October 27, 2026: "Watching Television," Hummingbird, "Nostalgia"

One of the classes I teach at the university is called Good Books.  Basically, it’s introduction to literature and literary interpretation, and every person who teaches Good Books in the English Department  approaches it differently.  For several years now, I’ve used the course as a vehicle to talk about mental illness.  So, I include books like An Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, among others.  

Yesterday morning, in our discussion of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, we talked about regrets—decisions we’ve made in our lives that we look back on with a sense of loss or nostalgia.  It could be something huge—giving up on the dream of becoming a ballerina—or something small—having Corn Flakes for breakfast instead of Lucky Charms.  (By the way, given that choice, always go with Lucky Charms.)

Marie Howe writes about an argument she regrets . . .  

Watching Television

by: Marie Howe

I didn't want to look at the huge white egg the mother spider dragged

along behind her, attached to her abdomen, held off the ground,

bigger than her own head--

and inside it:  hundreds of baby spiders feeding off the nest,

and, in what seemed like the next minute,

spinning their own webs quickly and crazily,

bumping into each other's and breaking them, then mending

and moving over, and soon they got it right:

each in his and her own circle and running around it.

And then they slept,

each in the center of a glistening thing:  a red dot in ether.

Last night the moon was as big as a house at the end of the street,

a white frame house, and rising,

and I thought of a room it was shining in, right then,

a room I might live in and can't imagine yet.

And this morning, I thought of a place on the ocean where no one is,

no boat, no fish jumping,

just sunlight gleaming on the water, humps of water that hardly break.

I have argued bitterly with the man I love, and for two days

we haven't spoken.

We argued about one thing, but really it was another.

I keep finding myself by the front windows looking out at the street

and the walk that leads to the front door of this building,

white, unbroken by footprints.

Anything I've ever tried to keep by force I've lost.

Howe’s last line is killer.  It pretty much ties together the first part of the poem (about the spiders) with the second part of the poem (about the argument with her love).  It’s all about trying to hold on to something that simply won’t or can’t be held on to.  The hatchling spiders are learning to spin their webs to trap food, and the speaker in the poem is lamenting the absence of her estranged partner.  

No matter how hard we try, we can’t force time to pause or stop, no matter how wonderful the moment.  Like anything in this universe, happiness is ephemeral.  We may spend days weaving intricate webs to trap our joy, but joy has wings and a strong will.  It will pull and kick and flap until it rips itself free of our silky bonds.

The best we can do is to enjoy what we have in the moment.  Tell the person sharing your bed and life that you love them.  Spend an extra few seconds on the dance floor, eyes closed, swaying and bouncing to the music.  Read that gorgeous poem by Mary Oliver one more time.  Have another ice cream sandwich.  Bliss out.

Howe’s right.  You can’t keep something by force.  A hummingbird is beautiful because it’s wild in its frantic love of summer nectar.  Wings humming, it appears and dances from blossom to blossom, slurping up sweetness, and then flits away and disappears.  Capturing that hummingbird won’t capture its ecstasy.  

We’re approaching the holiday season, with all its emphasis on family and togetherness.  If you’re anything like me, you will spend some time in the next three months thinking about the Thanksgivings and Christmases from your past.  And if you’re anything like me, you will have many empty chairs at the turkey table and around the twinkling tree this year.  That’s just reality.  People drift in and out of your life.  Move away.  Die.

I’m a person who can get mired down in regrets and nostalgia—that pining for individuals and experiences that are simply gone forever.  I will never have another Christmas with my parents and all my siblings.  In fact, I haven’t had one of those for about 30 years. Those Thanksgiving mornings where my wife, children, and I watched the Macy’s parade together on television are long gone.  Both my kids are adults now, and my daughter lives downstate with her significant other.  Life, for better or worse, has moved on.

I’m trying to avoid getting all tangled up in my sticky web of regrets.  It’s tough.  As I get older, my list of regrets grows and grows.  But I have a lot to celebrate in my present life:  my beautiful wife of 32 years; my brilliant and funny daughter and son; and my loyal friends who remind me (sometimes on a daily basis) that the world is a better place with me in it.

That’s pretty sweet nectar for this ol’ hummingbird.

Saint Marty wrote this poem a few days ago . . . 

Nostalgia

by: Martin Achatz

is that feeling you get when
the first maple leaf blazes into
sunrise overnight, and you know
grass, panes, ponds will soon
frost then rime then freeze over.
And you aren’t ready to let go
of the drill of insects on a day so green
you’re breathing chlorophyll,
aren’t ready for the erasure of the coming
months—God painting his canvas
with thick, white, cold gesso,
the way Picasso painted over a bent
penitent, a nursing mother, something
bovine in a field, a woman’s
face—all ghosts now—before
he settled on that old, blue man
strumming his guitar. And it’s the blue
sound that old man’s guitar makes
in the blue air, like a mourning
dove’s cry: coo-ah, coo, coo, coo.

What do you do with all this
longing? You could look at old
pictures in yearbooks, marvel
at how young everyone is, anxious
for the future to arrive on the noon
bus from Chicago or Milwaukee. Or
you could put on a vinyl, turn
down the lights, sway to Prince’s
“Purple Rain” the way you did
with your crush at junior prom
when you finally worked up the guts
to ask her to dance. Or you could
follow some forgotten railroad tracks,
like Will Wheaton and River Phoenix
in Stand By Me, searching for that friend
who disappeared years ago. Listen.
That train whistle in the distance
is calling his name in the night.

October 23, 2026: “Late Morning,” So Much Love, “You’ll never be broke”

Greetings, Faithful Disciples!

Last weekend,  I visited my daughter and her significant other downstate in Mount Pleasant. My wife, son, and I headed across the Mackinac Bridge on Friday and came back Sunday afternoon. It was a trip about five weeks in the planning, and I cherished every moment of it.

Marie Howe reflects on cherished times with her loved ones . . .

Late Morning

by: Marie Howe

I was still in my white nightgown and James had drawn me down

to sit on his lap, and I was looking over his shoulder through the hall

into the living room, and he was looking over my shoulder, into the trees

through the open window, I imagine,

and we sat like that for a few minutes, without saying much of anything,

my cheek pressed lightly

against his cheek, and my brother John was dead.

Suddenly close and distinct, it seemed finished, as if time were a room

I could gaze clear across—four years since I’d lifted his hand from

the sheets on his bed and cooled it in my hand.

A light breeze through the open window, James’s warm cheek,

a brightness in the windy trees as I remember, crumbs and dishes still

on the table, and a small glass bottle of milk and an open jar of

raspberry jam.

Such a tender, quiet moment that Howe describes—full of great love and sorrow, simultaneously.  You really can’t have one without the other.  The morning of her brother’s death, Howe sits on James’s lap, pressing her face to his stubbled cheek.  It’s a moment anchored by small, domestic details—the bottle of milk and open container of raspberry jam and the light breeze—as the poet tries to endure the daily normalcy of life after the loss of a life.  

I understand the grief and relief Howe is describing.  I loved my sister, Sally, deeply.  For close to 20 years, I worked with/for her at an outpatient surgery center.  We spent eight, nine, ten hours a day together for almost two decades.  When Sally died, my profound love for her morphed into profound sorrow.  Like Howe, I found myself missing the small intimacies we shared—the Dove chocolates stashed in her desk drawer or her ever-present cans of Diet Coke.  Tiny, ridiculous things.

Last weekend, I reveled in tiny and ridiculous things with the people I love most in this world—my wife, son, daughter, and daughter’s significant other.  We went out to eat, played games, watched a movie.  Against my better judgement, we did and escape room, an experience designed to create anxiety and panic.  However, I was surrounded by really smart people, so we managed to solve the puzzles in almost record time.

