April 7, 2026: “The Singularity,” War, “Up from the Grave”

I spent most of today worrying about war.

This morning, #47 said that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”  Yes, you read that correctly.  The President of the United States threatened to bomb Iran—infrastructure, power plants, schools, men, women, children.  In case you don’t know, that’s genocide.  And a war crime.  World leaders have been put in prison and executed for shit like this.  If you don’t believe me, read up on the Nuremberg trials.

Marie Howe writes about the beginning (and end) of the universe . . . 

The Singularity

(after Stephen Hawking)

by: Marie Howe

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity

we once were

so compact nobody 

needed a bed, or good or money

nobody hiding in the school bathroom

or home alone

pulling open the drawer

where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good

belongs to you.  Remember?

There was no Nature.     No

them.    No tests

to determine if the elephant

grieves her calf.   of if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed

oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up to what we were

when we were ocean,    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was

liquid, and stars were space, and space was not

at all—nothing,

before we came to believe humans were so important

before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?

What once was?    Before anything happened?

No  I, no we, no was

no verb.       no noun

only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is  is  is  is  is

All  everything  home.

No I or we or was, Howe writes.  Human beings are really good at killing each other.  We’ve been practicing it for a few millennia.  Cain killed Abel, and that got the ball rolling.  Now, we have a demented sociopath who said he was going to kill an entire country.  He backed off tonight and set another deadline (two weeks from now).  So Armageddon is on hold for another 14 days.

The question is:  are we at the beginning or the end?  

I’m not sure.  Any other President of the United States (Democrat or Republican) would have already been impeached and removed.  Yet, #47 is still in the Oval Office.  For now.  We have two weeks to do something before we’re back in the same boat.

If you still support this deranged Hitler wannabe, please stop reading this post now.  Ya ain’t gonna like it.  When Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Green say that it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment, you know there’s something seriously wrong.  

I’m not sure about the endgame.  Optimistically, in the next two weeks, Congress does its job:  impeachment and removal.  Or the 25th Amendment is invoked.  Or another stroke occurs.  Let’s not kid ourselves, though:  the current Vice President isn’t fit to serve in the Oval Office, either.  (Currently, he’s schmoozing with Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister/dictator of Hungary.). Where does that leave us?

It leaves us living in a country run by war criminals.

Saint Marty wrote this poem on Easter Sunday . . . 

Up from the Grave

by: Martin Achatz

Ham.  Mustard.  Bread.  Dad’s Easter salvation.

April 4, 2026: “Hymn,” Easter Vigil, “Holy Saturday”

In past years, I would be in church right now, sitting on an organ bench.  If you’ve never attended a Mass before, and you want to get the full Catholic experience, the Easter Vigil is for you.  It’s more Catholic than the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition.  (Yes, I’m probably going to hell for that little joke.)

However, I did not play any church service tonight.  Instead, I did laundry, wrote some poetry, practiced music for Easter morning, and put together some baskets from my son and wife.  (No egg hunt this year, per my 17-year-old son.)  After I’m done typing this post, I’m going to read a little Hemingway.  Maybe watch a movie (The Passion of the Christ perhaps).  There will be plenty of liturgy and singing in my life tomorrow morning.

Marie Howe sings . . . 

Hymn

by: Marie Howe

It began as an almost inaudible hum,

                    low and long for the solar winds

                                        and far dim galaxies,

a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,

                    a song without words for the snow falling,

                                        for snow conceiving snow

conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,

                    the hum turning again higher—into a riff of ridges

                                        peaks hard as consonants,

summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices

                    then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows

                                        the lakes’ skitters surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking

waves, the salt-deep; the warm bodies moving within it;

                    the cold deep; the deep underneath gleaming, some of us rising

                                        as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down

as it turned into dark; as each of us rested—another woke, standing

                    among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;

                                        we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,

left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,

                    in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,

                                        in the mud of the shanty towns, breaking into

harmonies we’d not known possible, finding the chords as we

                    found our true place singing in a million

                                        million keys the human hymn of praise for every

something else there is and ever was and will be

                    the song growing louder and rising.

