June 11, 2026: “Encounter,” Redefining, “Ignorance is Bliss”

Yes, I’ve taken a few days to recuperate from all of my son’s graduation festivities—from the ceremony to the open house.  It’s an exciting time in a young person’s life.  For parents, it’s physically and emotionally draining.  After 17 or 18 years, a whole chapter of the parenting handbook draws to a close, and the question that lingers is “Now what?”

For better or worse, when you have a child, you have to redefine who you are.  My wife and I used to go to movies and restaurants all the time before the birth of our daughter.  We were an incredibly social couple, always planning get-togethers with family and friends.  However, after our kids came along, I was no longer just “Saint Marty” or “Teacher Marty” or “Poet Marty.”  My new title carried more weight:  “Father Marty” (not in the Catholic priest sense).  Parenthood makes you redefine everything you believed about yourself, including life goals and hopes and dreams.

Marie Howe writes about a life-redefining experience . . . 

Encounter

by: Marie Howe

First, the little cuts, then the bigger ones,

the biggest, the burns.  This is what God did

when he wanted to love you.

She didn’t expect to meet him on the stairway

no on used but she did, because she was

afraid of the elevator, the locked room.

She didn't expect him to look like that, to be

so patient, first the little ones, then

the big ones.  Everything

in due time, he said, I’ve got all the time

in the world.  She didn’t imagine it would take

so long, the breaking.

He did it three times before he did it.  Love?

She had imagined it differently, something

coming home to her,

an end to waiting.  And she did stop, when

the big cuts came.  It was all there was,

the burning, and that’s what God was

everywhere at once.  Someone had already

told her that, not only in his voice.  He was

inside her now—

the bigger ones, then the burning—and gone,

then back again.  This was termite, when

nothing happened that wasn’t

already happening.  She couldn’t remember.

After the burning, even the light went quiet.

She didn’t think God would be so

specific, so delicate—inside her elbow, under

her arm, the back of her neck, 

and her knees.

It’s true, she struggled at first until after

the breaking.  Then God was with her, and she

was with him.

Every spring, something miraculous happens in my backyard.  Quite a few years ago, I noticed one or two trillium blossoms growing at the base of some lilac bushes.  Now, calm down.  I know trillium are endangered, and just picking one can cost a person up to $1000 or 90 days in jail.  Let me be clear:  I did not troop into the forest in the middle of the night to hunt down trillium like the toothless Chris Cooper hunting down Ghost Orchids in the movie Adaptation.  

I don’t know how those trillium got into my backyard.  Perhaps the former owner of my house did the whole Chris Cooper thing.  Or maybe the house was built on top of bulldozed field of trillium before they were endangered.  Or, maybe, like in Howe’s poem, God just walked by one day and left a God-fragment behind for me to encounter.

Whatever origin story is true, the miracle of my backyard trillium happened again this year, and, in the almost quarter century we’ve lived in this house, these ghostly trinities have multiplied.  Where once there was only two or three blossoms, now an entire host of whiteness materializes in May, blazes for a few weeks, and then vanishes until the following spring.  My hope is that, eventually, trillium will redefine the landscape of my entire backyard like a low-hanging fog bank.

You’re probably thinking to yourself:  what do trillium have to do with Saint Marty’s son graduating from high school?  Well, we’re all trillium, struggling to hang on and flourish in a world that’s seems determined to endanger or extinct us.  The only way to survive is to give ourselves permission to evolve and germinate.  Cling to the wonder that brought us into existence in the first place.  

That’s what I’m trying to do right now, and that’s what I’m encouraging you, faithful disciples, to do, as well:  enjoy this year’s season of trillium (the sun on its petals, mud in its roots).  Stop and really take in that miraculous patch of beauty.  Don’t worry about the hard winter we’ve just endured, or the wildfires of the coming summer.  To paraphrase a really old cliché:  stop and smell the trillium.  The redefining will come soon enough.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about another cliché today . . . 

Ignorance is Bliss

by: Martin Achatz

Across the street, the new neighbors

(an older man and younger woman)

hang wind chimes on their front porch.

When I get home, the chimes chime

like a teenage girl’s jewelry box,

a plastic ballerina twirling 

to “Waltz of the Flowers” slower

and slower and slower until it stops

mid-spin, becomes a Degas pastel.

I stand in dusky light, imagine

the older man and younger woman

cooking naked in their kitchen, him

lifting a spoon to her lips, her sipping

its sauce, telling him to add more salt.