All weekend long, I was so happy and relaxed.  Following my kids into a pizza place to order dinner, I felt my heart opening up like the Grinch’s at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas—as if I couldn’t contain the amount of love I was experiencing.  It was a physical sensation, starting in the center of my chest and radiating outward, as if my veins and arteries were injected with sunlight. 

Nothing big happened last weekend.  Just a series of tiny, ridiculous domestic joys.  Brightness in the windy trees, as Howe says in her poem.  I’ve held onto that feeling all week long, not willing to give up my happiness hangover.  If I could bottle and sell this feeling, in liquid or tablet form, I’d be richer than the person who rigged the 2024 U.S. presidential election.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about this love medicine . . . 

You’ll never be broke

by: Martin Achatz

my dad used to say when I asked

for my allowance.  He thought he was

funny as hell, everyone did, but

everyone didn’t grow up in a house

where expressions of love were doled

out like bowls of cabbage broth

during the Great Depression.  This afternoon,

standing in a rest area by Lake Michigan,

I watched my son reach down to rub

our dog’s head generously while my wife

let her lap and lap as much water

as she wanted from her bowl, and I felt

myself crushed by love for them,

as if my dad had just opened his wallet

and finally made good on everything he owed me.

October 15, 2026: “One of the Last Days,” Anniversary, “Spilled Milk”

It’s really easy to take people you love for granted, especially if those people live under the same roof as you.  It’s like having a favorite teeshirt or comfortable chair.  You just assume they’re always going to be there for you until they aren’t.

Marie Howe writes about a person she loved . . . 

One of the Last Days

by: Marie Howe

As through a door in the air that I stepped through sideways

before reaching for a plate high in the cupboard

I find myself in the middle of my life:  May night, raining,

Michael just gone to Provincetown, James making music next door,

lilacs in full bloom, sweet in the dark rain of Cambridge.

One on of the last day I told him, You know how much you love Joe?

That’s how much I love you.  And he said, No.  And I said, Yes.

And he said, No.  And I said, You know it’s true.

And he closed his eyes for a minute.

When he opened them he said, Maybe you better start looking

for somebody else.

Such a sad little poem about love in the face of imminent loss.  Howe knows her brother is dying.  So does he.  She’s trying to convey the depth of her feelings for him, and he’s being practical.  He doesn’t want to leave a brother-sized blackhole in her life when he dies, so he instructs her to start looking for his replacement now before she’s overwhelmed with grief.  

Don’t worry.  This post is not going to be another meditation of loss.  I’m trying to take the advice of my faithful disciple who has left some wise comments on my last couple musings.  While you can’t necessarily choose to be happy (especially if you’re suffering from clinical depression), you CAN choose to focus on happy things every day of your life.  Cultivate joy, so to speak.  You plant the seeds, water them, and wait for them to flower.

Here is my happiness for this week:  my wife and I celebrated our 31 years of marriage on Wednesday.  In reality, we’ve been together, as a couple, for 36 years.  That’s astounding to me.  Driving home this evening, my wife said, “The time has gone by so fast.”  She’s right.  It seems like yesterday when we went on our first official date—a screening of Disney’s The Jungle Book.  We sat in the back row and explored the bare necessities, if you get my meaning.

She has been my rock for close to 40 years now.  Sure, we’ve had some rocky times.  Most marriages do.  But  we’re still here, still together, still in love.  I think that’s an amazing accomplishment in a world that has become sort of disposable.  Over my last five or so months of depression, my wife has listened to me, held my hand, told me over and over “I love you.”  She repeated that phrase so many times because she knows, firsthand, the power of sadness.  

I love my wife, and I am so, so lucky to have her in my life.  

Saint Marty has a happy poem for this happy post . . . 

Spilled Milk

by: Martin Achatz

I cry over lots of things—

the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life,

a midnight charley horse, 

any poem by Mary Oliver,

a saved text message from a dead friend,

a flat tire or dead car battery,

my dog snoring at night in her crate,

a spiderweb bedazzled with morning,

my 18-year-old son kissing me goodnight.  

And you, dear reader, maybe

you’re thinking about how good

your mom’s apple pie was fresh

out of the oven, and that’s bringing

salt to your eyes.  Right now, I’m ready

to cry because I don’t know how

to end this poem about crying

except to offer it a Hershey kiss,

say Everything’s going to be okay

and I will always love you, no matter what 

because that’s what Dolly told me to do.

October 10, 2026: “The Gate,” Being Cheerful, “Super El Niño Winter”

I have been counseled by one of my faithful disciples to cheer up, that all of my posts recently have been too sad.

When I started this blog over ten years ago, I had no idea what I was doing.  I wrote about saints and martyrs, birthdays and funerals.  In the past, I even included a comic strip that I drew.  I studied books and poets I love, and, most importantly, wrote about the messiness of life.  ‘Cuz life is fucking messy.

The Nobel Prizes were announced this past week.  I love watching and following these announcements because they are about honoring individuals and organizations and groups who have made significant, positive contributions to the world. It’s a celebration of humankind at its very best.  Yes, the world can be a flaming pile of trash, but it can also be wonderful.  Sometimes, this happens simultaneously.  

Marie Howe writes about her entry into the wider world . . . 

The Gate

by: Marie Howe

I had no idea that the gate I would step through

to finally enter the world

would be the space my brother’s body made.  He was

a little taller than me:  a young man

but grown, himself by then,

done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold

and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.

And I’d say, What?

And he’d say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I’d say, What?

And he’d say, This, sort of looking around.

Sometimes, it does take another person to make you see the world clearly.  In this poem, Howe’s brother is the catalyst.  He reminds her to take time to appreciate the world and life, from the smallest of pleasures (a cheese and mustard sandwich) to the largest (actually being with someone you love—her brother).  

The faithful disciple who instructed me to cheer up is my catalyst tonight.  I do realize that my posts from the last few months have been difficult to read.  Messy. That’s because my life over the last few months has been difficult to live.  Messy.  When you’re lost in a dark wood, it’s difficult to find the stars.  For Dante, that process of finding joy took three really long books.  And I doubt anyone told the great poet to cheer up after he completed Inferno. 

But my disciple is right.  I need to provide a little relief from all the darkness I’ve been writing about.  Hear this, though:  telling a person who is struggling with clinical depression to cheer up doesn’t work.  I don’t choose to feel this sadness.  No person would.  I’m on a journey, just like Dante, and I have to get through all the circles of depression before I can start climbing toward the light.

Along the way, though, I can still celebrate the cheese and mustard sandwiches (to borrow an image from Howe) along the way.  Tonight, my sandwich was that my 18-year-old son sat and watched a movie with me after we had dinner.  It was a horror movie based on a Stephen King novella.  My son really got into it, although he kept trying to figure out what was going to happen next.  (He guessed some plot elements correctly.)  After it was over, he got up, turned to me, said, “That was good,” then disappeared into his room upstairs.  

It was almost like winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  A true blessing.

Saint Marty wrote a poem tonight based on this prompt:  Write a poem that makes light of something serious . . . 

Super El Niño Winter

by:  Martin Achatz

It’s historic, they say, this warming brought on

by ocean temps and jet streams, but I don’t care

as I sit in a lawn chair in my backyard

this New Year’s Eve, slathered with enough SPF 50

to turn me into a ghost.  Pina colada in one hand, 

cell phone in the other, I try to remember where

I stashed my snow shovel in the garage last

April after I was sure no more blizzards were

being imported from Canada.  Even the geese are

still here, mistaking Lake Superior for the Gulf Coast.

Here’s one strutting by me now, breast white

as a snowbank, waiting for that urge

to stretch his wings, join that arrow of honkers

flying south for the summer.

October 9, 2026: “The Grave,” Saint Marty’s Day, “Phaeton”

Greetings Faithful Disciples!

