October 19: "The Rabbit," Beautiful Poet Friend, "Ordinary in Rough Draft"

Mary Oliver teaches death a lesson . . . 

The Rabbit

by:  Mary Oliver

Scatterghost,

it can't float away.

And the rain, everybody's brother,

won't help.  And the wind all these days

flying like ten crazy sisters everywhere

can't seem to do a thing.  No one but me,

and my hands like fire,

to lift him to a last burrow.  I wait

days, while the body opens and begins

to boil.  I remember

the leaping in the moonlight, and can't touch it,

wanting it miraculously to heal

and spring up

joyful.  But finally

I do.  And the day after I've shoveled

the earth over, in a field nearby

I find a small bird's nest lined pale

and silvery and the chicks--

are you listening, death?--warm in the rabbit's fur.

This morning, as I usually do at least once a week, I met with a beautiful poet friend to write.  For an hour, we sat across from each other and scribbled in our respective journals.  We both love Mary Oliver--her embrace of the joy and darkness of the universe.  Newborn chicks cradled in the fur of a dead rabbit.

I love when my morning begins with poetry and writing.  It guides my mind to a different place where I recognize the tiny miracles of everyday life.  And that's exactly what happened today.

One of my prompts this a.m. was pretty simple:  write a poem about an "ordinary" day.  

My poet friend and I quickly realized that "ordinary" really doesn't define our lives.  We are both people whose days are a chaotic series of encounters, experiences, and evolutions.  Neither of us really do ordinary often.  So, we struggled with this particular poetic challenge.

Saint Marty came up with something, filled with both joy and darkness.  You be the judge of its ordinariness.

Ordinary in Rough Draft

by:  Martin Achatz

I have to plan for ordinary,

my days usually crowded

with the reach for extraordinary,

sunrises that steer my car

to Lake Superior; mornings

that are filled to the brim 

with forgotten doctor's appointments

or burned toast or lumpy

oatmeal; work days humming

with the kind of urgency

that belongs in emergency

rooms or intensive care units;

bosses who insist the report

needs to be submitted by noon.

Emails.  Deadlines,  Phones

ringing like so many flocks

of seagulls in a frenzy over

spilled French fries.  Then

home, to an evening crammed

with the prep and burn 

for tomorrow's extraordinariness.

A confession:  I don't know 

what ordinary looks like.

Is it a glass of cold milk

and scrambled eggs?  Or

meeting a poet friend for 

some stolen seconds before

the day's chaos descends?  

Or maybe chaos is ordinary.  

Maybe I should write a psalm

for ink in my pen, full charge on my

phone battery.  Maybe ordinary

is that spiderweb outside

the door at work, studded

with diamonds of rain.

It stops me dead for a few

moments to marvel at its

wild, delicate art.