September 13: The Gilder, Out Loud, Connection

Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising ground the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success for their pains.

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.

These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.

The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole.

Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.

Oh, grassy glades! oh ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,- though long parched by the dead drought of the earthly life,- in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:- through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:-

"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's eyes!- Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe."

And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scale, leaped up in that same golden light:-

"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!"

Here, Melville writes of golden times--rest between labor.  Stretches in which the sailors of the Pequod are able to regard the sea in all its dangerous beauty.  As Starbuck says, "Loveliness unfathomable . . ."  The White Whale is far from anybody's mind in these reflective interludes.  This chapter is not about danger or revenge or obsession or control.  I think it's simply about being a part of something larger than yourself.

It has been a long week.  I've been saying that since Monday.  Finally, I have reached Thursday evening, and I can sort of sit back and relax a little bit.  Appreciate the world without having to make any kind of mark on it.  Picture me sitting in the middle of a beach.  There aren't any footsteps in the sand around me.  It looks as if God has simply reached down a placed me there.  And I'm just sitting, listening to the wind and water and insects.

That's what I'm feeling right now.  Tonight, I'm going to an event called Out Loud.  It's like an open mic, except people sometimes tell stories or sing songs or make confessions.  Sometimes people talk about their grandchildren or read elegies about wolves.  Sometimes, it's a series of failed poems that inspire gales of laughter.  Essays.  Artwork.  Short stories and excerpts from novels in progress.  It's never boring.  Always nourishing.

Another thing that happens every time is that some sort of theme always develops.  Everyone shows up with something to read or say.  I, myself, randomly go through poems and essays I've written, and I start choosing by instinct.  I select pieces that resonate with me for some unconscious reason.  This afternoon, as I was going through this process, I was aware of a visceral response when I came upon a poem.  Like an inner pull.  At one point, I even felt my face flush.

I know I sound a little crazy, but I really believe there's something more than random selection at work.  I say this because I've witnessed this phenomenon over and over.  The day after my father died this past February, I attended Out Loud.  That night, someone got up and told a story about her relationship with her father.  A total stranger sang a song about coming together and parting.  It happened over and over that evening.

I'm not a believer in coincidence.  Everything happens for a reason.  I have no idea who's going to show up tonight for Out Loud.  No idea what's going to be read or said.  But I do know this:  I will feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself.  Connected.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for creativity ad friendship.

June 3: Kind of Northing, New Chapter, Friendship

A kind of northing is what I wish to accomplish, a single-minded trek toward that place where any shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky's stars as a pattern of perfect concentric circles.  I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off.

I chose this passage from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek not because it contains any specific wisdom that I feel pertains to my life this evening.  I chose it because it's lovely, poetic.  And it's about night, reduction, shedding, sloughing off the skin of day.

Today was my last full day at the cardiology office.  On Monday, I begin a new chapter, or an old chapter, depending on how you look at it.  I'm returning to the job I held for close to 17 years.  I will be working with one of my best friends of close to 25 years.  Of course, I'm leaving a job where I've made some really good friends, as well.  So, tonight is both happy and sad, like most situations in life.

After work, I went out for drinks with a couple of my friends from the cardiology office.  One is a young woman with whom I've worked five days a week for the past two years.  I will miss her a great deal.  She's a young, single mother, and she got me.  Laughed at my jokes.  Read books I gave her.  Let me read her poetry.  And she saw me through one of the most difficult times of my life--my sister's death.

So, I leave friends behind, and I return to friends.

Saint Marty has been blessed with friendship his whole life.

My best friend at the cardiology office thought this was hilarious . . .

November 14: Compose Himself, Sue, D. H. Melhem, "33," Confessions of Saint Marty

Ives wore a blue suit and stood by the door, speaking with one of the parish priests and greeting, ever so quietly, people as they came in.  But now and then he would look off toward the casket and turn his back on the people, as the darkest thoughts overwhelmed him, and he would have to compose himself again.  Every so often Ramirez went up to him, took him by the arm, and whispered, "You are all right, my friend."