Monday was Saint Marty’s Day and it was a wonderful 24 hours.  I received so many messages from friends and family.  It was a lovely reminder that I am loved and appreciated.  (In recent months, as you know, I’ve struggled with sadness and a strong sense of worthlessness.)  It was like medicine for me.  My great niece from Detroit, who made a pilgrimage to the Upper Peninsula to visit us, sent me a beautiful message that put me in the weeds.  Cried for a good five minutes.

In the last few years, I’ve become more and more aware of my own mortality.  Just this past year, two high school friends died, one unexpectedly and one after a brief cancer battle.  My time is limited.  EVERYONE’s time is limited.  Birthdays just make that fact harder to ignore.  I think that’s why birthdays become less and less exciting as time goes by.

Marie Howe writes about  visiting her dead brother . . . 

The Grave

by: Marie Howe

That first summer I lay on the grass above it as if it were

a narrow bed, just my size,

lying on the ground above my brother’s body like a log

floating on lake water above its own shadow.

                                                       ***

During the first winter I drove there one afternoon

after Tom and Andy and Beth and Dor and Bahia had been there.

When I stepped out of the car their footprints marked the snowy lawn:

the men’s big boots, the women’s smaller ones,

and Bahia’s little boot prints, as big as my hand, looping and falling down

into a snow angel next to his grave, then another messy angel on it,

and, a grave or two away, another one, and the little blotch where she got up

and brushed herself off.  For some crazy reason I was wearing

high-heeled shoes in the snow, and, walking back to the car, they made

ovals and dots, fat exclamation marks,

walking inside the steps of my brothers and sisters.

                                                       ***

One November, years later, I went there with Andy

who was, by then, as old as John was when he died,

as we lay on the frozen ground,

me, using my scarf as a pillow, on John’s grave,

and Andy, on top of our father’s grave, one grave away,

and we talked like that for a little while, companionably,

like an old couple talking in bed,

our eyes closed against the sunlight,

and when I cried, Andy didn’t seem to wish me to stop, and that

was a kind of happiness,

lying there with my living brother, talking about our family.

The ground was cold.

Eventually the chill crept through our coats and jeans and

we scuffled up—Andy reached down

to give me his hand—and then it was over.

We walked together back to the car and away from them.

As you can probably guess, this poem does nothing to lift my spirits.  It’s about the death of Howe’s brother, who, I believe, was a victim of the AIDS epidemic.  She misses him and wants to be as close to him as she can.  So she drives to his grave and lays down on it.  Perhaps presses her ear to the ground, half-expecting, I’m sure, to hear her brother’s laughter or heartbeat.  

Ten or so years ago, my parents and all of my siblings were still alive.  I knew loss, but peripherally—acquaintances and grandmothers and colleagues.  I was like Dante, lost in a dark wood in the midpoint of my life, grief chasing me through the trees, baying and snarling.  These days, I’m surrounded by my dead.  They wake me up in the middle of the night.  Drive to work with me.  Sometimes, they even teach my classes and write my poems.  

Both my father and mother lived long lives.  They buried two of their children and most of their close friends.  Their funerals were small affairs, consisting of my siblings, a few close relatives, and a handful of acquaintances.  Advanced age has a way of winnowing attendance of memorial services.  Yet, I firmly believe both my parents were surrounded by ghosts in their last days—Virgils to shepherd them on their journeys.  Mom and Dad were living, breathing haunted houses.

I’m not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon.  Hopefully, I will be around to haunt you for many Saint Marty Days to come. I don’t want to be a ghost, whispering my gratitude into the ears of loved ones.  While I can still draw breath, I want to say “thank you” to everyone who has helped, loved, encouraged, consoled, and lifted me up during my life. 

Because the real gifts in life aren’t Apple watches or iPads or cars or roses or balloons or tapioca.

It’s the people.

Saint Marty wrote a this poem a little while ago.  A meditation on youth and mortality . . . 

Phaeton

by: Martin Achatz

Phaeton slipped the keys for his dad’s
Firebird into his pocket, climbed out
his bedroom window, hot-footed
to the garage where he shifted the waiting
chariot into neutral, let it glide down
the driveway into the street. Phaeton slid
behind the wheel, ignited the engine, felt
horses trembling awake beneath the hood.
He stomped on the gas, and his world
lunged from 0 to 60 to 70 to 80 to 90,
each curve and bend of the road
a challenge to inertia and gravity.
Phaeton aimed his nose toward sunrise,
rolled down his window, and cruised, sure,
like every teenager, he was going to live forever.

October 3, 2026: “The Cold Outside,” Absence, “The Impossibility of Honey”

Greetings, faithful disciples.

In my last post, I gave you a catalogue of trials and tribulations, from a broken sewer line to a strong bout of clinical depression.  I’ve always believed that the Book of Job in the Bible was allegorical.  I mean, who would believe so much shit could be heaped on the head of such a decent, honest human being?  And with God’s approval?  Today, I would file Job’s story under nonfiction versus religious studies or philosophy.  In short, because of my experiences these last few months, I understand Job’s struggles a LOT more.  

I’m not looking for sympathy.  Everyone deals with sadness and calamities in their lives.  That’s part of being a human being.  The world is a broken place, with broken people calling the shots.  My little laundry list of struggles is pretty inconsequential compared to Super El Niños and genocides and famines.  In fact, most people would look at my life and think, “What the hell do you have to be upset about?”  And those people would be correct.

That doesn’t negate the power of prolonged depression.  Rationally, I know I’m a really lucky person—roof over my head, food in the fridge, warm clothes, and jobs that pay all the bills (for the most part).  Overwhelming sadness, however, is not rational.  It comes from a place of worry, fear, and anxiety.  

Marie Howe writes about looming dread . . . 

The Cold Outside

by: Marie Howe

Soon I will die, he said—that was during the heat wave that summer:

the orange lilies bending toward the house beside the driveway,

the heater in his car broken on blasting.

And the green shade flapped against the window screen,

as if what was out there inhaled and exhaled,

sliding away from the window, banging lightly against the sill,

sucked flat against the screen,

then peeling off and blowing out again.

Today the cold outside is bright and brittle,

heaps of hard snow between the sidewalk and the street,

and look, someone has shoveled a narrow path in front of the bakery,

so that, walking, a person has to step aside

and let another person through,

or pass through as the other person steps aside.

Soon I will die, he said, and then

what everyone has been afraid of for so long will have finally happened,

and then everyone can rest.

This is not an easy poem.  It’s a hard poem, filled with hard reality.  I’ve seen enough of my loved ones fade away and die to know both the pain and relief of loss.  My brother died suddenly, only after suffering for years with the effects of a stroke.  My sister, Sally, struggled for over two years, and my sister, Rose, was in and out of the hospital several times in the last year of her life.  Both of my parents ended up in nursing homes near the end of their lives.

Emily Dickinson wrote that Death “kindly stops” to pick up passengers, because, in the face of immense, daily anguish, mortality IS kind.  Terrifying (if you don’t believe in an afterlife), but kind.  I think Death did kindly stop for my mom, dad, sisters, and brother.  And don’t forget that the other passenger in Dickinson’s fatal carriage ride, besides Dickinson herself, is Immortality.  That’s the reason I find Dickinson’s vision of the Grim Reaper almost hopeful.  It’s not an end.  It’s a journey.

Of course, that knowledge doesn’t make the absence of someone you love any easier.  Loss is loss, and it comes with a whole trainload of grief.  As a way to combat my recent depression, I’ve been streaming episodes of the sitcom M*A*S*H.  It’s a TV show I have clear memories of watching with my entire family, every week.  Sure, my father was sort of MAGA-ish before MAGA was even a thing.  And yes, I didn’t always understand the episodes dealing with the insanities of war when I was younger.  But Hawkeye and BJ and Klinger and Colonel Potter and Hot Lips and the rest of the 4077th showed up every week, without fail.  

