March 20: Canyon of Clouds, Documentary, Somewhat Intelligent

Santiago falls asleep . . . 

The sky was clouding over to the east and one after another the stars he knew were gone. It looked now as though he were moving into a great canyon of clouds and the wind had dropped.

"There will be bad weather in three or four days," he said. "But not tonight and not tomorrow. Rig now to get some sleep, old man, while the fish is calm and steady."

He held the line tight in his right hand and then pushed his thigh against his right hand as he leaned all his weight against the wood of the bow. Then he passed the line a little lower on his shoulders and braced his left hand on it.

My right hand can hold it as long as it is braced, he thought. If it relaxes in sleep my left hand will wake me as the line goes out. It is hard on the right hand. But he is used to punishment. Even if I sleep twenty minutes or a half an hour it is good. He lay forward cramping himself against the line with all of his body, putting all his weight onto his right hand, and he was asleep.

Santiago needs to rest, but he knows that he may lose the fish if he allows himself to completely relax.  He has to remain vigilant, even when he closes his eyes.

I get Santiago in this passage.  When I get home after working and/or teaching, I rarely rest.  There is always something more to do.  Clean a church.  Grade papers.  Write a blog post.  Work on a poem.  Usually, I am completing a task right up to the point that I crawl into bed.  Even when I put my head on the pillow, my mind still takes several minutes to wind down.

At this point right now, I am pretty spent.  One of my best friends came over to my house today.  He's a poet/musician/filmmaker/artist.  Really talented.  He filmed a documentary about me last year.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A documentary about me.  Marty.  Would-be saint.  Bigfoot poet.  It's titled Bigfoot & Marty.  Watching this movie with my friend this afternoon, I haven't laughed so hard in years.  It really filled my soul with light.

 

I'm not saying it's a good film because of its subject matter.  I'm saying it's a good film because of how my friend assembled it into a cohesive piece of art.  It really captured the flavor of my poems and the whole Bigfoot subculture (which deserves a blog post unto itself).  Plus, I sound somewhat intelligent when I speak.

It was a good way to end a very busy weekend.  Laughter.  A good friend.  Poetry.  

Saint Marty feels a little rejuvenated right now.

And a Lenten poem for this evening . . . 

In Defense of Pluto

by:  Martin Achatz

At Solar System Elementary, Pluto got bullied
Off the playground by bigger planets,
Despite the policy of zero tolerance
Instated a few years ago when Moon
Showed up one morning, eclipsed
Sun with a fist of shadow so hard

She had to go to the nurse's office
For treatment of a bruised solar flare.
The kindergartners in Ms. Copernicus' class
Saw the whole Pluto incident, shook
In their little comet shoes as Neptune,
Uranus, Jupiter caught Pluto by the fence,
Smeared him with cosmic shit left behind
By Mr. Bigbang's schnauzer, Eris,
Chanted over and over "dwarf, dwarf, dwarf"
Until Pluto broke orbit, fled home
In a vacuum. Principal Galileo released
A statement: "Milky Way School District
Will not tolerate any form of bullying,
In outer space or cyberspace. All planets
Will be safe, dwarf, terrestrial, or gaseous,
Regardless of color, shape, orbital orientation."
Pluto remained at home, didn't return
To school. Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter
Were suspended pending further inquiry.
Rallies, parades, candlelight vigils were held
Across the universe, calling for tolerance,
Acceptance, peace among all celestial bodies.