I may learn their names tomorrow, or

that they’re actually brother and sister, or

she had miscarriage last year, or

he is in the middle of chemo for lung cancer.

But for now, just let me have this stupid joy:

the older man and younger woman

holding each other tight as the pasta boils

and chimes chime in the evening breeze.

June 7, 2026: “Mary’s Argument,” Open House, “Pool Table at a Poetry Reading”

It has been a hot minute since I last blogged.  Forgive me.  I’ve been distracted by my son’s high school graduation, among other things.

Students graduate from high school every year.  In my time on this planet, I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of young people in caps and gowns, fairly glowing like newly formed stars.  I, myself, have graduated four times (high school once, college thrice).  Graduation is as normal (and predictable) as dandelions or sunrises.  It’s easy to become immune to the excitement and beauty of graduations.

Marie Howe writes about the uncommon ordinary . . .

Mary’s Argument

“Let what you said be done to me” (Luke 1:38)

by: Marie Howe

To lead the uncommon life is not so bad.

There is an edge we come to count on

when all the normal signs don’t speak,

a startled vigilance that keeps us waking

to watch the moon, the peculiar stars;

the usual, underfoot, no more a solid comfort

than a rock that might move as a turtle moves,

so slowly only the nervous feel the sudden bump

of the familiar giving way to unrequested astonishment.

As for a small time, the sheer cliff of everything

we never knew can rise in front of us

like the warm dark, where starlight

has its constant conception, where the idea of turtle

blinked and was: a wry joke, an intricate affection.

Yes, as Howe writes, we all become a little too used to the normal signs of life.  I can’t remember the last time I actually stopped to admire a lawn filled with golden dandelions or gotten drunk on the perfume of lilacs.  These things are so ordinary that we don’t really stop to think about them for what they really are:  miracles.  

This weekend, we had our son’s open house for graduation.  Again, I know it’s just one open house in a sea of open houses happening in the next few weeks.  We all get the announcements from our friends’ kids as June approaches, and we all show up with money-stuffed cards and eat the ham and rolls.  When spring arrives, open house season isn’t far off.

When you think about it, though, it really is amazing:  all these young people flooding the world with hope and excitement.  They’re like rare orchids that only blossom once every 17 or 18 years.  And we get to be there to witness it.

I could never have pulled off our son’s open house without the help of my wife’s family.  They’re the ones who volunteered to bring food, help decorate, and honor our son’s achievements.  My wife’s little sister (I’ve known her for so long, she’s my little sister, too) arranged the rental of the church hall and spent several hours Friday night and all day Saturday helping us.  My wife’s older sister made a quilt for our son out of a bunch of his old shirts and pajamas.  And my wife’s cousin made food for the potluck.  It was a huge team effort.

Me?  Well, I spent Thursday and Friday putting together decorations, mowing the lawn, cleaning our house, and grocery shopping.  Of course, I sort of over-planned everything, as I am wont to do.  We have lots of food left over.  My son was thrilled with the whole event, even though our friend Kerry beat him at cards.  (He was sure he was going to win)

I guess what I’m trying to say with this post is that I’m supremely grateful for all of the people who helped make this weekend (and my son’s graduation festivities) so meaningful.  They’re all miracles, and I’m blessed to have them in my life.

Saint Marty finished a poem this afternoon at the laundromat (because, even in the midst of miracles, there are still dirty clothes to wash) . . .

Pool Table at a Poetry Reading

by: Martin Achatz

covered in books, each poet

hawking wares like an old town

square where farmers gathered

on Saturday mornings to sell

milk, eggs, tomatoes red as infection,

maybe potatoes and bell peppers, too.

The poets chalk their cues, eye

the green felt.  Sonnet corner pocket

one says, makes the shot easy

as a sneeze.  Villanelle middle pocket

the same poet says, but misses,

scratches another poet’s haiku.  One 

by one, the table empties until

all that’s left is an elegy for River

Phoenix, who overdosed on Halloween,

died on a sidewalk outside the Viper Room.

The elegy convulses, goes into respiratory

distress before the ambulance arrives.

The poets try to revive it, press their lips

to its stanzas, blow breath into each

line, massage the nouns like stillborn chicks

in a nest of shell fragments, desperate 

as Victor Frankenstein for signs 

of life.  The rest of the poems start singing

“Stand By Me” a cappella in the pockets

as the elegy is lifted from the table,

slid into a folder of rough drafts

that all died way too young, before

they had a chance to ripen. 