I often get stuck on movies and TV shows, watching them over and over and over to the dismay of my wife and son.  I reread books from my youth, as well.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited Holden Caulfield or Wilbur and Charlotte or Willy Wonka.  It’s comforting to know how the story ends, even if that ending is incredibly sad.  (Charlotte’s death destroys me every time.)  No surprises.

That’s very comforting for a person dealing with overwhelming fear and anxiety and sadness.  It’s like a security blanket.  Sure Holden has a breakdown at the end of The Catcher in the Rye, but he’s getting help and will eventually be reunited with his beloved little sister Phoebe.  Yes, the Korean War ends and Hawkeye returns to Crabapple Cove, but he survived.  If I know the fates of all these characters I love, I don’t have to worry about the future (which, for me, is a constant source of Sturm und Drang).  

Last Sunday, my puppy was attacked again by a German shepherd.  The attack resulted in some serious wounds that required surgery.  There is a row of staples running down my puppy’s back; it looks like she’s been zippered into her body.  She’s going to be alright, thank God.  However, this past week has been really difficult for me, mood wise.  Let’s just say that even Hawkeye couldn’t save my emotional life.

I’m going to be okay.  I tell myself that every morning.  Remind myself of it frequently during the day.  Repeat it as I’m drifting off to sleep.  It’s my mantra at the moment.  I’ll keep chanting it in my head until my puppy is healed, my plumbing problems are fixed, and you-know-who is no longer occupying the Oval Office.  At the moment, those things seem impossible.

But Saint Marty knows, as the song goes, the sun will come out tomorrow.  In the meantime, here’s a poem Saint Marty wrote about impossible things that are true . . . 

The Impossibility of Honey

by: Martin Achatz

Saturn is gas, would float in a bathtub

lead snows on Venus’s mountaintops

Jupiter’s red pupil is a 300-year-old storm

winter lasts 42 pitch-black years on Uranus

the Sun dances in Mercury’s skies—rising, stopping, reversing

one volcano on Mars could swallow Arizona

Neptune was discovered through math:  x + y = planet

ice mountains float across Pluto’s surface

and bees fly 750 miles on Earth to create 

          a single teaspoon of sweetness

September 4, 2026: “The Promise,” Coping, “Lovely Ghosts of All My Dead”

It has been a long couple weeks, full of stress and trials at work, broken sewer pipes and digging up the front yard at home.  Sprinkle in the start of the fall semester at the university and my continuing struggles with sadness, and that pretty much describes the second half of August and start of September for me.

I’m very aware that my problems are not unique.  There are millions (billions?) of people worse off than me.  People dealing with food insecurity and housing insecurity and misogyny and racism and homophobia.  I have a roof over my head and clothes to keep me warm.  If I get hungry, all I have to do is open my refrigerator and rummage through the leftovers.  In the grand scheme of things, my tiny, insignificant complaints are trivial.

And yet they feel crushing to me.  Keep me up at night.  Fill my days with spasms of tears.  Overwhelm even the simplest of tasks.  This afternoon, I stood by my kitchen sink, washing dishes, and found myself crying over the loss of poet Wendell Berry.

I know the world is arbitrary.  An earthquake isn’t vengeful, and a forest fire is just a forest fire.  It’s really easy to anthropomorphize things like natural disasters and famines and epidemics, to think of them as evil.  They aren’t.  They’re just what they are.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  

Even death isn’t necessarily good or bad. Death is just death.

Marie Howe tries to have a conversation with a ghost . . . 

The Promise

by: Marie Howe

In the dream I had when he came back not sick

but whole, and wearing his winter coat,

he looked at me as though he couldn’t speak, as if

there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn’t break.

His silence was what he could not

not do, like our breathing in this world, like our living,

as we do, in time.

And I told him:  I’m reading all this Buddhist stuff,

and listen, we don’t die when we die.  Death is an event,

a threshold we pass through.  We go on and on

and into light forever.

And he looked down, and then back up at me.  It was the look we’d pass

across the table when Dad was drunk again and dangerous,

the level look that wants to tell you something,

in a crowded room, something important, and can’t.

Depression is a haunted state, I think.  I’m surrounded by ghosts right now.  As I deal with my work troubles, as I wait for the excavator who dug up my sewer to send me his bill, the ghosts of simpler, easier times crowd my brain.  I mourn for my daughter’s five-year-old self, how I would read Charlotte’s Web to her at bedtime and she would laugh at Templeton voice.  I mourn for the Sunday dinners my sister Sally used to cook before she got sick, how we would gather at my parents’ house to eat and laugh.  I mourn for my mother’s singing when I play the pipe organ at church, how she anchored the hymns with her soprano voice.  

It all boils down to grieving for things that are gone forever.

I am coping with my blue mood as best I can.  I still cry almost every night as I’m going to sleep.  And I still experience extreme panic while driving to the library or the university during the week.  Tonight, I watched a documentary about the life of Mary Oliver, and I wept at the end of it.  Last night, my wife, son, and I had to stay at a hotel because the water line into our house was either crimped or broken, and, after everyone was asleep, I just lay in bed beside my wife, missing the taste of water from a garden hose as a kid.  Ghosts, ghosts, and ghosts.

I’m sure my therapist would tell me I’m just experiencing obsessive thoughts.  An unhealthy nostalgia for bygone times.  I don’t dispute that.  I miss not having to worry about things like collapsed sewer lines and high water bills and consumer loans.  Nostalgia is a ouija board, conjuring the ghosts of childhoods past.  Was my childhood perfect?  Absolutely not.  Nobody can truthfully claim to have had an idyllic youth. Because we’re human, and human beings are fuckups.  We fuck up relationships and jobs and cars and climate and trees and honeybees and .  . . Well, you get the idea.

I’m a fuckup on many levels, every day.  I’m not afraid to admit that.  Recently, my perceived fuckups have been overwhelming, making me question almost everything about my life.  In the last few weeks, I’ve even questioned if I’ve made a lick of difference in the universe.  On bad nights, the ghosts in my head whisper “No, you haven’t.”  On better nights, the ghosts whisper, “Maybe a little.”  (Ghosts can be pretty annoying sometimes.)

Here’s a poem for his ghosts that Saint Marty wrote a few days ago . . . 

 Lovely Ghosts of All My Dead

by:  Martin Achatz

I feel you around me all the time, your wispy

breaths in my ears, cool fingers on my forehead

at night.  Sometimes, I can hear you as I drive

my car, telling me you like this Action Bronson

song or that new novel from Ann Patchett.  

Let’s get McDonald’s this afternoon.  My treat.

We can sit all together in a booth and talk about

the Perseids in the heavens, solar eclipse in Spain,

coming El Niño winter.  We’ll stay there until 

the oil in the French fryers turns bone cold.

August 16, 2026: “The Last Time,” Mortality, “Card Trick”

Most young people don’t think about death a whole lot.  They’re too busy worrying about popsicles and grades and crushes and friends.  I even see this attitude in my college students.  Their whole focus is the future, what they’re going to be when they grow up.  It’s my job somehow to prepare them for the “real world.”  The problem is that they think they’re going to live forever and have plenty of time to deal with all of life’s brokenness and need.  

Marie Howe receives a lesson in mortality . . . 

The Last Time

by: Marie Howe

The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant 

with white tablecloths, he leaned forward

and took my two hands in his and said,

I’m going to die soon.  I want you to know that.

And I said, I think I do know.

And he said What surprises me is that you don’t.

And I said I do.  And he said, What?

And I said, Know that you’re going to die.