Ramirez is Ives' best friend.  Ramirez is not a saint, by any means.  He cheats on his wife, physically abuses his son.  Yet, he has a bond with Ives that lasts over half a century.  Ives recognizes his best friend's faults.  He gently pushes Ramirez to correct his behavior toward his wife and son, without preaching or anger.  They respect each other and see each other through some very difficult times.  In the end, this friendship saves each man from loss and despair.

On Thursday night, I hosted my book club meeting.  At the appointed time, our friends and family showed up, bearing food and jokes.  We ate and talked and discussed the night's selection (Hannah Nordhaus' American Ghost--a great read).  Yet, the whole night was tinged with a little sadness for me.

One of my best friends is in the book club.  I've known Sue for over 20 years, since before I married my wife.  Sue has been the Ramirez to my Ives for a very long time.  She's lifted me up when I've fallen, and I've done the same for her.  We've seen each other through family deaths and marital strife.  Sure, we don't always see eye-to-eye on everything, but we respect each other.  Love each other.

Sue is moving away this weekend.  She is now divorced and without family in the Upper Peninsula.  So, she has decided to relocate to be near her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.  I'm happy for her, but I'm going to miss her a great deal.  She is a kind, sweet, sharing soul.  Like Eleanor Roosevelt in D. H. Helhem's poem below, Sue has had a way of speaking to me in the loneliest times of my life.  And for that, I am truly thankful.

So, as I put up my Christmas tree this afternoon with my daughter and son this afternoon, I will be thinking of Sue.  Her friendship and what it has meant in my life.  I will miss seeing her in the front pew at church.  Miss her brownies at book club gatherings.  Miss her long, rambling stories.  Miss her.

Saint Marty has been blessed with a really good friend.

33. (from Country:  An Organic Poem)

by:  D. H. Melhem

Eleanor Roosevelt
                            walking underground to workers
reminds a president that what he can't see
exists

I saw you once in my high school auditorium
thought you were not real     having stepped out of
the radio and The New York Times
you hand a kind voice that spoke to loneliness

you were
beautiful

Confessions of Saint Marty

March 28: Father Tom, God's Love Number Thirty-Nine, Elizabeth Bishop, "The Moose," New Cartoon

When he met with Father Tom in a French restaurant up on Fifty-third Street, they greeted each other, embracing, the priest amused by Ives' white hair as Ives was by his own--it seemed like yesterday when Father Tom would hurry into the studios at the Art Students League, his collar stuck away in a drawer while, his face burning red, he would sketch beautiful young women.  That he'd stayed in the order so long had amazed Ives, considering how he seemed to like women, but for the most part the priest had lived the "hard life" in Rome, and his letters over the years had been filled with more good news than bad and the names of many interesting and holy places.  About once a year, usually around Christmas, he came back to the States to visit with his family in the northeast Bronx, and he and Ives would get together and get drunk and talk about the existence of God and the Bible and death and the soul to their hearts' contentment.

Father Tom is one of Ives' oldest friends.  While they only see each other once a year, they are a part of each other's lives.  Ives tells Father Tom about his struggle with forgiveness, his marriage difficulties.  Father Tom talks to Ives about healing and friendship.  It's a relationship that endures, despite distance and time apart.

This morning, I spoke to one of my best friends on the phone.  We haven't connected in months.  In fact, I think the last time I heard from him was last May, just after my brother died.  My friend is a pastor in downstate Michigan.  He used to be a pastor in the U. P., and, over seven years, we developed the kind of friendship that Ives and Father Tom have.  Even though we hadn't spoken to each other in almost a year, I felt comfortable, happy, speaking with him today.

We discussed our families, our jobs (he's moving to a different church in July), and our mutual acquaintances.  I won't say I caught him up on the gossip, because that's not a Christian thing to do.  But, I did share some stories of a sensitive nature without credible corroboration.  (Read into that state what you want.)  I'm going to call him again tonight, when I get home from church.

