Monday, July 7, 2025

July 7, 2025: “The Race,” Rushing, “Feeding the Hungry”

There are times when we all rush.  Sometimes, it’s for doctor’s appointments.  Job interviews.  Classes.  Airplane flights.  Movies that started five minutes ago.  Or simply to escape a world that’s too fast or cruel or Republican.

Sharon Olds writes about racing to see her dying father . . . 

The Race

by: Sharon Olds

When I got to the airport I rushed up to the desk,
bought a ticket, ten minutes later
they told me the flight was cancelled, the doctors
had said my father would not live through the night
and the flight was cancelled. A young man
with a dark brown moustache told me
another airline had a nonstop
leaving in seven minutes. See that
elevator over there, well go
down to the first floor, make a right, you'll
see a yellow bus, get off at the
second Pan Am terminal, I
ran, I who have no sense of direction
raced exactly where he'd told me, a fish
slipping upstream deftly against
the flow of the river. I jumped off that bus with those
bags I had thrown everything into
in five minutes, and ran, the bags
wagged me from side to side as if
to prove I was under the claims of the material,
I ran up to a man with a flower on his breast,
I who always go to the end of the line, I said
Help me. He looked at my ticket, he said
Make a left and then a right, go up the moving stairs and then
run. I lumbered up the moving stairs,
at the top I saw the corridor,
and then I took a deep breath, I said
goodbye to my body, goodbye to comfort,
I used my legs and heart as if I would
gladly use them up for this,
to touch him again in this life. I ran, and the
bags banged against me, wheeled and coursed
in skewed orbits, I have seen pictures of
women running, their belongings tied
in scarves grasped in their fists, I blessed my
long legs he gave me, my strong
heart I abandoned to its own purpose,
I ran to Gate 17 and they were
just lifting the thick white
lozenge of the door to fit it into
the socket of the plane. Like the one who is not
too rich, I turned sideways and
slipped through the needle's eye, and then
I walked down the aisle toward my father. The jet
was full, and people's hair was shining, they were
smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a
mist of gold endorphin light,
I wept as people weep when they enter heaven,
in massive relief. We lifted up
gently from one tip of the continent
and did not stop until we set down lightly on the
other edge, I walked into his room
and watched his chest rise slowly
and sink again, all night
I watched him breathe.



Rushing to a dying parent’s bedside is understandable.  I would have run like Olds to catch that flight, without a doubt.  I don’t like being late for anything.  My parents taught me that, if I’m five minutes early, I’m already ten minutes late.  Thus, I always arrive about a half hour early for important events/obligations.  It’s just the way I’m wired.

It doesn’t help that I’m the youngest in my family of nine siblings.  If I sat down late for dinner when I was a kid, chances are the best food would be gone.  I’d get stuck with peas instead of mac and cheese.  Not a good tradeoff.  

That’s right.  Food insecurity fueled my perpetual promptness. Also, my diabetes kind of makes it imperative that I adhere to meal times pretty strictly.  Extreme low blood sugars tend to make me feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.  It takes about five or so hours for me to fully recover.

It’s Monday, after a three-day weekend.  Sliding back into my work schedule was challenging.  Zero motivation.  Zero energy.  Yet, I plugged along and got lots of things accomplished.  I don’t want this week to really rush by.  On Saturday, we have to drive downstate to help our daughter relocate for medical school.  The faster this week goes, the sooner I have to say goodbye to her.  Therefore, I’m hoping this week goes by s . . . l . . . o . . . w . . . l . . . y . . .

But time is so relative.  Today has felt like a wild ride on the back of a tortoise.  As the week progresses, I’m sure things will speed up.  Summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan always seems like a fever dream.  It’s over before you even have a chance to hit the beach.  Now that it’s past July 4th, there’s a lull—no big events to anticipate in the coming months.  Pretty soon, classes will resume at the university, and, from there on, it’s a quick sprint to winter.

