March 17, 2026: “The Maples,” Saint Patrick’s Day Storm, “I Believe in Ghosts”

Greetings, faithful disciples!

This past weekend has been pretty wild.  In the past seven days, my little piece of the Upper Peninsula endured three winter storms.  The last was the worst—a two-day blizzard that dumped almost four feet of snow in about 36 hours.  If you do the math, that’s a little less than two inches per hour.  Couple that with almost 70 mile an hour wind gusts, six- and seven-foot-tall snowdrifts, and (in some places) thunder, and you get an idea of what life has been like for a majority of Yoopers.

According to all the old timers, Saint Patrick’s Day always ushers in a really big snow event in the U.P.  This year, Pat outdid himself.  Most meteorologists are using the adjective “historic” to describe what we’ve just been through.  We haven’t had a storm approaching this strength since 1997.  That’s about 30 years ago.  This summer, I’m sure some innovative entrepreneur will be selling tee shirts with the slogan “I Survived the Winter of ‘26” all over the place.  I know I’m going to be haunted by the memory of this little storm for quite some time.

Marie Howe is haunted by Mother Nature . . . 

The Maples

by: Marie Howe

I asked the stand of maples behind the house,

How should I live my life?

They said, shhh shhh shhh . . . 

How should I live, I asked, and the leaves seemed to ripple and gleam.

A bird called from a branch in its own tongue,

And from a branch, across the yard, another bird answered.

A squirrel scrambled up a trunk

then along the length of a branch.

Stand still, I thought,

See how long you can bear that.

Try to stand still, if only for a few moments, 

drinking light     breathing.

It’s not easy—just standing perfectly still in a moment.  Paying attention.  Breathing.  There’s this human impulse to talk, move, act.  We all have it.  Think about an uncomfortable pause in a conversation.  If you’re anything like me, you want to jump in.  Fill the void.  Silence makes us antsy.  

Tonight was the first time I’ve been out of my house (except to move snow) since Saturday evening.  My wife and I had dinner and drinks with two of our best friends.  In my last post, I wrote about the tension of waiting for the blizzard to begin; on Saturday, wherever I went, everyone I encountered seemed on edge, as if waiting for some kind of mass extinction event.  At the pub this evening, everyone was smiling, singing, laughing.  When I ordered my drink, the bartender said to me, “We all deserve this after what we’ve just been through.”

For three or so days, we’ve all been hunkered down in our homes, listening to the wind howl outside.  That’s a long time to be still for anyone.  But we had no choice.  Even the plows were getting stuck in ten-foot-high snowdrifts.  

What did I do during my hunkering down?  I watched Ken Burns’ three-part documentary on the life of Ernest Hemingway; I’ve kinda been on a Hemingway kick recently.  And I worked on some poems.  And I thought a lot about ghosts (my sisters, parents, brother, best friend).  I was so haunted by memories that I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday because I thought I heard my sister Sally call my name, and I found myself crying for no specific reason.  (I was watching a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert, and I started weeping when they sang “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”)

I think ghosts are around us all the time.  The dead find their voices through maple trees, birdcalls, blizzards, old songs.  They remind us to pay attention to everything.  Live in the moment and breathe.

That’s what I did during this extended weekend of snow and wind.  I listened to my ghosts.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight . . ,

I Believe in Ghosts

by: Martin Achatz

Not the kind that appear on the battlements 

of Elsinore seeking revenge.  Or the kind

that dance to “Sir Roger de Coverly” with

the Fezziwigs, or fill 124 Bluestone Road

with baby venom.  No.  My ghosts sit

with me as I write these words, guide

my nib across a white sheet of paper

until I hear their voices in my ear, 

like mosquitoes on a July night.  All ghosts

really want is recognition.  That’s why they

hide car keys or push books off shelves

or slam doors.  My 17-year-old son

does the same thing.  He just wants

to be seen, heard.  Here he is now,

haunting the final line of this poem.

March 14, 2026: “The Forest,” Calm Before, “When My Sister Died”

Well, here I sit at home, waiting for the Blizzard to begin.  NOTE:  the capital “B” is intentional.

I’ve seen several social media posts from meteorologists calling this storm “historic.”  You know when the National Weather Service’s watches and warnings are measuring snow in feet versus inches you’re pretty much fucked.  Since a day or so ago, everything I’ve read has said, “Expect one to three FEET.”  I’ve even seen some forecasts saying four feet isn’t out of the question.

So, my wife and I did everything we could to prepare today for what’s coming.  We went grocery shopping this morning.  I hit the laundromat this afternoon.  Pretty much all the churches in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have already canceled Sunday services.  (Except the Catholics.  Go figure.)  Thus, I don’t have to play tomorrow morning.  (I was scheduled to play at a Lutheran church.)

Everywhere I went today, I could feel a kind of tension, as if everyone knows a war is going to start tomorrow and we’re all just enjoying our last day of peace before the bombs start falling.  (Now, if I worked in the White House, I’d be blaming this storm on the Democrats.)  Right now, it’s literally and proverbially the calm before the storm.  Up until about an hour ago, the sky was painfully blue, not a cloud in sight.  Will there be a power outage?  Is my dog going to crap in the house instead of going outside?  Are the trees in my backyard going to survive?  Is my roof strong enough to support three or four feet of snow?

