November 7, 2026: “Prayer,” Feeling Old, “An Old Man Contemplates the Sea”

For people of a certain age, autumn is personal.  We (yes, I’m including myself in this group) feel it in our bones, this shift from the feral heat of summer to the mustardy dissipation of fall.  When I was a kid, winter was my jam, with its promise of blizzards and snow days and tobogganing.  Rocketing down a steep slope on a piece of cheap plastic was the definition of a fun afternoon.  Now, when I drive by a steep hill and see people sledding, my first thought is, “Spinal injury waiting to happen.”  

With age comes wisdom, I guess.  I know my body will not bounce back easily from a head-on collision with a bush or tree.  Youth is daring and reckless.  Age teaches us our limitations, for better or worse.

Marie Howe contemplates a time in her youth . . . 

Prayer

by: Marie Howe

Someone or something is leaning close to me now

trying to tell me the one true story of my life:

one note,

low as a bass drum, beaten over and over:

It’s beginning summer,

and the man I love has forgotten my smell

the cries I made when he touched me, and my laughter

when he picked me up

and carried me, still laughing, and laid me down,

among the scattered daffodils on the dining room table.

And Jane is dead,

                                             and I want to go where she went,

where my brother went,

and whoever it is that whispered to me

when I was a child in my father’s bed is come back now:

and I can’t stop hearing:

                                             This is the way it is,

the way it always was and will be—

beaten over and over—panicking on street corners,

or crouched in the back of taxicabs,

afraid I’ll cry out in jammed traffic, and no one will know me or

know where to bring me.

                                                There is, I almost remember,

another story:

It runs alongside this one like a brook beside a train.

The sparrows know it; the grass rises with it.

The wind moves through the highest tree branches without

seeming to hurt them.

Tell me,

Who was I when I used to call your name?

The last line of this poem says it all:  “Who was I .  . . ?”  Howe is looking back at her life (and the people who used to be in it), and she knows that she is now a completely different person.  She’s no longer the woman whose lover lifted onto the dining room table.  Or the person who lost her brother and Jane.  She’s unrecognizable to herself, more afraid of the world, panicking and hiding.

That timidity is another result of getting older.  When I was younger, I never turned on the lights if I had to get up in the middle of the night for any reason.  Now, I see darkness as the precursor to a broken hip.  As a teenager, I ate and drank whatever I wanted, without worrying about acid reflux or diarrhea.  These days, I try not to drink too much water after about 6 p.m. to avoid having to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Age changes things, whittles your life down.  People and places disappear.  Going to the grocery store becomes the biggest adventure of the week.  You find yourself asking questions like “Is there caffeine in that?”  And your kids (if you have them) start calling you names like “boomer” (which is the ultimate insult to an old Gen X guy like me).  

What’s left after all this age-related attrition?  That’s the beautiful part.  When you reach a certain age, you realize that everything you dreamed about as a young adult—the money and job and nice cars and exotic vacations—really isn’t all that important.  These days, I’d rather spend New Year’ Eve playing Trivial Pursuit with my family than stand outside with a bunch of drunk strangers watching the clock strike midnight.  The simpler, the better.  

So, if you’re looking for me tonight, I’ll be at home in my pajamas.   Call me if you want, but I probably won’t answer my phone after 7 p.m.  

Saint Marty wrote this poem about being an old man . . . 

An Old Man Contemplates the Sea

by: Martin Achatz

Today, I read news about an old man

claimed by an inland sea, how

wind, waves grabbed him from

the black rocks, pulled him out and out

until not even Hemingway’s Santiago

could have saved him in that fishing

boat leashed to that monster marlin.

We old men are a stubborn lot, still

young in our heads, but polished

smooth by years of surf and foam.

Don’t tell us to be careful or try

to drag us back to the car when

the sea stampedes, charges, roars.

We can’t be bothered with death

when there are still fish to catch,

lines of poetry to reel in.

November 4, 2026: “Separation,” Hope, “Demeter in Mourning”

I know, I know.  It’s been a hot minute since my last post.  October is always a crazy month for me—programs and teaching and readings and whatnot.  Not to mention Saint Marty’s Day, my wedding anniversary, and my beautiful wife’s birthday.  I’ve barely had time to sleep.  I also traveled downstate twice (once to visit my daughter and her significant other, once to do a Halloween reading in Traverse City).  Is that enough of a catalogue of excuses?  Usually, by the time November 1st rolls around, I’m pretty much exhausted every year.

