September 14: Best Time, Wedding, Matt Gavin Frank, "For Avery," New Cartoon

"Did you have a good time at the Fair?" she asked as she kissed her daughter.

Fern nodded.  "I had the best time I have ever had anywhere or any time in all of my whole life."

"Well!" said Mrs. Arable.  "Isn't that nice!"

Fern spent the day with Henry Fussy, playing the carnival games, riding the Ferris wheel, sharing cotton candy.  She has become more than a little girl who's content to sit on a stool in her uncle's barn and listen to animals talk.  By the end of Charlotte's Web, Fern has moved into a bigger, wider world.  A world where Henry Fussy is more interesting than her pet pig.


You'll forgive me for not posting yesterday.  My niece got married on Saturday, and I was swept up in the festivities.  I played the pipe organ for the ceremony, and then there was the wedding reception.  Friends, family, salads, cake, and dancing.  By the time I got home last night, I was pleasantly exhausted.

It really was a lovely day.  Seeing two young people so much in love fills me with hope.  The world is in good hands if my niece and her new husband are any indication of the future.  Weddings really are about taking a chance.  Choosing love over cynicism.  Forging a new family, new home, new life in a time that is often ruled by confusion and chaos.

My niece was beautiful.  Her groom looked as if he was a star about to go nova with happiness.  So much joy surrounded me yesterday.  It was impossible not to smile and laugh, dance and clap.  There are few times in life when it's OK just to surrender to goodness.  Yesterday was one of those times.

Saint Marty has a poem about love from Matt Gavin Frank today.

For Avery

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

For all the loving, love.  Like a hanger
with blue wool on it.  Like a blue sheep

mad with sickness, at the moon
for turning colors.  You bear the burden

of reward.  It weighs about four pounds.

Sometimes, the world hides itself behind
the patio furniture in the way-back

of the garage, the big-armed chairs you will,
one summer, improperly stain, puddling

the patio purple like old murder.

For all the new, renew.  Like the library
book on birdfeeders you will desperately

want to save a dollar on.  Like a recipe
for Harissa, or the child who hates

Harissa, and because of this loves you.

Not because of this:  the

stains at your collar,
the spit-up formula smell ringing

your neck with premature lemon.  That special
way you hang your shirts, carefully, to mask

their heartlessness.

For all the hearts in this apartment, sing
circus songs to a newborn.

Confessions of Saint Marty