Answer:  I don’t know.

It’s difficult living in this state of anticipation.  A friend just texted me:  “Fuck this shit,  Just bring it on.”

Marie Howe goes for a walk in the woods . . . 

The Forest

by: Marie Howe

A mast year for acorns, so like marbles and so many

we’re afraid of falling.  I walk sideways

down the hill, holding a long stick; Kate goes before me

wearing her orange knit cap.

The broken trees lean on the unbroken trees

which will one day be broken.

Howe is afraid of falling.  She’s also concerned about the unbroken trees, knowing full well they will eventually give way, either under the weight of the already broken trees or (maybe) because of a blizzard with 60 mile per hour winds.

I have lived through many tough winters in the U.P.  This particular blizzard is, I believe, the third one we’ve had this winter:  one right before Thanksgiving, one right after Christmas, and now one right before Saint Patrick’s Day.  And, at the moment, no single meteorologist (from television to the National Weather Service) will say whether it’s going to be one foot or four feet of snow.  Last time I checked, there’s a big difference between 12 inches and 48 inches.

I know I will be shoveling a lot tomorrow.  And the next day,  And the next.  Until about Tuesday evening, my snow scoop is going to be my best friend.  (If you don’t know what a snow scoop is, you are definitely NOT from the U.P.  Google it.)  That is about the only certainty I have tonight.  Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

Maybe we’ll get three feet of snow, or maybe we won’t.  Maybe trees will fall, or maybe they won’t.  Maybe the electricity will stay on, or maybe it won’t.  Maybe Michael B. Jordan will win an Oscar tomorrow night, or maybe he won’t.  That’s a lot of maybes.

Saint Marty wrote a haiku for this evening about something he never expected . . . 

When My Sister Died

by: Martin Achatz

she left as sunlight

unzipped night, let the creamy

breast of morning breathe

March 8, 2026: “The Letter, 1968,” Daylight Savings Time, “Poem in which I Take Myself Too Seriously”

I do think that our world is too fast.  Human beings are addicted to speed.  We want the fastest cars, fastest phones, fastest way to make money.  Emails have given way to text messaging to Twitter to Snapchat to Instagram to whatever the nextest, fastest app will be.  Pretty soon, time is going to seem arbitrary, if not outmoded.

I say this on the first day of Daylight Savings Time in the United States.  The clocks moved ahead one hour at two this morning, and now I have to try somehow to conclude today an hour ahead of the time I concluded yesterday.

I tend to indulge in pastimes and activities that force me to slow down:  writing this blog posts and poems, watching Ken Burns documentaries, reading long books.  watching the entire Godfather series (including the third one).  And writing letters. 

Marie Howe waits for some correspondence . . . 

The Letter, 1968

by: Marie Howe

That he wrote it with his hand and folded the paper

and slipped it into the envelope and sealed it with his tongue

and pressed it closed so I might open it with my fingers.

That he brought it to the box and slipped it through the slot

so that it might be carried through time and weather to where

I waited on the front porch step.

                              (We knew how to wait then—it was what life was,

much of it.)  So, when the mailman came up the walk and didn’t have it

he might have it the next day or the next when it bore the mark

of his hand who had written my name, so I might open it and read

and read it again, and then again, and look at the envelope he’d sealed 

and press my mouth to where his mouth had been.

Yes, as Howe demonstrates, writing or receiving letters is a sacred experience.  It takes time to sit with paper and pen, recording your thoughts.  And it takes time for the letter to be delivered to its intended audience.  There’s something incredibly intimate in this whole process.

Every week, I write a letter to my daughter.  I start composing it on Monday, finish it on Friday.  One page a day.  This practice helps me to feel connected, even though she lives about six hours away.  And I revel in the time it takes to put my thoughts down on paper.  It slows me down, if only for a half hour or so.  And my days seem less frantic.

The whole world would be a better place if everyone wrote letters, I think.  Think about it.  Say a world leader wants to start a war.  If that world leader were forced to sit down and articulate the reasons behind said war, with pen and paper, perhaps the conflict would be resolved peacefully instead.  (I’m not referring to any world leader in particular.  I swear I’m not.)

For me, writing allows me to meditate.  For however long it takes, I’m living solely in the present moment.  Noticing birds singing outside my window.  The sunrise turning a window into fire.  Icicles drip, drip, dripping.  A rainbow of oil in a puddle.  All these tiny, daily miracles.

I tend to be too serious sometimes, focused on the brokenness of humankind.  Let’s face it:  people can be assholes.  And assholes simply fuck up the world.  They start wars.  Destroy the environment.  Hurt innocent people.  Propagate hatred and cruelty.  It’s hard not to wallow in this cesspool.

Yet, for every asshole out there, there are 20 or 30 really cool people, too.  I tend to forget this fact.  My life has been blessed by cool people, and I hope those cool people think of me as a blessing, as well.  That’s my goal.  

