March 15: Spring Is in the Air, Psalm 7, and Dog Crap

Well, this blog has to be quick and short.  I haven't had a lot of time to be thoughtful, aside from the few minutes I took to compose the following poem.  However, it is March in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the temperature is in the mid-forties.  I could have walked across campus to teach my class without a coat on.  That's right.  Spring has arrived, at least for the next few days.  It bolsters my spirit and fills me with thoughts of summer.

Anyway, this poem was inspired by the weather of the last few days.  Saint Marty hopes you enjoy it.

Psalm 7:  Praise Hymn for Dog Crap

Praise the smell of dog crap in March,
Fecund as tulip bulbs waiting to sprout,
Patches of mud, pools of snow melt,
The ancient shift toward vernal equinox,
Primal as Louis Leakey's Kenyan digs,
Skulls, bones of Adam's sons and daughters,
Driven out of a place of eternal produce,
Carrot and cuke and scallion and broccoli,
Blueberry, watermelon, banana, kiwi,
But not apple, not that serpent fruit
That sentenced the human race to evolution,
To the hunch of spine to fire, to a spit
Of brontosaur, blackened with smoke and fat,
Chewed with ape teeth to a pulp of protein,
Digested, absorbed, converted to muscle,
Skeleton, tendon, blood, a form suited
To ice age and mammoth hunt, stone
Spear versus saber tooth, the struggle
With bronze, iron, pyramid, pharaoh,
The split of Red Sea, a forty-year Bataan
March in the wilderness, then a land
Of milk and honey, a land of promise,
Filled with the reach of crocus
Through frost, through mud, through snow,
Through dog crap, toward the blessed sun.

Dog Crap Is in the Air

March 14: Saint Lazarus, Cat on the Roof, and Psalm 6

I used to fall apart completely when it came to huge life-changes, especially if they took me by surprise.  (Who am I kidding?  I still fall apart.)  I'm a person who needs a long time to adjust to any news.  Let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point.

A man was going on vacation for a couple weeks, and he asked his sister to take care of his pet cat.  After a few days, the man called his sister to see how things were going.

"Well," his sister said, "I hate to tell you this, but your cat ran out into the street and was hit by a car and killed."

The man was shocked.  He said, "You can't just blurt out news like that.  You have to prepare me for it."

"How?" his sister said.

"Well," the man said.  "First, tell me that my cat crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof."

"OK," his sister said.

"Then," the man continued, "tell me that the cat's at the edge of the roof, and it looks like she's going to jump."

"I get it," his sister said.

"Next, tell me that the cat jumped off the roof and is seriously injured, that it doesn't look good."

"Sure," his sister said.

"Then tell me," the man said, "that you took the cat to the vet and the vet worked to save her life for hours, but it was too late.  The cat died."

"That is a better way of doing it," the sister agreed.

"Yes, it is," the man said.  "By the way, how's mom?"

His sister said, "Mom crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof..."

That's a funny joke, but I'm a big believer in its principle.  No surprises.  Just a gradual, slow process of revelation.  Especially if the news is bad.  Of course, anybody who has been reading this blog in its various incarnations for any length of time will know that I consider any change, big or small, bad news.

My wife has been trying to prepare me for the fact that my daughter is reaching puberty.  This is something I don't particularly wish to hear or contemplate.  I prefer to think of her as perpetually six or seven and dependent on me for everything.  I know that is unrealistic and, possibly, psychologically damaging to my daughter, but it really works for me.

In the past, the worst things that have happened in my life have been sudden (finding out about my wife's sexual addiction, for instance).  There was no wife climbing out of the window and onto the roof.  The change was immediate and drastic.

Lazarus, the saint of the day, was an archbishop of Milan in the fifth century.  He didn't have a problem dealing with sudden or drastic change.  During his tenure as archbishop, he had to handle the violent invasion of the Ostrogoths.  Nobody told Lazarus that the Ostrogoths had climbed through the window and were on the roof.  He just dealt with the problem, quickly, efficiently.  With great faith.  He ordered "three days of fast with processions, litanies, and visits to various churches.  It worked, of course.  The Ostrogoths were defeated.

Maybe I can deal with change more positively, like Lazarus.  Prayer.  Fasting.  Maybe my daughter approaching puberty is a good thing...

Nope, that's not working for Saint Marty.  He prefers you start like this:  "Your daughter crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof..."



The cat's on the roof, developing breasts!

