February 21: Beautiful Landscape, God's Love Number Four, W. Todd Kaneko, "Selected Legends of Andre the Giant," New Cartoon

In 1974, in a kind of compromise, [Ives and his wife] bought a modest ranch-style house with big picture windows set out at the edge of a field near, Hudson, New York.  During the summers on the weekends they would go up to the place upstate, and she would spend her mornings out in the yard gardening, in a big sun hat, white butterflies floating around her, or sit in the shade reading; or else out in the yard with an easel and watercolors, making paintings of the beautiful landscape, often saying little to Ives all day.

Ives is a professional artist.  Annie dabbles in art and literature.  Near the end of the novel, they will rekindle their love, journeying to England and collaborating on a book about Charles Dickens, she doing the writing, he, the illustrations.  Art, music, books are some of the guiding forces of their lives.

This morning, I got up early to shovel my driveway.  It was a beautiful winter morning.  Not too cold.  The sky was a blue so brilliant that it would have made Paul Newman's eyes look like marsh water.  And there were birds singing.  I'm not sure what kind of birds, but, as I scraped up the snow, it almost felt like a morning in May, alive and blossoming.  I actually stopped and said a little thank you prayer.  For the birdsong.  For the sunlight.  For the blue of the sky.  For being alive in the morning cold.

That was around 8:30 this morning.  Like Annie, I wanted to take out an easel and paint a landscape,  Capture the moment, so that any time I questioned God's love for me, all I would have to do is look at that canvas.

That's God's love number four for Saint Marty.

Now, a final Todd Kaneko poem.

Selected Legends of Andre the Giant

by:  W. Todd Kaneko

13.
After the dinosaurs fell
asleep, after those terrible lizards
began their slow decay into mythology,
Andre the Giant was there to cradle
their bodies in his soft hands and weep.

24.
Andre the Giant wrestled the Earth
into a globe, carved his name into the ocean
floor with his pinky to remind the whales
who taught them to sing.

32.
Andre the Giant was a village.
Then he became a dragon.
Then he became an army.
Then he became a king.
Now, he is the wind.

40.
A man can't bodyslam Andre the Giant
unless he's worthy of slaying a monster, unless
the giant decides it's time to lie down.

58.
Andre the Giant stole fire from Heaven,
hid it in his mouth, fed it to monkeys
one lick at a time until they learned
to pronounce his name.

67.
Before there were boys with magic
beanstalks, with slingshots or singing
swords, Andre the Giant brawled
with sooty angels, volcanoes spouting
from where he buried their hearts.

75.
Andre the Giant scaled the Empire
State Building with Marilyn Monroe
in one hand, Cleopatra in the other.
They marveled at how small we are.

81.
Andre the Giant once cracked the sky's ribs.
Then he was thunder churning like trout.
Then he was an avalanche of fists and knees.
Then he was a fire burning through the forest.
Then he was a tidal wave seething offshore.
Now, he will not be a metaphor.

93.
When Andre the Giant pitched a man
over the top rope and out into the crowd,
he aimed at the moon.

100.
A man never tells a lie, always treats a promise
like his mother's name.  Andre the Giant
once threw a silver dollar across the Potomac,
hit a buffalo in the eye and killed it as it grazed.

116.
Andre the Giant drank three bottles of whiskey
and grappled with the Devil in a bingo hall
in Memphis.  Then he invented the blues.

125.
On television, Andre the Giant grinned
with a mouthful of shark's teeth.  He devoured
mortal men ten-at-a-time, laughed and spit
their bones into our living rooms.

137.
Andre the Giant was a Frenchman.
Then he became an ogre.
Then he became a movie star.
Now, he is the constellations.
All of them.

Confessions of Saint Marty