And he said, No, I mean know that you are.

Only people facing impending death really get it.  Whether they’re ten or 75 years old, they understand how brief our time on this planet is, and they also understand how meaningless most of life’s distractions are.  Think about it.  When you’re breathing your last breath, are you going to give a shit whether you own a Lamborghini or a ‘75 Dodge Dart?  And, if you’re lucky enough to reach old age, will it matter if you live in a condo in Boca Raton or an assisted living facility?  Mortality has a way of boiling down life to its essentials:  are you loved?  are you happy?  are you at peace?

In the end, love and happiness and peace are what it’s all about.  A person can be loved by a dachshund in a secluded cabin, and a person can be loved by three generations of family living in a Brooklyn townhouse.  A person can be happy living in a Spanish villa with a billion-dollar bank account, and a person can also be happy living in a studio apartment while working a minimum-wage job.  Finally, a person can find peace watching a Lake Superior sunset, and a person can find peace at a Kendrick Lamar concert at Ford Field in Detroit.

Love.  Happiness.  Peace.  That’s all that really matters.

It’s Sunday night.  My puppy is sleeping on the floor next to me.  An episode of Portrait Artist of the Year is on the TV.  My wife made a delicious dinner of meatballs and gravy.  In a little while, I’m going to be leading a virtual poetry workshop from my home office.  This is definition of a perfect evening for me.  I feel blessed because I’m surrounded by love in a safe space.  And I’m sort of dreading leaving this safe space tomorrow morning to go to work, where love and happiness and peace are much more difficult (if not impossible) to find.

After last night’s post, I think most of you understand my anxiety about reentering the “real” world.  Most weekends, I try to curate an environment where love, happiness, and peace exist freely because the rest of my life is so chaotic and pressured.  I’ve especially embraced this cocoon of serenity this weekend, and the idea of breaking out of it tomorrow is . . . well . . . almost painful.

Many friends and family members have reached out to me with messages of love and support in the 24 hours since I posted yesterday.  That has lifted my spirits so much (and made me cry on a few occasions).  The reading in church today was about the Gentile woman begging Christ to cure her daughter of demonic possession.  Jesus says to the woman, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”  And the woman responds that even dogs eat the crumbs from their master’s table.  Jesus heals the woman’s daughter because “. . . your faith is great.”

I have faith that I’ll make it through this blue period because I’ve done it before.  Lots of people think the antonym of faith is doubt.  It isn’t.  It’s fear.  Now, I’m not that brave of a person.  I’m afraid of a lot of things.  Rodents.  Heights.  Bad poetry.  Green bean casserole.  The trick is not to let fear rule your life.

I will wake up tomorrow morning, get dressed, and go to work, despite my anxieties.  Or maybe because of my anxieties.  I don’t know.  If I just called in sick and curled up on the couch tomorrow, fear wins.  Anxiety wins.  Sadness wins.  Plus, I might never leave my house again.  So, to paraphrase the advice of a therapist friend, I’m going to fake it ‘til I make it.  

I will have love and happiness and peace in my life again.  Eventually.

Saint Marty wrote this poem today.  It’s about conquering fear . . . 

Card Trick

by: Martin Achatz

My dog doesn’t like lightning, scoots

into the dark bathroom at the first pang

and rumble of electricity in the sky.  There

she stays, curled tight as a fist on the bath mat

while the clouds are stitched with jagged

flame.  I don’t bother her as she cowers

in there, leave her to find some sense

of safety to uncoil the springs of her body.

Sometimes, though, I go and sit next

to her, put my hand on her heaving flanks,

leave it there until she relaxes, looks up at me

as if I’ve just shuffled the deck of her fur,

turned the lightning into the ace of hearts.

August 15, 2026: “How Some of It Happened,” Confession, “hebron”

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been posting a lot this summer.  And I’ve made tons of excuses about WHY I haven’t been posting:  taking some “me” time, working hard at the library, focusing on my latest poetry manuscript, reading War and Peace.  You get the idea.  

Here’s my confession:  I haven’t experienced a whole lot of happiness this summer.  Yes, I am so proud of my son for graduating in May and for landing a job at the local children’s museum.  Yes, my daughter continues to amaze me with her drive and courage in her medical school program.  And my wife is the most loving, supportive partner, even when I’m not easy to be around.

Yet, in these long days of summer, I’ve been really struggling.

Marie Howe writes about her brother’s struggles . . . 

How Some of It Happened

by: Marie Howe

My brother was afraid, all his life, of going blind, so deeply

that he would turn the dinner knives away from, looking at him,

he said, as they lay on the kitchen table.

He would throw a sweatshirt over those knobs that lock the car door

from the inside, and once, he dismantled a chandelier in the middle

of the night when everyone was sleeping.

We found the pile of sharp and shining crystals in the upstairs hall.

So you understand, it was terrible

when they clamped his one eye open and put the needle in his cheek

and up and into his eye from underneath

and held it there for a full minute before they drew it slowly out

once a week for many weeks.  He learned to lean into it,

to settle down he said, and still the eye went dead, ulcerated,

breaking up green in his head as the other eye, still blue

and wide open, looked and looked at the clock.

My brother promised me he wouldn’t die after our father died.

He shook my hand on a train going home one Christmas and gave me

five years, as clearly as he promised he’d be home for breakfast when

I watched him walk into the New York City autumn night.  By nine, I promise,

and he did come back.  And five years later he gave me five years more.

So much for the brave pride of premonition, 

the worry that won’t let it happen.

You know, he said, I always knew I would die young.

And then I got sober, and I thought, OK, I’m not.

I’m going to see thirty and live to be an old man.  And now

it turns out that I am going to die.  Isn’t that funny?

—One day it happens:  what you have feared all your life,

the unendurable specific, the exact thing.  No matter what you say or do.

This is what my brother said:  Here, sit closer to the bed

so I can see you.

Howe’s brother experiences what he feared the most:  blindness.  Yet, he learns to lean into it, settle down.  It seems that the certainty of his impending death removes his childhood terror of living in darkness.  One struggle replaces the other, and her brother finds a kind of peace, even as he still tries to shield Howe from pain.  The last two lines of the poem absolutely gut me—the brother’s small act of need and comfort:  “. . .  sit closer to the bed / so I can see you.”  Be near me, he’s saying, and I love you.

My struggles pale in comparison to the subject matter of Howe’s poem.  In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to write about my mental health struggles.  Yet, here I sit in metaphorical darkness, asking you, kind reader, to be near me.

That’s been the hardest part of these last couple months—the loneliness.  When you’re sitting on your living room couch in the middle of the night, crying for no tangible reason, you start feeling like you’re stranded on some alien planet with no way to get home.  (So, either I’m E.T. the extraterrestrial trying to phone home, or I’m Matt Damon in The Martian, trying to grow potatoes to survive until the rescue team shows up.)

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the cause of my current melancholia.  I am now the father of two adult children who no longer depend on me for sage advice or help with homework.  I realized this week that I’ve already lived over half my life and have only 30 or 35 years left.  If I’m lucky.  (Like Howe’s brother, I’ve always thought I was going to die young.)  And, looking back on my life, I’m not sure how much of a difference I’ve made in this world.  I haven’t saved anyone from a burning building or donated a kidney.  As far as I know, my writing hasn’t altered the universe in any way, either.

In short, my life hasn’t really mattered all that much.  (Yes, as I typed those words, I started crying.  Again.)

This weekend, in particular, has been very difficult for many reasons.  The only moment I found a scrap of happiness came this afternoon when I finished a poem I’ve been trying to write for over a week.  I read it to my wife, and she smiled and nodded at me (after making me change one image—she is my best and harshest critic).  For a little while, I actually felt lighter, as if some weight had lifted off my shoulders.  I held onto that feeling for as long as I could before the darkness descended again.