                                        (Listen, I too believed it was a dream.)

In yesterday’s post, I discussed my dislike for Lenten and Easter hymns, in general.  My opinion was formed through years of being a church musician and choir director.  That doesn’t mean that I hate Eastertide.  Quite the contrary.  I have wonderful childhood memories of receiving immense, chocolate-filled baskets.  And there was always a note attached; I was one of those kids who wrote to Santa and the Easter Bunny.  Didn’t want to take any chances.  The notes from Mr. Bunny were always signed with a big, black paw print.

Even though it’s only 9:34 p.m., our Easter baskets have already been delivered.  I can smell the chocolate from where I’m sitting on the couch.  Of course, I’m tempted to grab something, but I will hold strong until tomorrow morning.  Then I will allow myself to eat one Cadbury Creme Egg before heading off to church.  It’s a little tradition I’ve established over the years. 

This afternoon, I practiced the musical pieces I have to play for church tomorrow morning.  I was pleasantly surprised that I knew every single hymn.  I also went to do laundry at the laundromat, thinking it would not be too busy.  (I was wrong.). Every single washer and dryer were in use when I arrived.  I had to wait a couple minutes to get my loads going.

Overall, it has been a blessedly quiet Easter Eve.  And for that, I say, “Amen.”

Saint Marty wrote a poem at the laundromat this afternoon . . . 

Holy Saturday

by: Martin Achatz

I know

I will make mashed potatoes

with a pound of butter

a full carton of heavy whipping cream

plenty of salt

I know

I will also make Stove Top

a lot of it, because it’s my son’s favorite

I know

my son expects a basket

in the morning, full of Cadbury and Reeses

sweet resurrection

I know

people will gather in church tonight

candles and incense and dark

so dark mothers could lose kids in it

I know 

it is spring in Austria

my Austrian friend told me

mountains and fields shouting

Hallelujah!

I know

my Christmas tree is still

blazing in my living room

like Easter morning

April 3, 2026: “The Willows,” Triduum, “Good Friday”

I only get to write this once a year—happy Good Friday!

Yes, Lent is over., and were are in the middle of the Triduum of the Christian calendar.  Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  (Pretty much all services—aside from the Catholic ones—were canceled yesterday due to a snow and ice storm.)  I did not go to church yesterday.  Today, however, I played two Good Friday commemorations, one Catholic and one Lutheran.

I have to be honest.  Lenten and Easter music just don’t excite me.  I’ve been a church musician for close to 40 years now (started playing pipe organ when I was 17 years old), and I still dread Ash Wednesday with all its minor keys and dirges.  I know Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation and sacrifice, headed toward the loudness and light of Easter morning, but I won’t cry if I never have to play “O Sacred Head Surrounded” or “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” again.  (Let me stress:  I’m against the crappy hymns and music of Lent and Easter, NOT the seasons themselves.)  You would think that, after 21 centuries, churches might have come up with a few good pieces of liturgical Eastertide music.

Now, before I start getting comments from angry churchgoers listing favorite Lent and Easter tunes, I will say that, given the choice between the funereal ditties of Lent and the overwrought anthems of Easter, I will choose the overwrought.  I can get into a rousing chorus of “Up From the Grave He Arose” as much as the next Christian, but it’s just so . . . ostentatious is the word I’m looking for, I guess.  I prefer subtlety.  What can I say?  I’m a poet.

Marie Howe gives us a subtle poem today . . . 

The Willows

by: Marie Howe

As we are made by what moves us,

willows pull the water up into their farthest reach

which curves again down

divining where their life begins.

So, under travels up, and down and up again,

and the wind makes music of what water was.

A beautiful little poem that packs a lot of joy.  It’s a celebration of “what moves us.”  Water—the one thing we (trees, plants, birds, insects, human beings) all depend upon.  We can go for days without food.  Water, on the other hand, is necessary for survival.  