And the older I get, the quicker life seems to be fly by.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about the power of food to slow things down, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this date in 1908, food writer MFK Fisher was born.  In honor of her birthday, write a poem in which a specific food or foods, or a recipe, figures.  Scan a cookbook and make a list of verbs that have to do with cooking/baking:  truss, whip, broil, braise, beat.  Aim to include some of these verbs in your poem.

Feeding the Hungry

by: Martin Achatz

I’ve seen friends do it—rummage
around in fridge, freezer, pantry,
collect improbable pairings of ingredients:
quinoa and Cheerios, leftover hotdogs,
kumquats, cheese slices and kale,
always kale because nobody likes it.
They combine, marinate, broil,
sautée these morsels into repast,
and we gather, sometimes around dinner
tables, often in kitchens where
pans simmer and skillets sweat,
use Fritos to scoop something
that resembles guacamole into our mouths,
wash it down with glasses of boxed red wine.
It’s almost Biblical to witness:  Jesus
feeding the five thousand with Ritz
crackers and a tin of sardines.
Nobody goes away hungry.  In fact,
most of us bring home plates piled
with leftovers of the leftovers, starters
for our next impromptu feast, sort of
the way I gather words, lines, images
from journal scraps, dump them all
into a pot with hardy chicken
stock, make a roux that could end
up as the base for a good meal, us
with arms around each other’s shoulders,
feeling as if the tops of our heads have
been taken off by each savory stanza.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

July 6, 2025: “The Lifting,” Quiet Day, “Christmas Anthropology”

People are pretty unknowable.  I’ve lived on this planet for many, many decades, and I’m surrounded by individuals who love me dearly, but even they don’t know everything about me.  Citizen Kane gets it right—nobody knows what my Rosebud is.

Sometimes, we keep secrets that are too embarrassing or too personal to share with others.  Other times, those secrets are gifts that carry only private significance.  (Nobody in Charles Foster Kane’s life knew that a sled was his most prized possession.)

Poets, in their enigmatic ways, share secrets.  We tell the truth, but, as Emily Dickinson said, we tell it slant.

Sharon Olds shares a secret . . . 

The Lifting

by: Sharon Olds

Suddenly my father lifted up his nightie, I
turned my head away but he cried out
Shar!, my nickname, so I turned and looked.
He was sitting in the high cranked-up bed with the
gown up, around his neck,
to show me the weight he had lost. I looked
where his solid ruddy stomach had been
and I saw the skin fallen into loose
soft hairy rippled folds
lying in a pool of folds
down at the base of his abdomen,
the gaunt torso of a big man
who will die soon. Right away
I saw how much his hips are like mine,
the lengthened, white angles, and then
how much his pelvis is shaped like my daughter's,
a chambered whelk-shell hollowed out,
I saw the folds of skin like something
poured, a thick batter, I saw
his rueful smile, the cast-up eyes as he
shows me his old body, he knows
I will be interested, he knows I will find him
appealing. If anyone had ever told me
I would sit by him and he would pull up his nightie
and I’d look at his naked body, at the thick 
bud of his glans in all that
sparse hair, look at him
in affection and uneasy wonder
I would not have believed it. But now I can still
see the tiny snowflakes, white and
night-blue, on the cotton of the gown as it
rises the way we were promised at death it would rise,
the veils would fall from our eyes, we would know everything.



Family members share intimate secrets.  Near the end of his life, my father suffered from dementia.  Always a very proud, independent man, he struggled with the diminishments he had to endure, including losing control of his bladder and bowels.  One of the only times I ever saw him naked was when I helped my sister clean him up after he soiled himself just a few weeks before he ended up in a nursing home.  

That’s what Olds is talking about in today’s poem—those kinds of naked truths we carry around.

It was a quiet day after a pretty busy holiday weekend.  It was around 20 degrees cooler than yesterday, which made me tired.  After a couple days of near 90-degree weather, it was welcome relief.  I napped, read, went for a couple walks, and grocery shopped.