I write my daughter letters to remind her she’s loved.  And that she’s cool.  I write these blog posts to remind my readers that they are loved.  And are pretty cool, too.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight to prove that he has a sense of humor . . .

 

Poem in which I Take Myself Too Seriously

by: Martin Achatz

I sit with pen in hand for 20

minutes, search for something

serious to write about:  war, poverty,

maybe fascism or immigration.

The biggies.  But, as I eat my

hardboiled eggs, sip my blueberry

smoothie after this soul and conscience

inventory, all I want to say is that

I added too much salt to my eggs

and my tongue feels like an open

wound, a little raw, hot.  Maybe 

this is how every morning should

begin:  with a reminder that too much

of anything (love, righteous anger,

hope, hunger, salt) can hurt.  Or

maybe I just need more coffee.

February 28, 2026: “What the Earth Seemed to Say, 2020,” Endings/Beginnings, “Mother’s Dementia”

Greetings on this last day of February.

I know that this month is the shortest of the year, but these 28 days have felt like 28 years (or centuries—take your pick).  Winter storms.  Iced-up roofs and windows.  Sick puppy.  And, yesterday, I had a tooth pulled.  The hits just kept on coming.

You may think I’m crazy, but I kind of miss the forced isolation of the pandemic.  That time was slower, less hectic.  The world even did better—air pollution dissipated; carbon footprints became carbon shadows; countries came together to fight for global health; and (with the exception of MAGA morons) people were just nicer, willing to help each other out.

Marie Howe reflects on the pandemic . . . 

What the Earth Seemed to Say, 2020

by: Marie Howe

Do you still believe in borders?

Birds soar over your maps and walls, and always have.

You might have watched how the smoke from your own fires

travelled on wind you couldn’t see

                                                   wafting over the valley

and up and over the hills and over the next valley and the next hill.

Did you not hear the animals how and sing?

Or hear the silence of the animals no longer howling?

Now you know what it is to be afraid.

You think this is a dream?  It is not

a dream.  You think this is a theoretical question?

What do you love more than what you imagine is your singular life?

The water grows clearer.  The swans settle and float there.

Are you willing to take your place in the forest again?

To become loam and bark, to be a leaf falling from a great height,

to be the worm who eats the leaf,

and the bird who eats the worm?  Look at the sky—are you

willing to be the sky again?

You think this lesson is too hard for you.

You want the time-out to end.  You want

to go to the movies as before, to sit and eat with your friends.

It can end now, but not in the way you imagine.  You know

the mind that has been talking to you for so long, the mind that

can explain everything?  Don’t listen.

You were once a citizen of the country called:  I Don’t Know,

Remember the boat that brought you there?  It was your body.  Climb in.

I love the idea of living in a land called I Don’t Know.  It conjures up the Keats and his concept of negative capability—the idea of suspending judgement about something in order to understand it.  Basically, it’s about accepting uncertainty without obsessively searching for an answer.  The pandemic was a time of great uncertainty.  Nobody had the answers. People who really can’t live with uncertainty turned to conspiracy theories instead—about COVID’s origins and mask protocols and vaccines.

WARNING;  This post is about to become political.

And now we are entering another time of great uncertainty, thanks to President #47’s war of choice against Iran.  One day after President Bill Clinton and Secretary Hillary Clinton were deposed about Jeffery Epstein by the House Oversight Committee (and the Clintons’ calls for #47 to be deposed, too), suddenly the United States and Israel are bombing Iran.  Coincidence?

I’ve been struggling not to get supremely pissed.  I guess I just want the simpler day-to-day that the pandemic offered.  Everyone was too wrapped up in not getting sick.  Sure, there was political division (unavoidable, considering the United States was being led by President Narcissist), but what I remember most is being really close (physically and emotionally) with the people I love most.

It wasn’t all sunshine and hand sanitizer, though.  During the pandemic, I lost my mother and one of my sisters.  Like so many others in the world, I was grieving.  My mom spent the entire pandemic in a nursing home.  She was already suffering from Alzheimer’s and macular degeneration prior to 2020, so there was a year where none of my family was able to be with her.  I still experience quite a bit of guilt about how little I saw her in her last years.

Human beings, as a whole, don’t deal well with endings/beginnings.  We don’t want to say “goodbye,” and we don’t want our comfortable lives to be disturbed, either.  Pandemics and wars do both of those things—they disrupt and cause loss.  

However, times of difficulty can also bring people closer together.  I think, in the days and weeks to come, this new war is going to unite citizens of the U. S. and the world, but not in the way that #47 is anticipating.  There WILL be marches and parades and headlines.  I’m positive about that.  But I’m not so sure that President #47 and his stooges are going to enjoy those events.  In fact, I’m positive they won’t.

People are going to come together.  Count on it.  They did during the Boston Tea Party.  And Women’s Suffrage.  And the Civil Rights Movement.  And the Vietnam War.  And Watergate.  And Black Lives Matter.  And REAL change happened.

That gives me hope.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about his mother . . . 

Mother’s Dementia

by: Martin Achatz

She slowly became a Picasso painting.