Today, however, was a little different.  After the midterm elections last night, I woke up feeling unusual.  I didn’t struggle to drag myself out of bed.  I found myself whistling in the bathroom as I went about my morning ablutions.  Even though the weather was drizzly and foggy (frizzly?), the temperature was in the 60s.  My university students were unusually enthusiastic, and, walking across campus, I again found myself whistling.  There was no dread rattling around my brain, and I didn’t have to force myself to smile or laugh.  

Everything seemed so much lighter.

Marie Howe sees a person who used to make her happy . . . 

Separation

by: Marie Howe

Driving out of town, I see him crossing

the Brooks Pharmacy parking lot, and remember

how he would drop to his knees in the kitchen

and press his face to my dress, his cheek flat against

my belly as if he were listening for something.

Somebody might be waiting for coffee in the living room,

someone might be setting the dining room table, he’d

place his face under my dress and press his cheek

against my belly and kneel there, without saying anything.

How is it possible that I am allowed to see him

like this—walking quickly by the glass windows?

—what he wears in the world without me,

his hands swinging by his side, his cock quiet

in his jeans, his shirt covering

his shoulders, his own tongue in his mouth.

Yes, Howe’s words are tinged with melancholy, remembering a tiny intimacy she used to share with this person.  But I think she’s also reveling in the recollected joy of the experience.  Basically, she’s saying, “I had this once, and it was wonderful.  Now, I’m allowed this glimpse—this fleeting moment—and I’m so lucky and sad.”  As with any cherished memory, it is gilded with longing and grief because it’s gone, never to be recaptured.

My feeling of lightness today reminds me of the night Barack Obama was first elected President of the United States, how I sat in front of the television and watched him step onto that stage in Chicago as the first African American elected to the Oval Office.  That moment filled me with so much hope and pride for my country.  It seemed like we had overcome our institutional hatred for people of color and were handing the car keys to this articulate, intelligent human.  I floated above the ground for days afterward.

I’ve been experiencing a little of that floating today.  The past ten years have been filled with so much hatred and division, mainly due to the person currently sitting behind the Resolute Desk.  Last night, however, a majority of the citizens of my country chose to embrace acceptance and unity instead of anger and discord.  Maybe I’m being stupidly naive.  Maybe last night was all about people being tired of high gas and grocery and healthcare prices.  But I’m choosing to believe in a miracle—water being turned into wine.

My goal is not to alienate anyone here.  I think everyone can agree that the White House has not been a model of kindness and compassion.  In fact, I would say that Jesus Christ would toss a few tables around if he were allowed into the West Wing.  (That’s a very big “if.”  Christ probably wouldn’t make it past the front gate with his olive skin and curly hair.)  I believe a term Jesus utters in the gospels against the Sanhedrin and Chief Priests is most applicable to the current Administration residing on Pennsylvania Avenue:  they’re “a brood of vipers.”

Well, that brood is now in full panic mode after the midterm elections last night, and I’m ecstatic.  I’m going to ride this wave of hope for as long as I can.  I know it’s not going to last forever, but it could last a couple weeks.  And then reality will set in.  Sort of like when Howe sees her former lover.  She’s excited to see him, but she also knows this person is gone forever from her life.

Are the Republicans going to do shit that will piss me off in the future?  Most definitely.  The Democrats probably will, too.  Will I be happy during the second half of President You-Know-Who’s term?  Yup.  Will I be sad and pissed, too?  Yup X 2.  That’s the nature of the human experience.  When we gather around our tables to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, we think of those who are no longer with us.  Joy tempered with a modicum of grief.

But tonight—at 11:37 p.m. on this fourth day of the eleventh month in the year of our Lord 2026–I am going to rest easy for the first time in a long while.  And I will wake up and not be afraid to check the morning headlines because the world is a tiny bit kinder and safer for my kids.

Saint Marty has a poem tonight about a parent’s love for her child . . . 

Demeter in Mourning

by: Martin Achatz

My mom sat by my sister’s bed,

holding her hand, as my sister’s breaths

slowed and slowed, her lungs

wounded soldiers marching home

after Bull Run or the Battle of the Bulge.

And my mom kept saying Yes, you’re okay

over and over, like she was teaching my sister

how to swim, reassuring her the water wasn’t

very deep and, if she put her legs down,

she would feel clay underneath her soles.

Mom kept chanting Yes, you’re okay.  Yes.

You’re.  Okay yes.  Yes.  Okay.  You’re yes.  Okay.

And I wondered if, when those breaths 

stopped, my mother would smudge ashes

in her hair, on her face,  and wander the world, 

searching for her lost daughter while 

her rose bushes withered and tomatoes fell 

to the ground, unharvested, claimed 

by the ants and worms and wasps.

