Sunday, June 22, 2025

June 22, 2025: "The Month of June: 13 1/2," Daughter, "Poem for My Daughter Who Is Moving Away"

It's normal for kids to grow up, move out, move away.  I mean, that's a parents do--they raise these creatures, teach them to talk, walk, ride bikes, do arithmetic, spell, drive cars.  Then, one day those creatures spread their arms and fly off.

Sharon Olds writes about her growing daughter . . . 

The Month of June: 13 1/2

by: Sharon Olds

As our daughter approaches graduation and
puberty at the same time, at her
own, calm, deliberate, serious rate,
she begins to kick up her heels, jazz out her
hands, thrust out her hipbones, chant
I’m great! I’m great! She feels 8th grade coming
open around her, a chrysalis cracking and
letting her out, it falls behind her and
joins the other husks on the ground,
7th grade, 6th grade, the
magenta rind of 5th grade, the
hard jacket of 4th when she had so much pain,
3rd grade, 2nd, the dim cocoon of
1st grade back there somewhere on the path, and
kindergarten like a strip of thumb-suck blanket
taken from the actual blanket they wrapped her in at birth.
The whole school is coming off her shoulders like a
cloak unclasped, and she dances forth in her
jerky sexy child’s joke dance of
self, self, her throat tight and a
hard new song coming out of it, while her
two dark eyes shine
above her body like a good mother and a
good father who look down and
love everything their baby does, the way she
lives their love.



Parents basically work themselves out of a job.  That's the name of the game.  That's what Olds is getting at.  She's watching her daughter move from pupa to butterfly, ready to fly off.  It's a heartbreak that's inevitable for most mothers and fathers.

My son is 16.  He's going into his senior year of high school in September.  He's already taking college classes.  My daughter graduated from college about a year-and-a-half ago.  At the beginning of July, she and her significant other will be moving downstate so she can attend medical school.  

Now that President 47 has, in essence, started a war with Iran, I worry for my kids' futures.  Last night, when I heard about the bombing carried out by the United States, my first thought was about my children and the fucking mess they're going to inherit from my generation.

I've been preparing my son and daughter for bright futures, full of hope and possibility.  I've told them they can be anything they want to be.  I'm the son of a plumber, and I teach college, work for a library, and hold two post-graduate degrees.  That's kind of the American dream, isn't it?

My daughter is worried, too.  She wants to be a doctor.  She knows she's going to have to depend on student loans in order to attain her dream.  Now, Republicans are messing around with the funding of higher education.  (President 47 put the dumbest woman on the planet in charge of the Department of Education.)  At a time when she should be focused on moving and classes, she's losing sleep over a feckless President of the United States and a sycophantic Congress.  (If you're a MAGA supporter, go ahead and look up those big words, I'll wait for you.)

All my life I've tried to protect my children from harm (another of a parent's primary responsibilities).  Now, the leaders of my own country have become the enemies, sabotaging the hopes and dreams of millions of young people.  Aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't think we've ever been this close to nuclear war.

My  daughter will move downstate in a couple weeks, and I'm expecting to be a little heartbroken.  She's always lived close enough for me to help her out if she gets into any trouble.  Even though she moved out a few years ago, I've still been able to wear the overprotective father badge.  I'm still her daddy.  For a little while longer.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for his daughter tonight.

Poem for My Daughter Who Is Moving Away

by: Martin Achatz

In two weeks you will be gone,
not within walking distance,
not a 20-minute drive away.
I won't be able to send you a text,
meet you for ice cream on hot
July days or a cup of winter coffee
when November turns from orange to ice.
Little girl (yes, I'm still going
to call you that, even though
you're 24 now and heading 
to medical school, because I
was the first person to hold you
after you emerged from your
mother, held you so close
to my chest you became my
heartbeat, then my heart),
so, little girl, I will let you go,
get in my car, drive away from
you, until you get smaller and
smaller in my rearview mirror.
I will probably hug you first, slip
some cash into your palm,
like all fathers do, remind you
to get your oil changed on your car,
like all fathers do.  And I'll probably
say something like I'm so proud
of you! because that's what's
expected.  But, tonight, as I write
these words, I don't know who
I am right now.  I'm waiting
to hear my heart start beating again.



Wednesday, June 18, 2025

June 18: "Little Things," Sister's Interment, "Fairy Tale"

Yes, I am still alive and kicking, as the Simple Minds sing.  