Here's today's psalm, a little happier, a little lighter:

Psalm 6:  As the Deer

As the deer lopes through dark woods

So my soul chases the Lord, over

Birch, fallen and mossy, victim

Of June storms, wind, rain

Shaking its white trunk and limbs

Like God’s voice on the mountain

With Charlton Heston, deep as flood

Water.  Before dawn, the deer leaps

In fog, sure hoofs lifting, reaching

For the true path from tree to tree

To pool to boulder to gully,

Panting, thirsty for running water,

Life-changing water that saves,

Washes leather tongue with the taste

Of God, wild and sweet as raspberry.

The black river rises from forest,

Divides pine and maple in two,

As the heavens from earth, night from day,

Seas from land, beast from man

At the beginning of creation.

The deer bounds into the black river,

Into twin beams, the eyes of Yahweh.

Praise God for car insurance.

March 13: Attempting Praise, Psalm 5, Saint Leander of Seville

Well, my last few psalms have been lacking in the "praise" a little bit, and I extend my apologies for that.  I am trying to focus on the positive.  I really am.  However, this weekend, with the events in Japan, my mood has slipped toward reflective, even melancholy.  I will try to remedy that situation in the next few poems. 

Leander, today's saint, didn't have too many problems with melancholy.  He was too damn busy.  Born in Cartagena, Spain, in the sixth century, Leander had parents who were renowned for their holiness.  He had two brothers and a sister.  All of them are saints.  Talk about good breeding.  Leander's life mission was to turn Spain away from a heresy that was sweeping the country.  He did it, of course.  His biography concludes, "Worn out by his many activities in the cause of Christ, Leander died around the year 600..."  In comparison to Leander's troubles (which included a few years in exile), my little struggle with sadness is about as significant as a batch of limp fries at McDonald's.

So, this is the psalm for today.  It is, again, about the situation in Japan.  Forgive Saint Marty.  Sometimes, praise comes hard for him in the face of so much human tragedy.

Nuclear Reactor in Japan

Psalm 5:  Morning Meltdown Meditation

In fire and water, morning dawns
On the reactor.  The core heats.  Atoms
Spin, bounce, combine, repel into energy
On the brink of control, a stampede toward
Oblivion, toward an Easter where East meets
West, land meets sea, past meets future,
God meets man in a garden, at a tomb
Where a body is missing, like thousands,
Gone in a swell of mud, avalanche tectonic
Beneath the Pacific, rift in the veil
Of the ocean fault, so many voices lifted
In a single cry, "My God, my God, why?"
That the words rise, fill the clouds with nuclear
Rain, lamentations for the wings of angels
To descend, flutter uranium, plutonium
Into a state of peace, redemption
As simple as a child's prayer, whispered
Under the rubble of a school playground,
Calling friends out of hide-and-seek
To fill the air with birthday balloons,
Psalms of olly olly oxen free.

March 12: Writing a Poem Every Day and Psalm 4

Well, this writing a praise poem daily is a little harder than I thought it was going to be.  I haven't missed a day.  Yet.  The first struggle is with subject matter.  The second struggle is with time, as in, I don't have enough of it.  The third struggle is getting it typed in and posted every 24 hours.  Tough.

But Saint Marty has done it, will do it.  Just cut Saint Marty some slack if the poem sucks every once in a while.

Psalm 4:  Make Me a Poet

Dear Lord, make me a poet like cummings,
Except with capitalization and punctuation.
Make me hungry, wild as Uncle Walt,
Less the fingers of grass in delicate places,
Prolific as Emily, know Death's home phone,
Minus the agoraphobia, moth-white dresses.
Lord, I want to be Dr. Williams
With his wheelbarrow, rain, chickens,
But I don't want to go to medical school.
I'll observe the mating habits of blackbirds
With Mr. Stevens, but I won't sell car or life insurance.
I want to walk like Bob down a yellow road
That forks, get lost on a snowy evening, but can't
Pretend to farm, raise poultry, or pick apples.
I want to rage against dimming light like Dylan,
Without having to drink anybody under the table,
Dive, as Adrienne did, into the shipwreck,
Without Jewish angst, the struggle of being
Woman, wife, mother, political activist, lesbian.
Let me sing like Sylvia against Nazi daddies
And not have to stick my head in an oven.
Allow me to garden words like Stanley,
Live a century, but also win the Nobel Prize.
Lord, I will leap in the streets, dance like a fool,
Strip naked, grab a tambourine, shake
My hairy goods at all onlookers if only
You will let me raise my voice, weave
My poems like David, the lucky bastard.
Of course, I don't want to cheat on my wife
Or kill a friend.  I won't go that far.
Other than that, anything for You, Lord.

Shake what your Daddy gave you!