That's God's love number thirty-nine:  a best friend who loves gossip and poetry and God.

I was going to end Elizabeth Bishop week with her most famous poem, "The Fish."  But then I remembered another poem of hers that I love.  It's a long, gorgeous meditation on life and nature.  It could almost be a U. P. poem.

Saint Marty has to work on his Easter poem now.

The Moose

by:  Elizabeth Bishop

From narrow provinces
of fish and bread and tea,
home of the long tides
where the bay leaves the sea
twice a day and takes
the herrings long rides,

where if the river
enters or retreats 
in a wall of brown foam
depends on if it meets
the bay coming in,
the bay not at home;

where, silted red,
sometimes the sun sets
facing a red sea,
and others, veins the flats’
lavender, rich mud
in burning rivulets;

on red, gravelly roads,
down rows of sugar maples,
past clapboard farmhouses
and neat, clapboard churches,
bleached, ridged as clamshells,
past twin silver birches,

through late afternoon
a bus journeys west,
the windshield flashing pink,
pink glancing off of metal,
brushing the dented flank
of blue, beat-up enamel;

down hollows, up rises,
and waits, patient, while
a lone traveller gives
kisses and embraces
to seven relatives
and a collie supervises.

Goodbye to the elms,
to the farm, to the dog.
The bus starts.  The light
grows richer; the fog,
shifting, salty, thin,
comes closing in.

Its cold, round crystals
form and slide and settle
in the white hens’ feathers,
in gray glazed cabbages,
on the cabbage roses
and lupins like apostles;

the sweet peas cling
to their wet white string
on the whitewashed fences;
bumblebees creep
inside the foxgloves,
and evening commences.

One stop at Bass River.
Then the Economies 
Lower, Middle, Upper;
Five Islands, Five Houses,
where a woman shakes a tablecloth
out after supper.

A pale flickering.  Gone.
The Tantramar marshes 
and the smell of salt hay.
An iron bridge trembles 
and a loose plank rattles
but doesn’t give way.

On the left, a red light
swims through the dark:
a ship’s port lantern.
Two rubber boots show,
illuminated, solemn.
A dog gives one bark.

A woman climbs in 
with two market bags,
brisk, freckled, elderly.
“A grand night.  Yes, sir,
all the way to Boston.”
She regards us amicably.

Moonlight as we enter 
the New Brunswick woods,
hairy, scratchy, splintery;
moonlight and mist
caught in them like lamb’s wool
on bushes in a pasture.

The passengers lie back.
Snores.  Some long sighs.
A dreamy divagation
begins in the night,
a gentle, auditory,
slow hallucination. . . .

In the creakings and noises,
an old conversation
--not concerning us,
but recognizable, somewhere,
back in the bus:
Grandparents’ voices

uninterruptedly
talking, in Eternity:
names being mentioned,
things cleared up finally;
what he said, what she said,
who got pensioned;

deaths, deaths and sicknesses;
the year he remarried;
the year (something) happened.
She died in childbirth.
That was the son lost
when the schooner foundered.

He took to drink. Yes.
She went to the bad.
When Amos began to pray
even in the store and
finally the family had
to put him away.

“Yes . . .” that peculiar
affirmative.  “Yes . . .”
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means “Life’s like that.
We know it (also death).”

Talking the way they talked 
in the old featherbed,
peacefully, on and on,
dim lamplight in the hall,
down in the kitchen, the dog
tucked in her shawl.

Now, it’s all right now
even to fall asleep
just as on all those nights.
--Suddenly the bus driver
stops with a jolt,
turns off his lights.

A moose has come out of 
the impenetrable wood
and stands there, looms, rather,
in the middle of the road.
It approaches; it sniffs at
the bus’s hot hood.

Towering, antlerless,
high as a church,
homely as a house
(or, safe as houses).
A man’s voice assures us
“Perfectly harmless. . . .”

