June 18: "Cornish," Pasties, "Heat Wave"

Billy Collins must not be a fan of pasties . . . 

Cornish

by: Billy Collins

Would someone

please translate

her long memoir

into a language

almost no one speaks

or understands anymore?

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where I live, is a place where a lot of Cornish families settled, mainly because of the mining industry.  During the 18th century, the Cornish were considered to be the best hard rock miners in the world (Cornwall being the global hub of mining at the time), so it's no surprise that they came to this region to work in the copper and iron mines.  

Hence the fact that the U.P. is also famous for, among other things, its pasties (a Cornish specialty).  Because these meat pies were portable and provided a full meal (bread, meat, potatoes, vegetables), Cornish miners packed them in their lunch buckets as they headed belowground to work.  Nowadays, you can't drive through a city, village, or town in the Upper Peninsula without finding at least one pasty shop.

So, the heritage of Cornwall, if not the language, is alive and well in my neck of the woods.  I am not of Cornish stock.  I'm a mixture of English and German, mostly.  My sister worked for the mines, but my ancestors did not.  However, I grew up eating pasties and hearing stories of mining disasters like the Barnes-Hecker collapse.  

Today was the first really hot day of the summer, with high temperatures and humidity.  Stepping outside, I almost felt like a baking pasty.  I'm not complaining.  Given the choice between 20 below zero and 90 degrees, I'll take 90 any day.  I love hot weather.  Of course, I was in an air-conditioned library most of the time.

I hosted a poetry reading at the library this evening for three poet friends who've recently released books.  It was a wonderful event, full of great poetry.  And a ton of people showed up.  If I sound surprised, I was.  Usually, poetry doesn't garner all that much enthusiasm from the general public.  Yet, there were only a few empty seats in the audience tonight, and, afterward, everyone just hung around, talking, laughing, and buying books.  I almost felt bad rushing people out the door into the heat at 8:30 p.m. when the library closed.

Now, I'm sitting on my couch at around 11:30 p.m., unable to sleep, thinking of those Cornish miners riding those elevators down into the mine shafts.  How, even at the height of summer, they were surrounded by the cool and damp of the earth.  I wonder if it felt like being buried alive every day.  Maybe, as they worked, they sang Cornish songs or recited Cornish poems and nursery rhymes.

And now Saint Marty is hungry for one of his mother's pasties.

Heat Wave

by: Martin Achatz

A wasp nest nestles

under the eave of my garage,

a paper fist clenched so tightly

its gray knuckles sizzle

in the frying pan of June.