My secret tonight is that I’m not looking forward to the upcoming week.  On Saturday, as I’ve said, my daughter and her significant other are moving downstate.  While I’m excited for her, my father heart is breaking a little bit.  I know, this time next week, I’m going to be an emotional mess.  Letting go is a part of parenting.  I’m well aware of this fact.  That doesn’t make it any easier.

I don’t want to make this separation any harder on my daughter, so I’m going to put on a happy face.  Try not to cry too much.  For close to a quarter century, I’ve been her protector and provider and advisor.  That’s all going to be gone, and I’m going to have to figure out my new role as a father.  It’s a tale as old as time, as Angela Lansbury sang.

If you are so inclined, say a few prayers for my daughter this week.  It’s a big change in her life.  Maybe she’s feeling doubts right now.  Having some misgivings.  Those are the kinds of things we all keep secret.  But, this father knows that she’s going to change the world.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about unraveling secrets, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Open up a box of stored holiday decorations or visit a holiday website (Oriental Trading has an extensive online catalog), and study the nativity tablecloths, candles, snowman mugs, and menorahs.  If you don’t want to think about the holidays in July, open a catch-all drawer and take out a few odd items.  Write a poem in the voice of a future anthropologist attempting to make sense of these “artifacts.”

Christmas Anthropology

by: Martin Achatz

I want to surround myself with Christmas
cards when I die, the way those old
pharaohs packed food and slaves and gold
cats in their tombs after they exited
the fleshy miracles of their bodies.  When
anthropologists unearth my grave, 
they’ll find glittery stars, Charlie Brown,
Jimmy Stewart hugging Donna Reed,
the Grinch grinning like Osiris when the Nile
overflowed.  Perhaps the anthropologists
will use some Rosetta Stone to decipher
why that figure is half-boy/half pink rabbit.
Why that caribou’s snout glows red
as Sekhmet’s thirsty tongue.  Or why
that snowman’s eyes remind them
of the burnished black face of Anubis.
Maybe it will take centuries to decode
the mystery of my burial site, new
software to unscramble the Hallmark
complexities of my artifacts.  Then, one day,
when some eager researcher unbinds
the Gordian knot of me, they will install
a plaque above the entrance to my
exhibit in the British Museum of Natural History:
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!



Saturday, July 5, 2025

July 5, 2025: “His Stillness,” Family Members, “Pizza Party”

I have a confession:  my family (parents and siblings) never really went all out for Independence Day.  Generally, we didn’t go to parades.  I’m pretty sure my brothers blew up things with firecrackers, and I have memories of my sisters taking me to see some fireworks displays.  That’s about it.

But we did do barbecues.  Food was a thing that my family always did well.  Hotdogs.  Bratwurst.  Chicken.  Supplemented by watermelon and corn on the cob.  Some of my fondest memories are family meals, especially around holidays.

Sharon Olds writes about her father’s dignity . . . 

His Stillness

by: Sharon Olds

The doctor said to my father, "You asked me
to tell you when nothing more could be done.
That's what I'm telling you now." My father
sat quite still, as he always did,
especially not moving his eyes. I had thought
he would rave if he understood he would die,
wave his arms and cry out. He sat up,
thin, and clean, in his clean gown,
like a holy man. The doctor said,
"There are things we can do which might give you time,
but we cannot cure you." My father said,
"Thank you." And he sat, motionless, alone,
with the dignity of a foreign leader.
I sat beside him. This was my father.
He had known he was mortal. I had feared they would have to
tie him down. I had not remembered
he had always held still and kept quiet to bear things,
the liquor a way to keep still. I had not
known him. My father had dignity. At the
end of his life his life began
to wake in me.



We always swear we will be different than our parents.  Raise our kids differently.  Be more successful.  Retire earlier.  Travel more.  Some people don’t even want to look like their mothers or fathers.

