October 28: Healthier Daughter, Saint Faro, Gifts

Good news.  My daughter is doing much better this morning.  She still has a sore throat, but no fever and tiredness.  In fact, the last time I spoke with her, she was dancing with the Wii game at home.  That tells me she’s feeling much better than she was last night, when all she wanted to do was lie on the floor and moan.

I spent a portion of the morning rewriting my latest poem, the one I posted yesterday.  I wasn’t quite happy with the original ending.  It just didn’t hold together for me.  I’m much more satisfied with the poem now.  It has a lyrical quality it didn’t have before.

I always wonder if any of you disciples give a shit about my struggles with writing and rewriting.  A friend (and regular reader of Saint Marty) told me last night she skips the poems when I include them.  She saw the title “Dissecting Penelope,” but she never read it.  I know poetry isn’t everybody’s thing.  In fact, given the small sales of most books of verse, I’d say poetry is hardly anybody’s thing.  I hope, however, that disciples of my blog don’t get annoyed with my poems. 

For the first year I was posting, I never included any poems.  I was afraid of scaring people away.  Then came this year's Lenten challenge of writing one poem a day, Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.  Since that time, I’ve continued the practice of posting new poems.  It’s helped me to continue writing regularly, and it’s helped me to not fall into the Emily Dickinson trap—you know, becoming agoraphobic and sewing my poems into little books that will be discovered after I die.  I feel like I’m actually writing for someone other than myself.

I also try to keep in mind that God gave me this gift of writing, one of the few gifts I have.  I want to use it as best I can.  That’s the reason I started Saint Marty.  That’s the reason I continue Saint Marty, to somehow make a positive difference in the world with my writing, even if it’s providing students with poems to plagiarize.  (By the way, everything on this blog is copyrighted.) 

One of today’s patron saints, Faro, did the same thing.  No, he didn’t write a blog that cured people of cancer.  No, he didn’t write poems about ecstatic visions of the Virgin Mary doing the “Macarena.”  Faro was raised and lived in royal courts.  He married and was on his way to becoming a typical, seventh-century patrician.  But Faro knew he was destined for something else.  So, he and his wife separated, and he became an ordained monk.  He spent the rest of his life bringing converts to Jesus and caring for the poor.

Faro knew what he had, his wealth and possessions and abilities, weren’t his.  He knew he had to put them to work for God, and that’s what he did, giving up a whole lot of stuff along the way.  Now, I’m not saying I compare in any way with a saint.  I am much too self-centered and materialistic.  Not the kind of person who will surrender his marriage and family and home and chocolate to work on the streets of Calcutta with lepers, if you get my meaning.  However, I do have a little talent with words.  That’s why I include my poems.  I hope they somehow make a difference for somebody out there.

So, if you don’t like poetry, don’t read the poems on the blog.  But if you’re struggling with life in any way, maybe my poems will provide some kind of comfort or solace.  That’s my hope.

Leave Saint Marty a comment.  Let him know what you think about poetry.  Nominate him for some kind of writing award.  A Bloggee, if there is such a thing.

I told you I was materialistic!