I haven't given up writing.  Or moved to a remote cabin in the Canadian wilderness.  Or been arrested and flown to an El Salvadorian concentration camp.  I'm still working at the library.  Teaching for the university (one summer class).  Attending protest rallies.  Watching with increasing horror as democracy is dismantled Executive Order by Executive Order.  It's hard to find things to love in this world right now.

Sharon Olds writes about things she loves . . . 

Little Things

by: Sharon Olds

After she’s gone to camp, in the early
evening I clear our girl’s breakfast dishes
from the rosewood table, and find a dinky
crystallized pool of maple syrup, the
grains standing there, round, in the night, I
rub it with my fingertip
as if I could read it, this raised dot of
amber sugar, and this time,
when I think of my father, I wonder why
I think of my father, of the Vulcan blood-red
glass in his hand, or his black hair gleaming like a
broken-open coal. I think I learned
to love the little things about him
because of all the big things
I could not love, no one could, it would be wrong to.
So when I fix on this image of resin,
or sweep together with the heel of my hand a
pile of my son’s sunburn peels like
insect wings, where I peeled his back the night before camp,
I am doing something I learned early to do, I am
paying attention to small beauties,
whatever I have–as if it were our duty to
find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world.



It's important to practice loving daily.  I truly believe that.  However, putting that belief into practice can be quite challenging, especially with President 47 pushing us closer and closer to nuclear war with Iran.  Granted, the United States of America was built on stolen land out of the blood, bodies, and tears of enslaved African Americans, so there's a lot about this country that isn't all that inspiring.  

However, I'm constantly looking for things to love in this universe.  That's kind of what poets do.  Some days are easier than other days in this pursuit.  Strangely, today was one of the easier days.

I say "strangely" because, at 2 p.m. this afternoon, at Holy Cross Cemetery, my sister Rose's cremains were interred.  It's been about a year and a half since Rose died, so this ceremony was long overdue.  My family and three of my siblings were present as our parish priest prayed and led the liturgy.  Father Larry got to know Rose about ten years ago when our sister Sally was dying.  

I didn't think I was going to get emotional during the service.  Since it's been so long since Rose's passing, I thought I'd developed a thicker skin.  I haven't.  As I drove back to work afterward, I found myself crying a little uncontrollably.  

The rest of the day is sort of a blur.  I got a lot of work done, but nothing that really sticks in my head.  This evening, I hosted a concert by one of my favorite local bands--the Make Believe Spurs.  Not only are they great musicians, but they're also three of the nicest people you will ever know.

As I listened to them sing Joni Mitchell's "Paved Paradise," I suddenly had this image of Rose dancing.  Rose had Down syndrome, so she was all love and excitement about everything.  And she loved to move her shoulders and hips.  She would have been grooving the entire concert.

I found things to love this evening:  my friends Brian, Molly, and Mavis singing and playing on the library steps; my sister Rose's ghost boogying in front of them; a seagull sitting on a tower across the street, watching the entire show.  

I'm so grateful for my friends who brought music and joy into my life tonight.  And for my sister Rose, who was literally music and joy every day she was alive.

Saint Marty finished a new poem today, based on the June 7th prompt from The Daily Poet:  

Nikki Giovanni, whose birthday is today, states in her poem "Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day":

It seems no matter how I try I become more difficult 
                         to hold
I am not an easy woman
to want

Write a poem that defines who you are:  are you becoming more difficult to hold?  Are you an easy woman/man or a difficult one?  Share details about yourself using concrete imagery and forthright language in an open/free-verse poem that describes and defines you.

Fairy Tale

by: Martin Achatz

Once     upon     a     time      I was hope     was
sperm and egg      chance for breath     was
girl     boy     unsung Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da     unpainted
water lily     unwritten Call me Ishmael     waiting      waiting

Then I was     pain     pant pant pant     scream
blue skin to pink     perfect thumb
snail tongue     hunger     frost fragile

Now     husband     father     empty-nester
bald      passport-less      unable to stand
under The Creation of Adam     now voter     protestor
insomniac      lover of chicken pizza     old
Dracula movies      van Gogh nights      now quick
to anger     now patient      guilty     ABBA fan
Milky Way eating     diabetic     now poet     now failed
plumber     grower of hair in odd places      God
lover      God doubter     in debt     rich     church organist
now grief-drenched     yesterday’s tears     yesterday’s laugh
sweating like a July toilet tank     now pierced ear
occasional joint smoker     unbalanced checkbook

Tomorrow     I’ll sit on a beach     drink sunrise     fly with gulls
recite a poem     loaded     with iron ore     launch it across Superior
watch it     sail happily     sail ever     sail after     distant     Thunder     Bay