Yet, when I look in the mirror these days, I see my mother’s and father’s faces.  No getting around heredity.  I think I look a lot more like my mom than my dad, and I inherited her calmer disposition, as well.  My dad could be a hothead.  My mom, on the other hand, was always cool and thoughtful.  (When she lost her temper, you really didn’t want to be around her.  I think I take after her in that respect, as well.)

Around holidays, I think a lot about family members who are no longer around to celebrate with us.  My faithful disciples know that, in the last ten years or so, I’ve lost quite a few people in my life—a best friend, brother, two sisters, and both my parents.  The kind of nostalgia I’m experiencing today is pretty normal, I would guess.  Big holidays conjure up big feelings.

I did attend a parade this morning with my wife and kids.  There was even an Elvis impersonator on a float.  Now, I know we were supposed to boycott parades this July 4th in protest of the Republican apocalypse happening in Washington, D.C.  Nothing about the United States at the moment makes me proud to be a citizen of this country.  Yet, I do celebrate the freedom I have today.  (This time next year, I may have a different opinion.  Check back in 2026.)

I know that our country is incredibly flawed.  We live on stolen land in a society built on the backs of African American slaves.  Not really a great way to start this grand experiment in democracy.  However, I’ve also believed that we can be better.  Do better.  And I’m holding onto that hope right now.  I celebrated today what we CAN be as a nation, not what we currently are.  

The fireworks scheduled for tonight were rained out, so, instead, I went to the laundromat to wash some clothes and work on a new poem.  It’s about nine o’clock at night right now and still raining intermittently, but that’s not stopping our neighbors from disturbing the peace with some bottle rockets, firecrackers, and mortars.  That doesn’t bother me, though.  They’re out there having a good time.  Celebrating the freedom that still exists in the United States.  For now.

Saint Marty wrote a poem tonight about ghosts based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

It’s the birthday of Jean Cocteau, surrealist poet and playwright.  In honor of his birthday, write a surrealist poem today.  One way to do this is to begin with a 5-minute automatic writing session.  Write as fast as you can without thinking logically or worrying about making sense.  When you are finished with your timed writing, read it over and highlight passages that interest you.  Using these passages as triggers, continue writing fast.  Once you’ve done this, shape this raw and strange material into a poem.

Pizza Party

by: Martin Achatz

What do ghosts like on their pizzas?
Does my friend, Helen, want just
cheese, unadorned, plain as yoga?
My brother, Kevin, he loves ham,
even though he claimed to be vegan
when he was alive.  Sally is always 
particular, doesn’t want anything 
besides pepperoni to surprise
her tongue with too much heat or salt.
Rose, my other sister, eats everything with
the abandon of a flock of seagulls.  Dad
is meat and potatoes, wants as much
pork and beef and bacon as possible
on his slices, as if he grew up in a Russian
gulag with only one bowl of cabbage
broth to fuel his daily labors in the fields.
Mom?  She always eats after everyone
else, cobbling together her dinner
from turkey necks and sweet potato
skins.  Her pizza will be whatever
is left in the greasy boxes after the rest
of us are read to nap or go for
a long, long walk.  That’s her now,
gliding around the table, asking
if everybody has had enough 
to eat, her ghostly stomach glowing
like a stove burner that’s just been 
used to fry up a skillet of scrambled eggs.



Friday, July 4, 2025

July 4, 2025: "The Glass," Independence Day, "July 4th Apologia in the Time of Trump"

It is Independence Day in the United States.  Again, for my non-U.S. disciples, I will explain that, on July 4, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in which we declared our freedom from British rule.  So, pretty much we rejected royal governance.  Translation:  no kings for this country.

This year, July 4th has a different vibe for me.  It feels as if the country that I know and love (for all its flaws, and there are many) is dying right before my eyes, every minute of every day.

Sharon Olds writes about her dying father . . . 

