September 15: Langston Hughes, "Mother to Son," My Mom

Mother to Son

by:  Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

__________________________

Been thinking a lot about my mother these past few weeks.  How much she has been through these last few years.  Since 2014, she has lost a son, daughter, and husband.  She suffers from dementia, so grief and grieving is complicated for her.  Some days, these deaths are fresh and new, like dandelions springing up overnight on a lawn.

My mom has always been a resilient person.  The kind of person who gets knocked down, gets back up, and keeps moving.  I think I got that quality from her.

Saint Marty has always been a mama's boy.

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.

September 13: Diane Glancy, "Indian Summer," Warm-to-Hot

Indian Summer

by:  Diane Glancy

There’s a farm auction up the road.

Wind has its bid in for the leaves.

Already bugs flurry the headlights

between cornfields at night.

If this world were permanent,

I could dance full as the squaw dress

on the clothesline.

I would not see winter

in the square of white yard-light on the wall.

But something tugs at me.

The world is at a loss and I am part of it

migrating daily.

Everything is up for grabs

like a box of farm tools broken open.

I hear the spirits often in the garden

and along the shore of corn.

I know this place is not mine.

I hear them up the road again.

This world is a horizon, an open sea.

Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.

__________________________

It has been a beautiful week in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  It doesn't feel like mid-September.  More like mid-August.  Yes, the leaves are changing color, but the air is warm-to-hot, and the sun has been holding on in the sky until close to 9 p.m.

It's difficult to let go of summer.  This week is making it even more difficult. 

Saint Marty is going for a walk now.

From my backyard

September 12: The Forge, Jesus Narrative, Billy Collins

With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvil- the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.

"Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;- look here, they burn; but thou- thou liv'st among them without a scorch."

"Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab," answered Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; "I am past scorching-, not easily can'st thou scorch a scar."

"Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?- What wert thou making there?"

"Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it."

"And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had?"

"I think so, sir."

"And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?"

"Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one."

"Look ye here then," cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with both hands on Perth's shoulders; "look ye here- here- can ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow; "if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?"

"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?"

"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone of my skull- that is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging the pouch upon the anvil. "Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses."

"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work."

"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll blow the fire."

When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. "A flaw!" rejecting the last one. "Work that over again, Perth."

This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, after the other, and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.

"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?" muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan."

At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face.

"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the pain; "have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?"

"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this harpoon for the White Whale?"

"For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them thyself, man. Here are my razors- the best of steel; here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea."

For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them.

"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, nor pray till- but here- to work!"

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.

"No, no- no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were then tempered.

"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood.

Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good! and now for the seizings."

At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope was traced halfway along the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with inter-twistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope- like the Three Fates- remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh! Pip, thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it!

Ahab is preparing for battle.  Like Vulcan, he labors over the forge with Perth, creates a harpoon, baptizes it in blood.  It's invested with special metals and fire.  Inspired by obsession and revenge.  In some way, the harpoon becomes Ahab.  Ahab, the harpoon.

Today is my long day.  Work from 6 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.  Teaching from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Break.  Teaching from 6 p.m. to 9:20 p.m.  Drive home.  Collapse.

It takes something like inspiration for me to make it through these hours.  I always go into my classroom with detailed lesson plans.  Things I want or have to accomplish.  Sometimes, I follow those plan religiously, right down to the last punctuation on the page.  Other times, my students or my mind take me in unexpected directions.

This afternoon, I did not follow the lesson plan for my mythology class.  I was planning on a question-and-answer dialogue--my students asking pertinent questions, me trying to answer in some kind of intelligent or wise way.  I did that for the first half of the class.  When we hit the second hour, I felt the forge kick in, things heat up.  I spent the second half of the class talking about hero myths and, more specifically, how the Jesus narrative in the Bible follows the pattern of the hero myth.  The energy in the room shifted.  Hands were rising.  Heads were at attention.  At the end of our time together, I felt like a real teacher.

It was a fantastic class.  Fun.  All because I decided to throw something else on the fire.  I was planning to make a spoon.  Instead, I made a crucifix, with Hercules as the cruciform.  Inspiration.

Now, I don't expect lightning to strike twice today.  I have to teach composition this evening.  I have a complicated lesson plan, with a long list of things that I need to get done.  Writing workshop.  Group presentation.  But, at the beginning of class, I am leaving room for a little lightning to enter in.  I'm showing a video of Billy Collins reading his 9-11 poem "The Names."  Then we're all going to write about it, talk about it.  Remember.

Don't know if it's going to work or not.  Frankly, I don't care.  I am excited about the poem and the writing.  That is enough.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for inspiration.