October 27, 2026: "Watching Television," Hummingbird, "Nostalgia"

One of the classes I teach at the university is called Good Books.  Basically, it’s introduction to literature and literary interpretation, and every person who teaches Good Books in the English Department  approaches it differently.  For several years now, I’ve used the course as a vehicle to talk about mental illness.  So, I include books like An Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, among others.  

Yesterday morning, in our discussion of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, we talked about regrets—decisions we’ve made in our lives that we look back on with a sense of loss or nostalgia.  It could be something huge—giving up on the dream of becoming a ballerina—or something small—having Corn Flakes for breakfast instead of Lucky Charms.  (By the way, given that choice, always go with Lucky Charms.)

Marie Howe writes about an argument she regrets . . .  

Watching Television

by: Marie Howe

I didn't want to look at the huge white egg the mother spider dragged

along behind her, attached to her abdomen, held off the ground,

bigger than her own head--

and inside it:  hundreds of baby spiders feeding off the nest,

and, in what seemed like the next minute,

spinning their own webs quickly and crazily,

bumping into each other's and breaking them, then mending

and moving over, and soon they got it right:

each in his and her own circle and running around it.

And then they slept,

each in the center of a glistening thing:  a red dot in ether.

Last night the moon was as big as a house at the end of the street,

a white frame house, and rising,

and I thought of a room it was shining in, right then,

a room I might live in and can't imagine yet.

And this morning, I thought of a place on the ocean where no one is,

no boat, no fish jumping,

just sunlight gleaming on the water, humps of water that hardly break.

I have argued bitterly with the man I love, and for two days

we haven't spoken.

We argued about one thing, but really it was another.

I keep finding myself by the front windows looking out at the street

and the walk that leads to the front door of this building,

white, unbroken by footprints.

Anything I've ever tried to keep by force I've lost.

Howe’s last line is killer.  It pretty much ties together the first part of the poem (about the spiders) with the second part of the poem (about the argument with her love).  It’s all about trying to hold on to something that simply won’t or can’t be held on to.  The hatchling spiders are learning to spin their webs to trap food, and the speaker in the poem is lamenting the absence of her estranged partner.  

No matter how hard we try, we can’t force time to pause or stop, no matter how wonderful the moment.  Like anything in this universe, happiness is ephemeral.  We may spend days weaving intricate webs to trap our joy, but joy has wings and a strong will.  It will pull and kick and flap until it rips itself free of our silky bonds.

The best we can do is to enjoy what we have in the moment.  Tell the person sharing your bed and life that you love them.  Spend an extra few seconds on the dance floor, eyes closed, swaying and bouncing to the music.  Read that gorgeous poem by Mary Oliver one more time.  Have another ice cream sandwich.  Bliss out.

Howe’s right.  You can’t keep something by force.  A hummingbird is beautiful because it’s wild in its frantic love of summer nectar.  Wings humming, it appears and dances from blossom to blossom, slurping up sweetness, and then flits away and disappears.  Capturing that hummingbird won’t capture its ecstasy.  

We’re approaching the holiday season, with all its emphasis on family and togetherness.  If you’re anything like me, you will spend some time in the next three months thinking about the Thanksgivings and Christmases from your past.  And if you’re anything like me, you will have many empty chairs at the turkey table and around the twinkling tree this year.  That’s just reality.  People drift in and out of your life.  Move away.  Die.

I’m a person who can get mired down in regrets and nostalgia—that pining for individuals and experiences that are simply gone forever.  I will never have another Christmas with my parents and all my siblings.  In fact, I haven’t had one of those for about 30 years. Those Thanksgiving mornings where my wife, children, and I watched the Macy’s parade together on television are long gone.  Both my kids are adults now, and my daughter lives downstate with her significant other.  Life, for better or worse, has moved on.

I’m trying to avoid getting all tangled up in my sticky web of regrets.  It’s tough.  As I get older, my list of regrets grows and grows.  But I have a lot to celebrate in my present life:  my beautiful wife of 32 years; my brilliant and funny daughter and son; and my loyal friends who remind me (sometimes on a daily basis) that the world is a better place with me in it.

That’s pretty sweet nectar for this ol’ hummingbird.

Saint Marty wrote this poem a few days ago . . . 