That’s my confession.  This whole summer has been my penance.

Here’s the poem Saint Marty finished today . . . 

hebron

by: Martin Achatz

standing at the mouth of the cave as a tornado

screamed by, elijah thought it was god

blowing out birthday candles.  but it wasn’t.  then

the ground shook its fist, the mountain stomped

its feet, and elijah was sure it was god line dancing

with moses, but it wasn’t.  then a firestorm baked

everything to bricks and pottery, and elijah thought

it was god having a smoke after dinner, but it wasn’t.

then a mosquito flew into his ear, sang him 

a lullaby, and elijah thought it was his mother,

but it wasn’t.  it was god eating ripe blueberries

and humming “what a wonderful world”

before it had even been written.

August 8, 2026: “A Certain Light,” Bravery, “Hero Worship”

Right now, two of the most popular movies in the world are Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day.  An ancient superhero and a modern superhero.  The human race has always looked for people to admire and venerate for acts of self-sacrifice and bravery.  (Now, in an era of unchecked greed, political chaos, artificial “intelligence,” and environmental crisis, heroes are an endangered species.)

Marie Howe writes about a her dying brother . . . 

A Certain Light

by: Marie Howe

He had taken the right pills the night before.

We had counted them out

from the egg carton where they were numbered so there’d be no mistake.

He had taken the morphine and the prednisone and the amitriptyline

and Florinef and Vancomycin and Haleion too quickly

and had thrown up in the bowl Joe had brought to the bed—a thin string

of blue spit—then waited a few minutes to calm himself, 

before he took them all again.  And had slept through the night

and the morning and was still sleeping at noon—or not sleeping.

He was breathing maybe twice a minute, and we couldn’t wake him,

we couldn’t wake him until we shook him hard calling, John wake up now

John wake up—Who is the president?

And he couldn’t answer.

His doctor told us we’d have to keep him up for hours.

He was all bones and skin, no tissue to absorb the medicine.

He couldn’t walk unless tow people held him.

And we made him talk about the movie:  What was the best moment in

On the Waterfront?  What was the music in Gone with the Wind?

And for seven hours he answered, if only to please us, mumbling

I like the morphine, sinking, rising, sleeping, rousing,

then only pain again—but wakened.

So wakened that late that night in one of those still blue moments

that were a kind of paradise, he finally opened his eyes wide,

and the room filled with a certain light we thought we’d never see again.

Look at you two, he said.  And we did.

And Joe said, Look at you.

And John said, How do I look?

And Joe said, Handsome.

What a gorgeous, heartbreaking moment of bravery.  Howe’s brother John is dying, yet, in one of his brief moments of lucidity, he attempts to comfort the two loves of his life as they process their loss.  In turn, John’s partner, Joe, in another moment of heartbreaking bravery, tries to comfort John, calling him “handsome” for (probably) the last time.  

Anyone who has held vigil at a dying loved one’s bedside has witnessed bravery.  Not the defeating-a-cyclops-or-the-Green-Goblin kind of bravery.  My sister, Sally, suffered greatly in her last months.  Near the end, the lymphoma stole her speech and motor functions, pressing against her brain, causing a major stroke.  She didn’t choose her fate.  Yet, she didn’t rage, rage against the dying of the light.  She fought as hard as she could for as long as she could, and then, when her frail body had no more fight left in it, she slipped away, surrounded by everyone who loved her.  Bravely.  Quietly.

There are heroes all around us.  Single mothers raising their kids on minimum wage salaries.  Doctors caring for pregnant women in defiance of draconian laws.  Trans people being their authentic selves each and every day.  Fathers teaching their sons to be gentle, loving people.  Teachers buying classroom supplies with their own money.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

You don’t need special powers to be a hero.  Just because you can’t fly doesn’t mean you also can’t raise a grieving person’s spirits.  Just because you don’t have superhuman strength doesn’t mean you also can’t lift a shade and fill a dark room with light.  Just because you don’t have x-ray vision doesn’t mean you also can’t look into a people’s eyes and see their pain.

You see, being a hero isn’t all that hard.  It’s just a matter of making the right choices.  Put down that cell phone and talk to your partner or kids at dinner.  Bring some groceries to a food pantry.  Shovel the sidewalk for an elderly neighbor.  Or, even easier, ask a friend, “How are you?” and really mean it; listen to them.  In short, be kind, attentive, and generous.  That’s all it takes.

My heroes today:  my son, working the second day at his new job; my daughter, living five hours away and working her ass off to become a doctor; and my wife, putting up with my shit (metaphorically and/or literally) every day of our marriage.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about heroes for tonight . . . 

Hero Worship

by: Martin Achatz

Loading my car for a trip to the laundromat,

I heard her before I saw her beating

her dark wings and white breast against

the narrow windows of the garage, gray

rectangles of sky calling her like the sirens

called Odysseus.  I’m no birder,  She could

have been a nuthatch or finch or junco.  

But in her frantic attempts to escape,

I found something heroic, as if she was

some poor nymph, transformed by Athena

to avoid Apollo’s lustful claws.  

I opened the garage door wide, flapped

an old towel in the air, tried herding her

toward open air.  She circled the rafters

once, twice, dove at my head, then,

as if her feathers suddenly felt the pull

of wind, swooped out of the garage

into the belly of clouds so fast even

Homer would have been left speechless.

August 6, 2026: “Just Now,” Quiet Evening, “The Best Day of My Life”

It’s been a quiet, lovely evening.  I didn’t go for a ten-mile hike.  Or eat prime rib for dinner.  Or see a cascade of meteors in the night sky.  Or read a long Russian novel in which a barefoot peasant throws herself in front of a train.  In short, nothing extraordinary happened.

Marie Howe writes about a quiet, lovely day . . . 

Just Now

by: Marie Howe

John opens his eyes when he hears the door click

open downstairs and Joe’s steps walking up past the meowing cat,

and the second click of the upstairs door, and then he lifts

his face so that Joe can kiss him.  Joe has brought armfuls

of broken magnolia branches in full blossom, and he putters

in the kitchen looking for a big jar to put them in and finds it.

And now they tower in the living room, white and sweet, where

John can see them if he leans out from his bed which

he can’t do just now, and now Joe is cleaning.  What a mess

you’ve left me, he says, and John is smiling, almost asleep again.

Such a tender, quiet poem, full of domestic perfection.  The love invested in these tiny moments Howe describes is undeniable and heartbreaking.  John is dying, and Joe, his partner, brings him magnolias to fill his life with beauty.  It would be perfect, if not for the looming phantom of mortality in the room.

But maybe it’s the specter of death that makes Howe’s poem so moving in its gentleness.  Some of the greatest, most profound moments of human connection I’ve ever experienced in my life have occurred at funerals and memorial services.  Everyone is just more vulnerable and open at such occasions.  People hug more, say “I love you” more.  Death reminds us all how tenuous and fragile life truly is.

That’s what I want to say tonight.  And I want to thank you, faithful disciple, for reading this post.  You are part of my perfect, quiet evening, and I wish you the same—perfection and quiet.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about a good day . . . 

The Best Day of My Life

by: Martin Achatz

Maybe it was today, and I just didn’t pay 

attention.  Maybe the mac and cheese I ate

for dinner was the best meal I will ever

eat, and that walk around the block

with my dog will be the best walk

of her life and, as she squatted 

on my neighbor’s lawn, she took

the best shit of her life.  Maybe

every breath I inhaled, every pulse

of my heart, every sip of cold water—

all the best.  And this poem.  Maybe

this poem I’m writing right now will be

the best poem I’ll ever write, and it will

be anthologized for years after I’m gone.

