July 4: String of My Tongue, Beautiful Ugly, Ralph Macchio

Merton goes through a period of poetic inspiration . . . 

The new year came, 1941. In its January, I was to have my twenty-sixth birthday, and enter upon my twenty-seventh, most momentous year. 

Already, in February, or before that, the idea came to me that I might make a retreat in some monastery for Holy Week and Easter. Where would it be? The first place that came into my mind was the Trappist abbey Dan Walsh had told me about, in Kentucky. And as soon as I thought about it, I saw that this was the only choice. That was where I needed to go. Something had opened out, inside me, in the last months, something that required, demanded at least a week in that silence, in that austerity, praying together with the monks in their cold choir. 

And my heart expanded with anticipation and happiness. 

Meanwhile, suddenly, one day, towards the beginning of Lent, I began to write poems. I cannot assign any special cause for the ideas that began to crowd on me from every side. I had been reading the Spanish poet, Lorca, with whose poetic vein I felt in the greatest sympathy: but that was not enough, in itself, to account for all the things I now began to write. In the first weeks of Lent, the fasting I took on myself—which was not much, but at least it came up to the standard required by the Church for an ordinary Christian, and did not evade its obligations under some privilege to which I was not entitled—instead of cramping my mind, freed it, and seemed to let loose the string of my tongue. 

Sometimes I would go several days at a time, writing a new poem every day. They were not all good, but some of them were better than I had written before. In the end, I did not altogether reject more than half a dozen of them. And, having sent many of the others to various magazines, I at last had the joy of seeing one or two of them accepted.

I know my last two posts haven't been what you would call uplifting.  We all experience those dark nights (and mornings and afternoons).  That's all part of being human on this little blue third rock from the sun.  The world is a broken place, and sometimes that brokenness can overflow the levees we create to hold it off.  That has happened for me recently.  And Merton, in this passage, is basking in one of those golden moments human beings also experience sometimes--when everything seems to be going perfectly.  Where poetry falls from the sky every day like manna.  

When I started this blog over ten years ago, I envisioned it as a place where I could share both the beautiful and ugly things in my life.  And the beautiful ugly.  Because darkness is defined by light.  One cannot exist without the other.  I may be experiencing a pretty deep darkness right now, but that means that there's also blinding light on the boundaries of that darkness.  I can either focus on the dark, or I can turn my face toward the light.  My choice.

It is Independence Day in the United States, a day where everyone pauses to reflect on the origins of our country.  Like most nations, I come from a place conceived in blood and battle.  Preserved in blood and battle.  In the 245 years since this country has existed, we have been involved in war for 217 of those years.  That's 92% of the time.  Pretty astounding statistic.  

So, it's only natural, living in a country that is so steeped in conflict, to be a little reflective on the meaning of discord and disharmony on the celebration of its birthday.  If you can't tell, I have been dealing with some personal conflict recently.  I'm kind of tired of thinking of all the stupid platitudes that people tell you when you're dealing with difficulties in your life:  "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger" or "God only gives you what He thinks you can handle" or "Give it up to God" or "No sense in worrying about things you have no control over."  I could go on, but you get the idea.

All of those sayings are true.  I know that.  The things is, when you're on the Titanic and it's going down, the only thing you're really thinking is, "Where's the nearest lifeboat?"  Don't tell me to look on the bright side when the ship is sinking.  I know that the world is in a much better place than it was a year ago.  The United States is in much better shape, too.  Last year, no parades or community picnics or fireworks.  This year, it was two days' worth of dump truck convoys, kettle corn, and sparklers in the sky.  

Here is some light in my darkness tonight--my kids are happy and healthy and beautiful; I watched Ralph Macchio kick some Cobra Kai ass in The Karate Kid tonight; I have a vacation day tomorrow; and the fireworks have finally stopped on my street.  Plus, I had a deep-fried turkey dinner with my family tonight.  My problems haven't disappeared by any means.  They will be there tomorrow morning when I wake up, and I will have to force myself to get out of bed, 

Tonight, however, is about freedom and celebration.  Saint Marty will return to his normal programming tomorrow. 

And a poem for today . . . 

Waiting for Independence Day Fireworks 2013

by:  Martin Achatz

On this July 4,
a girl with pink hair
wrestles a pit bull
in the grass as Black Pearl
plays "Stand by Me"
on the bandstand.
The sky touches the ground
with a wide palm
of sun, day clinging
to these last suckling moments,
nursing dusk's green milk.
So much skin and tattoo around,
flesh against flesh.
I smell coconut
from a flock of teenage
girls who whisper and giggle by,
Budweiser and Marlboros
from the boys close behind them.
An old man and woman sit
in lawn chairs to my left,
eat bratwurst, watch
kids loft Frisbees into the darkening
air. When she's down
to her last bite, the old woman
reaches over, feeds it
to the old man, who accepts it,
kisses her fingertips, his lips
smeared with mustard.
Two men appear.
One carries a blanket.
Their hands almost touch
as they walk together.
They spread their blanket
on the ground, the way
my mom and dad
used to spread towels
on the beach in August,
without need for word
or direction, an easy ballet
of arm and hand, crouch,
kneel, an act they'd repeated
so many times it gleamed
like a rock in lake shallows,
polished for years by tides, waves.
Everyone pauses as the men
sit close to each other,
gray heads like twin dandelions
sprouting from a single weed.
They talk, laugh, drink beer
from brown, long-necked bottles.
Soon, we all forget to be shocked
as night overtakes us,
makes us all the same,
one crowd, indivisible,
under stars and moon,
our bodies primed
for the freedom to love
the sky any way we want.