feel young and full of energy.  Other days, I feel time draining from my clock and my walk becoming slow.  

Today was a slow walking day.

It's not that I didn't accomplish a lot.  I did.  But it felt as though I was pushing through tar all day long.  I recorded a podcast episode for the library where I work.  I picked my son up from school because he was sick, took him home, and tested him for COVID (negative--thank goodness).  Then I drove back to the library and edited the podcast episode.  At 1 p.m., I had a Zoom meeting that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.  After the meeting, I had to talk to people about room and art gallery reservations for an upcoming series of events.  I picked my wife up from work, went back to the library and set up for an evening program, ordered some pizzas, met some friends for dinner and a beer, then drove back to the library to host the evening program.  After all that, I drove home and collapsed on the couch after making my lunch and picking out my clothes for tomorrow.

Like I said, I accomplished things.  However, the entire day was a slog.

And now, I'm sitting on my couch, thinking about all the things I have to do tomorrow.

I have a few things weighing me down at the moment.  The winter semester at the university begins next week, and I always flounder with the idea of new students and new classes.  I still have to finish my syllabi and adjust the schedule of my days.  At the library, I'm trying to accept the fact that my office mate, and closest friend there, has moved on to another job.  Another big adjustment.  

Mostly, however, I'm worried about another close friend of mine.  I won't go into details, but I care about him and his family a great deal.  I'm not sure what is going on in his life, and I don't want to intrude on his privacy.  But, he is someone whom I connect with on a deep level, and I hope that he is not struggling,  That he is doing well.

It seems as though my world has suddenly shifted, and I'm fighting the gravity of that shift.  As if I'm used to bouncing along the surface of the moon in great, long arcs, but now I have to walk uphill all day long.

Mary Oliver would say that it's okay to slow down.  It's natural.  Giving up on steadfast love. however, is incomprehensible to her.  Almost a sin.  Be grateful, she says, and steadfast.

On days like today, gratitude is not always easy to cultivate.  It stays hidden behind the gray clouds and piles of slush and snow.  But it's there.  

So, Saint Marty is grateful for his sick son, who doesn't have COVID.  For a job that he loves, despite the absence of a comrade.  For students who need to be taught about writing and film and poetry, even if they don't think they need to be taught about writing and film and poetry.  And especially for a best friend who fills Saint Marty with concern, because true friendship is so, so rare.

June 16: Li-Young Lee, "The Gift," Not a Perfect Man

The Gift

by:  Li-Young Lee

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

__________________________

As most of you probably know, my dad died in February.  I have sort of been sticking away from talking about fathers this week.  Call it denial or avoidance.  I prefer to think of it as compartmentalization.  I keep thoughts of my dad locked up so that I can go about my life without feeling sad all the time.

However, since tomorrow is Father's Day, I've decided to share one of my favorite poems about fatherhood, in honor of Fred D. Achatz.  Not a perfect man by any means.  But he loved his family.  Deeply.

Saint Marty is opening the compartment a little here.