Maybe I should celebrate.  Maybe 

there’s a piece of the best leftover pizza

in my life still wrapped in aluminum foil,

sitting on the bottom shelf of the fridge

behind a truly great carton of skim milk.   

August 5, 2026: “For Three Days,” Miracles, “On the Roof”

It’s been a long day of meetings and work.  In fact, as soon as I’m done typing this post, I’m probably going to sleep.  I’ve had dinner.  My breakfast and lunch for tomorrow are packed and in the fridge.  I even took my puppy for a walk.    

Marie Howe writes about her brother . . .

For Three Days

by: Marie Howe

For three days now I’ve been trying to think of another word for gratitude

because my brother could have died and didn’t,

because for a week we stood in the intensive care unit trying not to imagine

how it would be then, afterwards.

My youngest brother, Andy, said:  This is so weird.  I don’t know if I’ll be

talking with John today or buying a pair of pants for his funeral.

And I hated him for saying it because it was true and seemed to tilt it,

because I had been writing his elegy in my head during the seven-hour drive

and trying not to.  Thinking meant not thinking.  It meant imagining

my brother surrounded by light—like Schrödinger’s Cat that would be dead

if you looked and might live if you didn’t.  And then it got better, and then

it got worse, and it’s story now:  He came back.

And I did, by that time, imagine him dead.  And I did begin to write the other

story:  how the crowd in the stifling church snapped to a tearful attention,

how my brother lived again, for a few minutes, through me.

And although I know I couldn’t help it, because fear has its own language

and its own story, because even grief provides a living remedy,

I can’t help but think of that woman who said to him whom she considered

her savior:  If thou hadst been there my brother had not died, how she might

have practiced her speech, and how she too might have stood trembling, 

unable to meet the eyes of the dear familiar figure stumbling from the cave

when the compassionate fist of God opened

and crushed her with gratitude and shame.

It’s a familiar story—Lazarus dying, Mary (his sister) getting pissed at Jesus, Jesus weeping, and Lazarus rising from the tomb.  Howe’s brother is Lazarus in the ICU, dying, and Howe is Mary, waiting for a miracle to arrive.  

Sometimes miracles are answers to desperate prayers--Please save the life of my brother.  Other times, miracles are smaller, not even recognized as miracles--I had nachos for dinner tonight that were so good they tasted like grace.  I've said it before, but it bears repeating:  human beings are surrounded by miracles all day, every day, but we are simply miracle-blind from years of indifference and distraction.

Let me a share one of these little miracles that happened for me tonight . . . 

About a week or so ago, my son applied for a job at the local Children's Museum.  He made a resumé, dressed up, put his hair in a ponytail, and went to the interview.  This evening, he told me that he got hired.  He starts his training on Friday.

I am so proud of my son.  First job interview results in his first job.  At the end of a long, long day, this news was just the miracle I needed to lift my spirits.

Plus, Saint Marty wrote a new poem (another little miracle) . . . 

On the Roof

Peter White Public Library

October 28, 2021

by: Martin Achatz

I imagine I'm standing inside

God's blue lung where gulls circle,

scream, and the waves swell & recede,

divine sighs full of fishy hope and

sadness.  Not many people have access

to this place so close to heaven.

Maybe that's why, on this morning

after I trapped my mother's last breath

in my hands, felt it slap my palms

like a panicked sparrow, I climb

these steps, open my fingers, watch

that breath rise and rise and rise away

from this eggshell world.

August 4, 2026: “The Dream,” Ten Million, “Thaw”

I never remember my dreams.  As soon as I wake up, whatever movie has been playing against my eyelids simply fades quickly, and I’m left with whatever vague emotion the interrupted dream evoked.  Sometimes terror or sadness.  Other times, joy or lust.  But there’s never any dream hook to hang this emotional hat on.

Marie Howe dreams about death . . . 

The Dream

by: Marie Howe

I had a dream in the day:

I laid my father’s body down in a narrow boat

and sent him off along the riverbank with its cattails and grasses.

And the boat—it was made of bark and wood bent when it was wet—

took him to his burial finally.

But a day or two later I realized it was my self I wanted

to lay down, hands crossed, eyes closed . . . 

Oh, the light coming up from down there,

the sweet smell of the water—and finally, the sense of being carried

by a current I could not name or change.

Funny.  Howe’s version of death isn’t all that terrifying.  In fact, it’s almost comforting with its sweet smell of water and rocking current.  This isn’t Emily Dickinson’s Death, stopping by in a horse-drawn buggy to take you for a joyride.  As I said, I never remember my dreams, so, if I’ve dreamed about death before, I have no recollection.

Of course, I’m afraid of dying.  Everyone is, or else they’re lying.  It’s the unknowable.  As a Christian, I suppose I shouldn’t say that, but I just don’t buy the whole wings and clouds and harps jazz.  Do I think there is life after dearth?  Yup.  I’m just not sure what that ghostly life entails, and I’m in no hurry to find out.  

Perhaps sleep is just practice for death, and dreams are sneak previews of what lies beyond this mortal coil.  I don’t know.  But I have dreams.  Real dreams.  A couple days ago, this little blog that I started over ten years ago just exceeded ten million page views.  In June alone, over one million people visited Saint Marty.  That blows me away.  Perhaps my little poetic musings make a difference in the world.  That seems like a dream to me.

And dreams sometimes do come true.

Here’s another little poetic musings from Saint Marty.

Thaw

by: Martin Achatz

I’ve always loved the word thaw,

which sounds a lot like raw,

and that seems appropriate, considering

those days of early March, sometimes April

or May, when the rime of white holding

Superior’s waves at bay begins to recede

the way my hairline receded in my 20s,

and soon the ice is chattering its teeth

on the sandy shores and beach grass.

We use the word thaw all the time,

when we’re cooking Thanksgiving turkeys

or Christmas hams, or when we find

a piece of frozen wedding cake in the freezer,

decide to eat it for dessert after 30 years

of marriage.  Just invoke the word, say it

three times when winter seems eternal.

Thaw . . . Thaw . . . Thaw . . .

Maybe Rumpelstiltskin will appear, promise

to spin the snow into golden summer.

July 31 2026: “The Girl,” Struggles, “Rafter”

Yes, I am still alive.  I have received some messages from friends and acquaintances who were worried about me because I have been a non-presence for most of this month.  My only answer to the question “Where have you been?” is simply that I needed a break.  So perhaps I should have titled this post “What I Did on My Summer Vacation.”

When I was a kid, the months of June, July, and August were my favorite.  No homework or studying.  A relaxation of strict bedtimes and curfews.  Just endless days and nights moving at the pace of a glacier.  As you get older, I think time has a way of speeding up.  When you’re born, you’re a ball balanced at the top of a hill.  With your first breath, you start rolling, slowly at first, imperceptibly.  As hours, days, weeks, months, and years go by, you pick up speed as the hill becomes steeper and steeper.  I’m so far away from the top of that hill now that it’s barely visible.  Like the top of Mount Everest seen from India.

Marie Howe writes about her childhood . . . 

The Girl

by: Marie Howe

So close to the end of my childbearing life

without children

—if I could remember a day when I was utterly a girl

and not yet a woman—

but I don’t think there was a day like that for me.

When I look at the girl I was, dripping in her bathing suit,

or riding her bike, pumping hard down the newly paved street,

she wears a furtive look—

and even if I could go back in time to her as me, the age I am now

she would never come into my arms

without believing that I wanted something.

Adulting kind of sucks at times.  When you’re childing, you don’t (or shouldn’t) have things like car payments or mortgages or addictions or grief weighing you down.  Perhaps that’s why summer vacations seemed to last for eons when I was a boy—time just stops when your only worry is whether the ice cream truck will come by.  Like Howe, I don’t think my younger self would want anything to do with my older self.  I’ve become the grumpy guy who doesn’t want people walking on his lawn.