Howe’s words more to me about Lent and Easter than “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ever has.  Because it’s about the force that sustains and uplifts us.  Even the wind sings a water hymn in the last line.  That’s what this season is about—walking across a desert and finding a cool, fresh running river at the end.  Whether you’re a Christian or not, we can all understand the relief of a glass of icy water on a hot summer day.  

You see what I’m getting at, I hope.  For me, Lent and Easter aren’t about the ashes and bells and incense and chants.  This season is about being offered a hose to slurp from after sweating in the fields all day long (metaphorically speaking).  

There’s another ice storm blowing in tonight.  I’m sure the grocery stores in the area were jammed with people trying to get their last-minute Easter shopping done prior to the freezing rain.  Think Black Friday, but everyone is fighting over hams and baskets and Cadbury Creme Eggs.  My wife and I did our final shopping last weekend.  We’re not planning on going out a whole lot tomorrow.  (I may hit the laundromat, but that’s about it.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem during one of his Good Friday services today . . . 

Good Friday

by: Martin Achatz

I sit,

listen

to this

familiar

story of betrayal, love, forgiveness, redemption,

think how my mom, with knees calcified by

arthritis,

knelt in

church every

Good Friday,

knobbed 

knuckles

folded, 

accepted 

her pain

like a kiss 

from her 

dead mother.

April 1, 2026: “Seventy,” April Fool, “Contemplating Old Age”

Nobody tried to make me an April Fool today.  No pranks.  No tall tales.  When I got home from work, my son came down the stairs from his bedroom and said to me, “Celeste says she’s pregnant.”  I didn’t fall for it; I’ve survived too many first days of April.  Perhaps I’ve become jaded in my old age.

Marie Howe writes about getting old . . . 

Seventy

by: Marie Howe

So, I’ve grown less apparent apparently:

The young men walk their dogs, and when our dogs meet

we look at the dogs without raising our eyes to each other.

The fathers stand outside the elementary school laughing

with the mothers—Exactly, one of them says to the other—

my passing presence faded like a well-washed once-blue cotton shirt.

Finally, I can slip through the world without being so adamantly in it.

And look, here comes the blind photographer

walking as he does, his hand resting on the shoulder of his companion.

And now the riot of children pouring through the open school doors.

Late winter, an unseasonably warm afternoon

and the summer ice cream truck at the corner—

cold early March and there it is—playing its familiar kooky tune.

There’s some good things about getting old, according to Howe.  The most important perk:  growing less apparent.  She’s able to walk down the street, pick up her kid from elementary school, and not be viewed as a sexual object, or be noticed at all.  Old age brings anonymity.

I spent most of today working on library stuff for May.  Literally, I sat at my desk for eight hours, typing and pointing and clicking.  The good news is that I actually got a lot of shit done, including all of the programming for May.  Now, sitting and typing this post at 10 p.m., I am exhausted.  

I find I tire more easily now.  I’m not sure if this is a symptom of old age, or if I simply overwork myself on a daily basis.  Plus, I spent a few hours this afternoon and tonight trying to figure out a credit card issue.  (I wasn’t successful.  I’m going to have to call my credit union tomorrow morning.)  I used to be able to get by on about three or four hours of sleep a night.  Not any more.  Now, my goal when I get home is to get in my pajamas as quickly as possible.  Naps have become my favorite pastime.

That’s my wisdom for tonight.  I feel old and tired.  It doesn’t help that it’s Holy Week.  For church musicians, these next seven days are like a fraternity hazing.  If I make it to Sunday afternoon, I will be ready for a long Easter slumber.

Saint Marty even wrote a poem about feeling old . . . 

Contemplating Old Age

by: Martin Achatz

All day I nurse a sour belly, knee ache, back

twinge.  I catalogue yesterday’s events, pray

I haven’t slipped a disc, torn some cartilage.  My

spry days, when I could run five miles, traverse

mountain paths, sleep only two hours  a

night, are long gone, replaced by naps, flour

allergies, piss trips at midnight, a potbelly.

How did I get so old?  It snuck up on me,

the way Christmas sneaks up, with fruitcake,

cards, dead friends and family, all the wrack

time inflicts before your final curtain call.