July 4: "Statues in the Park," Independence Day, Honor

Billy Collins and the code of statues . . .

Statues in the Park

by: Billy Collins

I thought of you today

when I stopped before an equestrian statue 

in the middle of a public square,

you who had once instructed me

in the code of these noble poses.

A horse rearing up with two legs raised,

you told me, means the rider had died in battle.

If only one leg was lifted,

the man had elsewhere succumbed to his wounds,

and if four legs were touching the ground,

as they were in this case--

bronze hooves affixed to a stone base--

it meant that the man on the horse,

this one staring intently

over the closed movie theater across the street,

had died of a cause other than war.

In the shadow of the statue,

I wondered about the others

who had simply walked through life

without a horse, a saddle, or a sword--

pedestrians who could no longer

place one foot in front of the other.

I pictured statues of the sickly

recumbent on their cold stone beds,

the suicides toeing the marble edge,

statues of accident victims covering their eyes,

the murdered covering their wounds,

the drowned silently treading the air.

And there was I,

up on a rosy-gray block of granite

near a cluster of shade trees in the local park,

my name and dates pressed into a plaque,

down on my knees, eyes lifted,

praying to the passing clouds,

forever begging for just one more day.

I've heard of the meanings behind these equestrian statues before, although I wasn't aware of all the nuances of the lifted legs.  These symbolic meanings fascinate me.  Now, I'm sure that, at some point, almost everyone was aware of these artistic codes.  However, over time, these codes have been relegated to questions on Jeopardy! or a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Today the citizens of the United States commemorated Independence Day--the day (almost 250 years ago now) when the Declaration of Independence was signed and British rule in the American colonies came to an end.  In honor of this moment in history, there were parades and community picnics and fireworks all across the nation.  However, much of the original meaning of this day gets obscured by the trappings of these celebrations. 

I'm just as guilty of the next person when it comes to taking my freedoms for granted.  As I sit here typing this blog post, I'm not worried about getting thrown in jail for criticizing the President of the United States or the justices on the Supreme Court.  There's this little thing called freedom of speech in the Constitution which guarantees me the right to express myself without fear of imprisonment or worse.  I can bitch about politicians all I want without fear of retribution (at least in the near future).

 I am not going to discuss recent Supreme Court rulings tonight.  Suffice to say, I've lost faith in the High Court.  Divisive politics and corruption have invaded every aspect of governance in the land.  But, that's not what I'm writing about right now.  I prefer to focus on the time I spent with my wife and kids this afternoon/evening.  I barbecued hot dogs and bratwurst, cooked corn on the cob, and sliced up a watermelon.  We played games and laughed quite a bit.

Now, who knows what Independence Day is going to look like next year.  It all depends on the upcoming presidential election.  My heart tells me that I will still be independent and free.  My mind says I might be incarcerated in some gulag as a dissident poet/anarchist.

Tonight, however, I can still type things like "Fuck Donald Trump" and "Impeach Clarence Thomas" without fear that I will be spirited away in the middle of the night by gestapo agents.  And I honor the sacrifices made by those who fought and sometimes died to insure my freedoms on this Independence Day.  

Saint Marty is now going to comfort his puppy who's cowering in her cage because his neighbors are exercising their freedom to shoot off fireworks.

August 19: Bombed and Burned, Two Years Ago, My Sister

Every other big city in Germany had been bombed and burned ferociously.  Dresden had not suffered so much as a cracked windowpane.  Sirens went off every day, screamed like hell, and people went down into cellars and listened to radios there.  The planes were always bound for someplace else--Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen, places like that.  So it goes.

Steam radiators still whistled cheerily in Dresden.  Streetcars clanged.  Telephones rang and were answered.  Lights went on and off when switches were clicked.  There were theaters and restaurants.  There was a zoo.  The principal enterprises of the city were medicine and food-processing and the making of cigarettes.

People were going home from work now in the late afternoon.  They were tired.

Dresden is a normal city in the middle of a war.  People go to work.  Streetcars carry people to shop and eat.  Theatrical productions at night.  Phone calls from neighbors and relatives.  If people get sick, there are doctors to treat them.  The citizens of Dresden go about their lives, unfazed and safe.  They have no worries, aside from whether they're going to have schnitzel or sauerbraten for dinner.

I think that's pretty much what everybody does, every day of their lives.  We get up in the morning, make coffee, eat oatmeal, go to work, come home, watch TV.  Sure, we have bills to pay, meetings to attend, birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate.  That's normal life.  We walk around, mostly oblivious to the bombs going off around the world, because those bombs aren't falling in our neighborhoods.

Those bombs can take many forms.  Car bomb.  Terrorist.  Nazi.  White supremacist.  Job loss.  Home foreclosure.  Bill collector.  Car accident.  Alzheimer's.  Appendicitis.  Bombs go off in people's lives all the time.  Shatter windows.  Destroy homes.  Wreck lives.  No one is prepared for the bomb.

Today is the anniversary of my sister's death.  Two years ago, she quietly stopped breathing at home, surrounded by family and friends.  Lymphoma of the brain.  My sister never saw that bomb coming.  Just a few months before, when a doctor in the hospital asked her what her expectations were for her illness, she said that she wanted to get better and go home.

My family and my sister's friends are still dealing with that bomb.  Sweeping up the glass and rubble.  Our lives have returned to a new normal.  Job and church and home.  However, for me, I'm always looking into the clouds for a B-52 carrying the next bomb.

Today, I will go to the cemetery.  Talk to my sister.  Tell her how much I miss her.  Leave some flowers.  That's what we do.  We build memorials at the sites of disasters.  To remember, honor, love.

Saint Marty is thankful today for the time he had with his sister.