Some of the passengers
exclaim in whispers,
childishly, softly,
“Sure are big creatures.”
“It’s awful plain.”
“Look! It’s a she!”

Taking her time,
she looks the bus over,
grand, otherworldly.
Why, why do we feel
(we all feel) this sweet
sensation of joy?

“Curious creatures,"
says our quiet driver,
rolling his r‘s.
“Look at that, would you.”
Then he shifts gears.
For a moment longer,

by craning backward,
the moose can be seen
on the moonlit macadam;
then there’s a dim
smell of moose, an acrid
smell of gasoline.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 15: Don't Deserve It, Fire, Prayer for a Family

"Why did you do all this for me?" [Wilbur] asked.  "I don't deserve it.  I've never done anything for you."

Wilbur doesn't feel he deserves Charlotte's friendship and help.  In his mind, all he's done is take from her and not given anything back in return.  The little pig doesn't recognize the power of loyalty and camaraderie and friendship.

I understand that mentality.  I don't often feel I do much to deserve people's good will.  For some reason, a lot of people seem to think friendship needs to be earned by some act of kindness or generosity.  That's a load of crap, obviously.  Friendship is something purely and freely given.

At my daughter's school, there's a family who recently suffered a tremendous loss.  Their entire home was destroyed by a fire.  They lost everything.  The school has held many fundraisers.  Hat day, for instance, where students contribute a dollar to wear their hats all day long.  The family has kids in elementary, middle, and high school.

I'm asking you to pray for this family.  They really do deserve it.  Pray that they can rebuild their home and lives.

Saint Marty's kids already wore their hats to school last Friday, and they were surrounded by an ocean of caps, beanies, Stormy Kromers, and helmets.

I'd pay a buck to wear this...

April 4: Dick Wilkins, Thinking About Old Friends

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.  "Bless me, yes.  There he is.  He was very much attached to me, was Dick.  Poor Dick!  Dear, dear!"

Scrooge is talking about a childhood companion who worked with him at Fezziwig's.  There's a great deal of joy in Scrooge's little exclamation, but it ends on a fairly melancholy note.  That "Poor Dick" and "Dear, dear" Scrooge utters intimates a sad end to his relationship with Dick.  Or a sad end to Dick.

But that's the nature of friendship.  Friends come into your life.  Friends disappear from your life.  After I read this little passage from A Christmas Carol, I started thinking about some of my old school friends, how they've drifted on and off my radar in the years since graduation.

One of my best friends is still a part of my life, even though he lives in Florida.  "Gary" grew up with me.  His older brother was killed in a car accident when Gary was really young.  His mother never really recovered from the loss.  Gary was more like a brother than a friend to me.  He went camping with my family.  He came to all the birthday parties of my brothers and sisters.  Even now, when my siblings go on vacation to Florida, Gary meets them at Disney World and spends the days with them.  And when Gary comes back to the Upper Peninsula, the first place he stops is his dad's house.  The second place he stops is my parents' house.

My other best friend from high school, "Patrick," has vanished from my life.  The last time I saw Patrick was at his father's funeral.  Patrick was always the good-looking, fun-loving one.  He was the life of the party.  A hard drinker.  A risk-taker.  I can't tell you how many girls Patrick slept with in high school.  He started with the seniors and worked his way through the sophomores.  I think he graduated before he hit the freshman.  At his father's funeral, Patrick looked tired and hung-over.  The years hadn't been kind to him.  He had a beer belly and a red nose.  I barely said a word to him at the funeral home.  I hugged him.  Told him how sorry I was.  That was it.  I could have been talking to a complete stranger.

Of course, I have close friends now.  Friends I would mourn losing.  Perhaps that's why Scrooge ends his exclamation about Dick Wilkins the way he does.  He's expressing affection and loss for a friend, for his childhood.

That's what Saint Marty's doing in this post, too.  Expressing affection and loss.  Poor Gary.  Poor Patrick.  Dear, dear.

Another Gary and Patrick