May 26: "The Orchard," Memorial Day Weekend, Ambition

Mary Oliver on apples and time and ambition . . . 

The Orchard

by:  Mary Oliver

I have dreamed

of accomplishment.

I have fed

ambition.

I have traded

nights of sleep

for a length of work.

Lo, and I have discovered

how soft bloom

turns to green fruit

which turns to sweet fruit.

Lo, and I have discovered

all winds blow cold

at last,

and the leaves,

so pretty, so many,

vanish

in the great, black

packet of time,

in the great, black

packet of ambition,

and the ripeness

of the apple

is its downfall.

This season is all about accomplishment, time, and ambition.  Young people graduate from grade school to middle school, middle school to high school, high school to college, and college to whatever awaits.  Outside, the trees graduate from bare to green, and everything begins to open and become sweet.  You can taste ripeness with every deep breath.

It is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, which, in the United States anyway, marks the beginning of the summer season.  For my international disciples, Memorial Day celebrates and honors members of the armed forces who sacrificed their lives in battle.  It's a national holiday in the U.S., although the majority of people overlook or forget its true significance.

I always find this weekend a little melancholy, because it's wrapped up so much in farewells and closing doors and remembrances.  Many tears are shed this time of year.  Perhaps I'm too sensitive, but I can't help it.  I'm a poet and spend a good deal of my time reflecting on shit like this.  

This afternoon, I screened Steven Spielberg's film The Fabelmans at the library where I work.  I first watched this movie in January of this year, when I was stuck at home with COVID.  It's a beautiful piece of art.  Sort of a love letter to cinema and family and growing up and pursuing your dreams.  In short, a perfect celluloid metaphor for what I'm talking about tonight.

Having ambition is a good thing.  Accomplishments are wonderful.  In the larger picture, however, they are also very temporary.  When I graduated from high school, I was voted "Most Likely to Succeed," but nobody defined that success.  When I stepped outside that high school auditorium in my cap and gown, I wanted to be a bestselling author.  Pulitzer Prize winner.  Nobel laureate.  People Magazine's Sexiest Writer Alive.  That was the definition of success.  (By the way, I would have settled for the Pulitzer and the Nobel.)

Tonight, I sit here on the cusp of another summer, and success looks very different to me.  Making enough money to pay all my bills.  Having healthy, happy children.  Writing a new poem every now and then.  Finishing this blog post tonight.  Feeling happy.  Laughing a lot.  That's all success.

As I've gotten older, my ambitions have just become more . . . realistic.  As Oliver says, the riper the apple, the sooner its downfall.  I don't think my apple is ready to fall just yet.  I have a few more things to learn, a little fuel left in my tank.  Every once in a while, I still write something that's not terrible, and eventually I'd like to finish reading Finnegans Wake (although that may be shooting too high).

So, if anybody from the Swedish Academy or Nobel Foundation is reading this blog post, Saint Marty is alive and kicking and waiting for that phone call.