Nostalgia

by: Martin Achatz

is that feeling you get when
the first maple leaf blazes into
sunrise overnight, and you know
grass, panes, ponds will soon
frost then rime then freeze over.
And you aren’t ready to let go
of the drill of insects on a day so green
you’re breathing chlorophyll,
aren’t ready for the erasure of the coming
months—God painting his canvas
with thick, white, cold gesso,
the way Picasso painted over a bent
penitent, a nursing mother, something
bovine in a field, a woman’s
face—all ghosts now—before
he settled on that old, blue man
strumming his guitar. And it’s the blue
sound that old man’s guitar makes
in the blue air, like a mourning
dove’s cry: coo-ah, coo, coo, coo.

What do you do with all this
longing? You could look at old
pictures in yearbooks, marvel
at how young everyone is, anxious
for the future to arrive on the noon
bus from Chicago or Milwaukee. Or
you could put on a vinyl, turn
down the lights, sway to Prince’s
“Purple Rain” the way you did
with your crush at junior prom
when you finally worked up the guts
to ask her to dance. Or you could
follow some forgotten railroad tracks,
like Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix
in Stand By Me, searching for that friend
who disappeared years ago. Listen.
That train whistle in the distance
is calling his name in the night.

October 23, 2026: “Late Morning,” So Much Love, “You’ll never be broke”

Greetings, Faithful Disciples!

Last weekend,  I visited my daughter and her significant other downstate in Mount Pleasant. My wife, son, and I headed across the Mackinac Bridge on Friday and came back Sunday afternoon. It was a trip about five weeks in the planning, and I cherished every moment of it.

Marie Howe reflects on cherished times with her loved ones . . .

Late Morning

by: Marie Howe

I was still in my white nightgown and James had drawn me down

to sit on his lap, and I was looking over his shoulder through the hall

into the living room, and he was looking over my shoulder, into the trees

through the open window, I imagine,

and we sat like that for a few minutes, without saying much of anything,

my cheek pressed lightly

against his cheek, and my brother John was dead.

Suddenly close and distinct, it seemed finished, as if time were a room

I could gaze clear across—four years since I’d lifted his hand from

the sheets on his bed and cooled it in my hand.

A light breeze through the open window, James’s warm cheek,

a brightness in the windy trees as I remember, crumbs and dishes still

on the table, and a small glass bottle of milk and an open jar of

raspberry jam.

Such a tender, quiet moment that Howe describes—full of great love and sorrow, simultaneously.  You really can’t have one without the other.  The morning of her brother’s death, Howe sits on James’s lap, pressing her face to his stubbled cheek.  It’s a moment anchored by small, domestic details—the bottle of milk and open container of raspberry jam and the light breeze—as the poet tries to endure the daily normalcy of life after the loss of a life.  

I understand the grief and relief Howe is describing.  I loved my sister, Sally, deeply.  For close to 20 years, I worked with/for her at an outpatient surgery center.  We spent eight, nine, ten hours a day together for almost two decades.  When Sally died, my profound love for her morphed into profound sorrow.  Like Howe, I found myself missing the small intimacies we shared—the Dove chocolates stashed in her desk drawer or her ever-present cans of Diet Coke.  Tiny, ridiculous things.

Last weekend, I reveled in tiny and ridiculous things with the people I love most in this world—my wife, son, daughter, and daughter’s significant other.  We went out to eat, played games, watched a movie.  Against my better judgement, we did and escape room, an experience designed to create anxiety and panic.  However, I was surrounded by really smart people, so we managed to solve the puzzles in almost record time.

All weekend long, I was so happy and relaxed.  Following my kids into a pizza place to order dinner, I felt my heart opening up like the Grinch’s at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas—as if I couldn’t contain the amount of love I was experiencing.  It was a physical sensation, starting in the center of my chest and radiating outward, as if my veins and arteries were injected with sunlight. 

Nothing big happened last weekend.  Just a series of tiny, ridiculous domestic joys.  Brightness in the windy trees, as Howe says in her poem.  I’ve held onto that feeling all week long, not willing to give up my happiness hangover.  If I could bottle and sell this feeling, in liquid or tablet form, I’d be richer than the person who rigged the 2024 U.S. presidential election.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about this love medicine . . . 

You’ll never be broke

by: Martin Achatz

my dad used to say when I asked

for my allowance.  He thought he was

funny as hell, everyone did, but

everyone didn’t grow up in a house

where expressions of love were doled

out like bowls of cabbage broth

during the Great Depression.  This afternoon,

standing in a rest area by Lake Michigan,

I watched my son reach down to rub

our dog’s head generously while my wife

let her lap and lap as much water

as she wanted from her bowl, and I felt

myself crushed by love for them,

as if my dad had just opened his wallet

and finally made good on everything he owed me.