May 27, 2026: “Sorrow,” Son’s Graduation, “Wisdom for My Son as He Graduates High School”

I have been a little unmoored today (actually all week long) because of my son’s impending graduation.  I knew it was coming and thought I was prepared, but, sitting in the auditorium this evening for the ceremony, I realized there simply was no way to prepare for the hurricane of emotions I was experiencing (am still experiencing).  Joy.  Pride.  Relief.  Grief.

Marie Howe writes about sadness . . . 

Sorrow

by: Marie Howe

So now it has our complete attention, and we are made whole.

We take it into our hands like a rope, grateful and tethered,

freed from waiting for it to happen,  It is here, precisely

as we imagined.

If the man has died, if the child’s illness has taken a sudden

turn, if the house has burned in the middle of the night

and in winter, there is at least a kind of stopping that will

pass for peace.

Now when we speak it is with great seriousness, and when

we touch it is with our own fingers, and when we listen

it is with our big eyes that have looked at a thing

and have not blinked.

There is no longer any reason to distrust us.  When it leaves

it will leave like summer, and we will remember it as a break

in something that had seemed as unrelenting as coming rain

and we will be sorry to see it go.

There really is no way to prepare for sorrow, even if the loss is expected, as Howe points out.  The sorrow might be coupled (guiltily) with relief and may “pass for peace,” but it is still “unrelenting as coming rain.”  Sorrow just hangs on, like a bad cold.  Weeks go by, and you’re still coughing and drinking NyQuil.

As most of my faithful disciples know, my son’s educational journey has not been easy.  Five years ago, I wasn’t even sure he would make it to high school graduation.  It seemed like every other day we were being called to the principal’s office.  On his last day of eighth grade he had to be escorted out of the building by a teacher because another student had threatened to jump him after the final bell.  Two weeks prior to that, I took a couple days off work because I was afraid he was going to hurt himself.  

Tonight, my son stood in front of an auditorium full of almost 300 people and delivered a speech to his classmates and teachers, thanking them for putting up with his “dumb ass.”  He opened himself up.  I’ve never seen him be that vulnerable in public.  And there I was, choking back sobs.

He did it.

I’m going to type that one more time.

He did it.

And I’m a complete mess, sitting on my couch at home, typing this post.  Writing is the way I gain a little control over difficult emotions and situations.  When my daughter graduated and drove off to her all-night party, I sat in the dark in my living room after everyone else had gone to bed, and I cried and wrote and cried some more.  Tonight, my son is with a couple of his best friends, and, after I publish this blog post, I’m going to sit in the dark in my living room and cry and cry.

Saint Marty wrote this poem for his son today . . . 

Wisdom for My Son as He Graduates High School

by: Martin Achatz

Yes, Darth Vader really is Luke’s dad, and,

yes, Han Solo shot Greedo first in Mos Eisley.

Diet Pepsi really is better than Diet Coke

because it’s sweeter, burns less when you swallow,

and that will be important when you get older,

realize you prefer Christmas to Halloween,

milk chocolate to bitter dark, when a nap

on a warm July afternoon is your definition

of perfection more than Michelangelo’s David

or the Mona Lisa’s curved lips.  In this world,

bellies bloat with famine, schoolgirls die

in bombed classrooms, polar bears drown

because we’re running out of ice the way

Walmarts run out of air conditioners during Texas

heatwaves.  There are things worth fighting for:

racial justice, the Oxford comma, gender

equity, leftover KFC cold from the fridge,

marriage equality because love is love is love is

really all you need, and I don’t care I used

the word love three times in this poem because

when this night is over—speeches spoken, songs sung,

marches marched, diplomas handed out—that’s all

you’re going to remember, the rest of us sitting

in our seats, waiting to hear your name called

as if for the first time, our hearts (yes,

I’m using the word hearts, too) blazing 

like wildfires on the cusp of a tinder-dry summer.

May 18, 2026: “Without Devotion,” Last Week of High School, “Midnight Thunderstorm”

This Monday begins the last week of high school for my son.  Friday is his official final day of secondary education.  

Now, my son acts all tough; he doesn’t really reveal his emotions all that much.  But I can tell he’s sensing a huge shift coming in his life.  I remember that shift from “I’m in high school” to “Holy shit!  I’m an adult!”  It was not an easy transition for me.  Even today, I still don’t know what I want to be when (if?) I grow up.

