Now, I find myself a little melancholy. Sundays often put me in this kind of mood. No particular reason. So far, I've held off the Sunday blues by concentrating on my writing. Now, I don't have that distraction.
Three years ago, I wasn't writing poems. I was preoccupied with something else that was making me feel blue . . .
July 8, 2015: Glorious Life, Smartest Person, Matthea Harvey, "Michelin Man Possessed by William Shakespeare"
Glorious life ending. There must have been a moment when his son had gasped for air, the last time, as Jesus must have. But as Jesus had risen, he wanted his son to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact, and everything to be as it had been not so long ago.
Ives has this thought not long after his son is murdered. Robert's death was so sudden and unexpected. One moment, he was a happy high school senior, planning on entering the seminary. The next moment, he was a statistic of crime and poverty. Ives longs to return to his happier life, wants his son to emerge from his bedroom and say "Hey, pop, what's up?" like old times.
I understand Ives' thinking here. When life changes drastically in a short period of time, nostalgia is a natural reaction. Yes, I'm going to talk about my sister who's ill again. Forgive me. She's on my mind a lot. I get updates daily on her condition at the University of Michigan. I also spend much time thinking how different things were a year ago.
My sister is the smartest person I've ever known, and I've known a lot of smart people. Poets and mathematicians and doctors. My sister could read the manuals for complex pieces of medical equipment and have them memorized. Literally. She knew medical laws and regulations better than any risk manager. People respected her opinions. Trusted her.
For the last four or five days, my sister hasn't been able to talk. Today, she spoke a little. She said part of a prayer with my other sister. The Hail Mary. The words weren't completely clear, but she was obviously responding.
She is never going to be the person she once was. Next week, she is going to have a brain biopsy. Terrifying. The goal of the doctors at the moment is to get her stable enough to come home, I think. Nobody is talking about prognosis right now.
I miss my sister. I miss seeing her at work, sitting in her office, telling people what to do. It's almost as if some other creature is fighting to control her. Like she's possessed by this thing that doesn't want her to eat or drink or talk or think.
Like Ives, Saint Marty wants his sister to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact.
Michelin Man Possessed
by William Shakespeare
by: Matthea Harvey
I've taken many forms over the years,
but this may be the strangest one. I see
through his eyes but cannot shed a tear.
I can feel his feet, but am not free
to leave this spot by the garage. I think
he feels a kind of love for the balloon
who bobs nearby. Each day he sees her sink
an inch. Though I want to tell him of the moon
and slippered feet in marble halls, these tires
at our waist are a mischief. I make believe
they are couplets of rubber, but barbed wire
would be more apt. It's very hard to breathe.
Make us a man, or make us a machine--
but do not leave us trapped here in-between.
And I have a little poem of my own for this warm Sunday evening, from a manuscript I've been working on for a few years . . .
Word Made Flesh
by: Martin Achatz
Lord, make my poem stretch, yawn.
Descend like the Blue Fairy, take
My words, mutter a blessing
Over them, give them muscle, tendon,
Make them pirouette, arabesque
Into a body on the brink of puberty.
Let my words sprout hair in secret
Places, girl chest bloom into orchids
Or boy sapling swell with resin
To fill buckets at Spring’s first blush.
I want my poem to kiss my mouth,
Head out into the world, tote books,
Lunch pail, ready to redeem humankind
Stanza by stanza, line by line,
Syllable by syllable, flesh by flesh.
Lord, did You sit at Your desk,
Scribble Jesus on a scrap of paper,
Then fold it, crease it, origami it
Into legs, arms, head, beard,
Let it walk away from Your pen
Into a world of critics, just waiting
To judge Your line breaks, imagery,
Your turn of phrase, your metaphor?
How much did it hurt when the reviews
Came in, when they took Your poem,
Tore it up, lined their bird cages with it?
Did You think of writing something else?
A sonnet that could bound like an elk,
A villanelle that sang like a loon,
A sestina that wallowed like a bison?
My friend, Lydia, makes paper cranes.
Perhaps You could write some haiku,
Give them to her. She
would take them,
Make neck and beak, body and tail.
She could give them wings, let them fly,
Hear them brush the air like jazz:
Praise, praise, praise, praise.
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