"I have no cramps," he said. "He'll be up soon and I can last. You have to last. Don't even speak of it."
He kneeled against the bow and, for a moment, slipped the line over his back again. I'll rest now while he goes out on the circle and then stand up and work on him when he comes in, he decided.
It was a great temptation to rest in the bow and let the fish make one circle by himself without recovering any line. But when the strain showed the fish had turned to come toward the boat, the old man rose to his feet and started the pivoting and the weaving pulling that brought in all the line he gained.
I'm tireder than I have ever been, he thought, and now the trade wind is rising. But that will be good to take him in with. I need that badly.
I am tired. I'm not sure if I'm tireder than I have ever been, but I'm pretty damn tired.
I've been reflecting a lot on the life I've led, career-wise. I've held a lot of jobs. Aside from summer work I did during my undergraduate and graduate school years, I've stuck with the jobs that I've had for a long time. I worked as a part-time bookseller for close to five or so years. I was part of the healthcare industry for over 25 years (20 for an outpatient surgery center, five for a cardiology office). I've been a contingent English professor going on 30 years. And I have been a church organist since I was 18 years old. (Not going to say how many years that is--but it's a LONG time.)
I still hold down about four jobs in order to pay my bills. Barely. And that is my point today. In a country that is supposed to be the wealthiest in the world--where, supposedly, hard work is rewarded--people shouldn't have to work four jobs in order to survive. There's something obscenely wrong about that.
Those of you who know me personally would never call me lazy, I think. Granted, I chose to study English and poetry. However, I have been working consistently for the same university, year-after-year, for three decades, and I am still considered part-time with no possibility of full-time employment. On top of that, I work full-time for a public library. I write $20,000 grants. I teach community poetry workshops. And I clean churches in the evening, after I've hosted concerts and readings for the library.
Just typing all that makes me tired.
Yet, there are billionaires in this country who pay less in taxes than I do. This is because our country is run by rich, privileged millionaires who have never pushed a broom or cleaned a toilet or flipped a burger their whole lives. I'm not a big fan of politics or politicians. Democrat or Republican. Anyone who gets paid upwards of $200,000, with really great, cheap medical insurance, shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about minimum wage and healthcare and welfare.
There shouldn't be homeless people in our country. Or starving people. Or people dying because they can't get proper healthcare. There shouldn't be billionaires. No single person should have more money than a third-world country. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, estimates the cost of ending hunger in the United States to be $25 billion. Jeff Bezos' net worth is $184.5 billion. That means that Jeff could end homelessness and hunger in the United States and still be worth $139.5 billion.
Think about that when you are dragging yourself home from work with swollen feet and an aching back.
Okay, Saint Marty is putting away his angry eyes now.
And a Lenten poem for today . . .
by: Martin Achatz
I heard His voice in that cold place,
Calling me from darkness to light.
I left my bed of stone, stepped back
To sun and hunger and need. My sisters,
Martha, Mary, their need for me,
Strong as ten thousand hippo-lionesses
Of Egypt, pregnant with pyramids,
Returned me to flesh and muscle,
Blood, dates, bread still warm
From the fire in a bowl of bone.
They fill me with want,
Have made me thirsty and tired again,
Cold at night, under moon, stars.
Neighbors avoid me like the leper, afraid
Of stories I may tell of endless dark,
The taste of death in my mouth
Like unclean meat. But I have nothing
To tell them. No conversations
With Moses, Elijah. No valleys
With souls piled like grain
On the threshing floor. I have
The itch of sand in my hair
The ache in my loins for woman.
The constant call of my body for
The meat of lamb, cool wine, water.
And the work of breath, in, out, in, out.
I would trade it all for one more minute
In that cave, away from the urge
To lift my face and hands and voice,
To hope, to sing a psalm of human
Longing to the blue and empty heavens.
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