The Glass

by: Sharon Olds

I think of it with wonder now,
the glass of mucus that stood on the table
in front of my father all weekend. The tumor
is growing fast in his throat these days,
and as it grows it sends out pus
like the sun sending out flares, those pouring
tongues. So my father has to gargle, cough,
spit a mouth full of thick stuff
into the glass every ten minutes or so,
scraping the rim up his lower lip
to get the last bit off his skin, then he
sets the glass down, on the table, and it
sits there, like a glass of beer foam,
shiny and faintly golden, he gargles and
coughs and reaches for it again,
and gets the heavy sputum out,
full of bubbles and moving around like yeast–
he is like a god producing food from his own mouth.
He himself can eat nothing, anymore,
just a swallow of milk, sometimes,
cut with water, and even then
it cannot, always, get past the tumor,
and the next time the saliva comes up
it is ropey, he has to roll it in his throat
a minute to form it and get it up and dis-
gorge the oval globule into the 
glass of phlegm, which stood there all day and
filled slowly with the compound globes and I would
empty it, and it would fill again, 
and shimmer there on the table until 
the room seemed to turn around it
in an orderly way, a model of the solar system
turning around the sun,
my father the dark earth that used to
lie at the center of the universe, now 
turning with the rest of us
around his death, luminous glass of 
spit on the table, these last mouthfuls of his life.




Yes, death brings people together.  Doesn't matter what or who is dying.  I've been in a few rooms when members of my family were breathing their last breaths.  It's a difficult and sacred moment--full of sadness and gratitude, saying goodbye and thankyou at the same time.

Will this be the last time the United States will commemorate independence and freedom on July 4th?  I'm not sure.  Next year, will we all be forced to attend goose-stepping, book-burning parades and rallies?  I don't know.  At least to me, I don't feel quite as independent and free as I did last year on this day.  Perhaps I am witnessing the death of democracy in the United States.

Typically, I would attend at least two parades and a fireworks display on Independence Day.  Not this year.  Instead, I hosted a barbecue this evening for friends and family as a kind of send-off for my daughter and her significant other (they will be moving downstate in about a week for my daughter to attend medical school).  So, we served up standard July 4th cuisine--hotdogs and bratwurst and watermelon and pasta salad and delicious, chocolaty desserts.  We told family stories.  Played croquet.  Loved each other.

I'm trying not to get all maudlin about my daughter moving away.  It's difficult, though.  My job as a father these last 24 years has been to protect her, keep her out of harm's way as much as possible.  Now, I'm not sure what my job duties will be, and she's inheriting a country that seems less kind, less loving, less free.

So, you'll excuse me if I don't stand up with my hand over my heart this evening.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight based on the following prompt from July 2 of The Daily Poet:

Happy birthday to Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska!  Szymborska, born in Western Poland and lifelong resident of Krakow, was known not only for her fiercely political poems but for revealing the profound truths in the everyday experience of living.  In her honor, today's assignment is to write a poem of apology.  Don't apologize for minor things, like forgetting to close the windows during a rainstorm; apologize to abstractions such as hope, necessity, chance, and loyalty.  For further inspiration, read Syzmborska's poem "Under a Certain Little Star," which can be found through an Internet search.

July 4th Apologia in the Time of Trump

by: Martin Achatz

I'm sorry to compassion for not having
          an extra bologna sandwich and pillow.
I'm also sorry to justice for taking
          a nap this afternoon.
Freedom, please don't hold it against me
          if I forget your name.
And, common sense, you and I both know
          that throwing salt over your shoulder
          won't change anybody's mind.  
Laughter, I've known you a long time, but
          I've blocked your texts
          until you come up with new jokes.
Independence, I'm sorry I mowed my lawn
          so the rabbits have to visit
          my neighbor's yard when they get hungry.
My condolences, pride, for leaving my shoes
          in the middle of the living room
          floor to trip over.
But I can't say I'm sorry, patriotism, 
          for not inviting you to tonight's barbecue.
You see, I prefer to hang with
          poets who don't mind sharing
          the last hotdog on the grill
          with the migrant worker next door.
Because everyone should know
          what liberty tastes like.