The biggish adult thing I’ve been struggling with in the last month or so is sadness.  My sister Sally’s birthday was July 17.  She died on August 19.  Since her passing, during this timeframe every year, I always feel heavy.  Some years, the heaviness descends, and I don’t even realize why I’m feeling low.  Like my body and unconscious mind are aware of it before the rest of me catches up.

I finally realized about four or five days ago that I’m in the midst of this heaviness.  Then everything made sense to me.  As a kid, I didn’t experience a whole lot of real loss.  Some older relatives, sure, but grief stayed away from my immediate family until around 2014, when my brother died.  For a clan as big as mine (nine siblings in total, including myself), we were lucky, I think.  Statistically, we should have experienced  death a lot sooner than that.

But death has been with me for a long time.  I was a strange kid.  From a very young age (like 12 or 13), I’ve had my funeral planned out, from the songs to the eulogies.  I’ve kept that practice up, updating the plans over time.  Maybe that’s why I became a poet?  Just sayin’.

This morning, I’ve been dealing with another adulting thing—a plugged sewer.  I have a couple guys here who are currently cabling the sewer line.  I think they’ve got it unplugged, but now I’m waiting to see how much it’s going to cost me.  That’s the kind of shit (literally) old people deal with all the time, and that’s why I’m going to reiterate:  adulting kind of sucks.  

As a kid, I never had to worry about plugged drains or busted toilets or brake jobs on cars.  In summer, I just threw on shorts, wolfed down breakfast, and headed out the door until sunset.  So much simpler and easier.  I let my mom and dad take care of business while I got into stupid, adolescent mischief.  I never realized how good I had it.

Nowadays, when I open my phone, I run across obituaries of high school classmates on my Facebook feed.  This happened one morning a few days ago.  I found out that a really good guy with whom I graduated passed away after a short cancer battle.  I just sat there, looking at his picture on my phone screen.  It was a moment of adulting colliding with childing.  Remembering us as teenagers, only worried about how to score some beer or weed, versus us as adults, constantly worried about discolored moles and weird abdominal pains.  

That’s what I’ve been dealing with this last month.  Lots existential angst.

Earlier this week, dropping my wife off at work, I encountered a brood of wild turkeys on the side of the road.  I pulled over and watched them for a little while.  A friend once told me that turkeys represent coming abundance and wealth.

Saint Marty would settle for peace of mind and an ice cream sandwich.

Rafter

by: Martin Achatz

What does a flock of turkeys in the wood

portend?  Some say the toms and hens foretell—

all plump and regal, each a plumed god—

a coming fortune, gold and pearls to quell

the hungry tongues of want and jealousy.

You press your starved lips to maple trunk

to slurp its sugared blood so greedily

your belly swells with sweet thanksgiving, drunk

enough to swing a psalm or write a poem

to waddles, claws, and snoods, to oracles

of seed and grub and acorn.  Ancient Rome

had Juno’s peacocks, Neptune’s salt-soaked gulls.

I have a gobbler host in this wild space,

to peck and scratch and preen in feathered grace.

July 21, 2026: “The Game,” Easily Distracted, “Someplace Happy”

Yes, it has been a hot minute since my last post.  I could flood you with excuses, talk about how busy life has been, list everything’s that’s happened.  Independence Day.  Heat waves.  Toxic wildfire smoke.  Performing in Calumet.  Two Republican senators meeting their ends.  (Sorry, Mitch isn’t sucking down margaritas at a cushy rehab facility.)  War crimes against Iran.  Billionaires getting richer.  Teaching my summer class for the university.  The pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 dying.  

I’m easily distracted these days.  I have good intentions to write blog posts, new poems, a novella.  Make a dent in the stack of books I want to read.  Finish art projects.  Grade student papers.  Edit my new poetry manuscript.  So many plans, so little time.  

Marie Howe writes about childhood games . . .

The Game

by: Marie Howe

And on certain nights,

maybe once or twice a year,

I’d carry the baby down

and all the kids would come

all nine of us together,

and we’d build a town in the basement

from boxes and blankets and overturned chairs.

And some lived under the pool table

or in the bathroom or the boiler room

or in the toy cupboard under the stairs,

and you could be a man or a woman 

a husband or a wife or a child, and we bustled around

like a day in the village until

one of us turned off the lights, switch

by switch, and slowly it became night

and the people slept.

Our parents were upstairs with company or

not fighting, and one of us—it was usually

a boy—became the Town Crier,

and he walked around our little sleeping

population and tolled the hours with his voice,

and this was the game.

Nine o’clock and all is well, he’d say,

walking like a constable we must have seen

in a movie.  And what we called an hour passed.

Ten o’clock and all is well.

And maybe somebody stirred in her sleep

or a grown up baby cried and was comforted.

Eleven o’clock and all is well.

Twelve o’clock.  One o’clock.  Two o’clock . . . 

and it went on like that through the night we made up

until we could pretend it was morning.

This poem has so much truth in it.  As kids, we dream of growing up—all those freedoms of adulthood.  As adults, we dream of times gone by—childhoods filled with water balloon fights and school crushes and eternal summer vacations.  The grass is always greener in someone else’s backyard.  Younger people don’t get this until they become older people.  (How many times have I heard young people in my life, after working their first full-time job, saying to me after a couple of weeks, “Man, being an adult sucks!”?)

Yes, human beings rarely enjoy the present.  We look ahead all the time.  Oh, if I can just finish this poem, I’ll be happy!  Oh, I can’t wait for my vacation in six months!  Oh, I live for weekends!  Oh, I’m going to start enjoying life once I retire!  It seems like the future is always better and brighter.  

On the flip side, adults always look back wistfully on their childhoods.  There’s a reason why books like Little House on the Prairie and movies like The Breakfast Club and A Christmas Story are so popular.  They tap into that current of nostalgia that runs through all our veins.  True or not, we believe things were simpler and easier in the past.

My mother, in the last years of her life, lived in the past.  Her eyesight was bad.  Her hearing wasn’t much better.  She couldn’t remember who I was sometimes, and other times she would tell me stories about her girlhood in Detroit.  After my father died, she frequently asked about his whereabouts.  If we reminded her that Dad had died, her face crumpled with confusion and sadness as she experienced his loss anew.  The past became Mom’s happy place, where grief didn’t exist and joy was just a trip to Dairy Queen away.

Of course, that’s all bullshit.  There was still racism and misogyny and homophobia and Ronald Reagan in the past.  And I think we (current residents of the United States) can vouch for that fact that the future holds no promises of sunshine or low gas prices or peace. All we really have is the present, in all its current fucked-upness.  Worrying about tomorrow is about as useful as a wildfire smoke tariff on Canada..  

Here are things I celebrate about today:  blue sky, dinner and drinks with friends, chocolate, a puppy kiss, and warm pajamas.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about his mother for tonight , , ,

Someplace Happy

by: Martin Achatz

after she lost    her         husband          she didn’t

     remember         kept asking

when he was coming    home    accused him

of staying out         late        drinking with his pals

     from the Elks club    or    even worse

holing up at hunting camp         while she

slaved at home         took care of their nine kids

     they are    all grown     now        two dead

one with Down’s syndrome & Alzheimer’s

why would         you draw someone         back from

     someplace happy        with all her loves

still around        and she can still         remember

how to make          the good         tapioca from the pearls

     without having to           con         sult         the box

why    why    why    why    would you           want

to lure Dorothy back         from Oz         or

     Max back         from           the wild rum         pus

with all         the wild things         isn’t it bet    ter

if she just         keeps         wearing         those ruby      shoes

    eating emer    ald macarons         know         ing

Auntie Em is          still         there         wait         ing for           her