When you devote so much of your life to something, you feel the loss of that something acutely, whether it’s a school or person or career.  I enjoyed my high school days.  Enjoyed my classmates and classes.  Sure, there were challenges, but those challenges were incidental compared to some of the shit I’ve gone through since getting my diploma.  Devotion is easier when you’re younger.  There’s not so much clutter in your noggin.  The path seems clearer.

Marie Howe reflects on devotion . . . 

Without Devotion

by: Marie Howe

Cut loose, without devotion, a man becomes a comic.

His antics are passed

around the family table and mimicked so well, years

later the family still laughs.

Without devotion, any life becomes a stranger’s story

told and told again to help another sleep

or live.  And it is possible

in the murmuring din of that collective loyalty

for the body to forget what it once loved.

A mouth on the mouth becomes a story mouth.

It’s what they think they knew—what the body knew

alone, better than it ever knew anything.

Without devotion, his every gesture—

how he slouched in the family pantry, his fingers

curled into a fist, the small things he said

while waiting for water to boil—

becomes potentially hilarious.  Lucky for him

the body, sometimes, refuses translation,

that often it will speak, secretly,

in its own voice, and insist, haplessly,

on its acquired tastes.  Without devotion, it might

stand among them and listen, laughing,

but look, how the body clenches,

as the much discussed smoke intermittently clears.

It has remembered the man standing, wearing

his winter coat.

Watch how it tears from the table, yapping, ferocious

in its stupid inarticulate joy.

Howe is right.  Without devotion, most things become trivial or ridiculous.  I’m a church organist/accompanist.  If I don’t devote myself to several hours of practice each week, I know the results will be hilarious.  Or horrendous.  Either way, it will have people telling stories for quite a while.

I don’t think my son will have as difficult a transition to college next fall as I had when I was 17.  My son’s been taking college classes since his junior year of high school.  This past semester, he took an asynchronous online cyber security course.  That means that the entire class was virtual, with no in-class meetings.  My son pretty much had to teach himself everything, with email guidance from his instructor.  He had most of the semester’s work completed within the first month.  After that, he just had a research paper to write.  And he never came to me for help or advice.

Here’s how I know my son is going to do alright transitioning to college in September:  he got an A in the asynchronous class, and the instructor reached out to my son’s advisor to say my son was one of the best students he’s had in years.  My son devoted himself to doing well in the class, and that devotion payed off.

As most of my faithful disciples know, my son really struggled in elementary and middle school. Lots of bullying.  Lots of fights and visits to the principal’s office.  Five years ago, I wasn’t even sure my son was going to graduate—he hated school that much.  He just doesn’t learn the way most kids do.  And he struggled with suicidal depression and ADHD, as well.  By the time he hit eighth grade, he’d already been labeled a “bad kid.”  My wife and I had to make a change for our son, or he would have suffered for four years (if he didn’t drop out completely).  

So, we enrolled him in a local alternative high school.  He got a 4.0 GPA the first semester of his freshman year.  He went from almost failing every course in middle school to being an honor roll student his whole high school career.  That sad, isolated, and angry adolescent has became a happy, social, and accomplished young adult.  

Devotion pays off.  My wife and I were devoted to helping our son succeed.  My son was devoted to doing well in school (once he was in an educational environment where he felt safe and supported).  Without devotion, I don’t think I’d be sending out graduation announcements this week.  My son is one of the resilient people I know, even during his traumatic middle school years.  He could have simply given up on education, but he didn’t.  He stuck it out and found a place where he was accepted and respected.

CUE:  “Pomp and Circumstance”

And now, in a little over a week, he’s going to be walking into an auditorium in cap and gown, and he’s going to walk out with a diploma in his hand.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about resilience for tonight . . . 

Midnight Thunderstorm

by: Martin Achatz

1.

Nobody thought the radiated soil

of Hiroshima would green again,

predicted years of charcoal and hunger.

Yet, mere months after the bomb, oleander

blushed in the ruins, pink as first breath,

reclaiming ashes from armageddon, showing

us all how the world could begin again.

2.

Last night, I listened to a storm

roll through the dark like a panzer,

all wind and rumble, accompanied

by artillery fire rain on the roof.

Flashes of lightning strobed the bedroom

walls and ceiling, and I understood

why ancient people divined famines

and droughts and wars and plagues

from the heavens.  This morning, 

I smelled mud, saw worms fat and drowned

on the sidewalk.  Everything was bejeweled

with water:  pines, grasses, mailboxes.

The world was a bright, new diamond.