April 19, 2026: “ What the Angels Left,” Hospital, “Ode to Cheese and Crackers”

The last four or five days have been a rollercoaster.

On Tuesday, my wife texted me, telling me that it felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest and her jaw was aching.  Having worked in a cardiology office for about eight years, I knew she needed to go to the ER.  (You wouldn’t believe the number of times I spoke to patients on the phone experiencing symptoms of a heart attack and asking me what they should do.  The answer was always the same:  CALL AN AMBULANCE! or GET TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM!)

Two days later, my wife was still in the hospital, and we still didn’t have any answers.  First and foremost—we do know she did NOT have a heart attack.  All the testing (bloodwork, EKGs, stress test, echocardiogram) proved that.  What the doctors couldn’t figure out is why her heart rate kept falling into the 40s.  The first morning, she couldn’t complete her stress test because her heart rate fell to 39 bpm (that’s “beats per minute” for my non-medical disciples).  

Of course there have been moments of grace over through this whole ordeal—simple kindnesses like text messages and an occasional piece of chocolate—and I know that there were tons of people praying for my wife.

Marie Howe writes about unexpected grace . . . 

What the Angels Left

by: Marie Howe

At first, the kitchen scissors seemed perfectly harmless.

They lay on the kitchen table in the blue light.

Then I began to notice them all over the house,

at night in the pantry, or filling up bowls in the cellar

where there should have been apples.  They appeared under rugs,

lumpy places where one would usually settle before the fire,

or suddenly shining in the sink at the bottom of soupy water.

Once, I found a pair in the garden, stuck in turned dirt

among the new bulbs, and one night, under my pillow,

I felt something like a cool long tooth and pulled them out

to lie next to me in the dark.  Soon after that I began 

to collect them, filling boxes, old shopping bags,

every suitcase I owned.  I grew slightly uncomfortable

when company came.  What if someone noticed them

when looking for forks or replacing dried dishes?  I longed

to throw them out, but how could I get rid of something

that felt oddly like grace?  It occurred to me finally

that I was to use them, and I resisted a growing cumpulsion

to cut my hair, although, in moments of great distraction,

I thought it was my eyes they wanted, or my soft-belly

—exhausted, in winter, I laid them out on the lawn.

The snow fell quiet as usual, without any apparent hesitation

or discomfort.  In spring, as I expected, they were gone.

In their place, a slight metallic smell, and the clear muddy earth.

I think what Howe is getting at in this poem are graces that don’t seem like graces at first:  missing a bus and finding out later that the missed bus got hit by a train; getting sick on Christmas thereby avoiding a family get-together that ended in tears and screaming; or not eating dinner and hearing that everyone who DID eat ended up with food poisoning.  You get the idea.  The scissors seem like a plague, but, in actuality, they are gifts from angels.

My wife did her second stress test on Thursday morning without any problems.  By noon, she was discharged from the hospital sporting a 30-day Holter monitor.  By 3:30 p.m., our car was packed, and we were on the road for a whirlwind weekend of poetry readings in Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Detroit.  (More on that in an upcoming post.)

So, you may be asking, where is the grace in all of that?

Answer:  all of our family and friends.

Being in the hospital can be a pretty isolating experience, but we never felt that.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law waited in the ER with us.  One of my best friends (who happens to be the head of the cardiology clinic) made sure my wife’s tests were completed as quickly as possible.  Another friend who’s a cardiology nurse stopped by to see how we were holding up.  It was simply grace upon grace upon grace from everyone (and that includes my friends and family from downstate).

Here’s a poem about grace that Saint Marty wrote . . .

Ode to Cheese and Crackers

by: Martin Achatz

Nothing special.  Saltines.  Kraft American

cheese slices.  I sit on the couch at 11 p.m.,

home from the hospital where I left

my wife in a bed, her heart singing

lullabies on a screen at the nurses’ station.

I place the cheese and crackers on my tongue

like communion wafers, blessed by the salt

crunch, creamy orange blandness, the way

I used to feel blessed when my mother gave

me Campbell’s Chicken Noodle when I was home

sick as a kid and I believed she could cure

leprosy, raise the dead with a can opener

and microwave oven while Bob Barker

dispensed miracles to the sick and lame

on the TV as long as they promised

to spay and neuter their pets.

April 13, 2026: “Death, the Last Visit,” Emily Dickinson, “Writing a Poem”

It’s Monday night.  Just got home from the library after showing a movie about the life of Emily Dickinson.  A Quiet Passion.  I’d seen it before.  Thought it was a perfect choice for National Poetry Month.

I’m not going to write a whole lot tonight.  I’m tired.  I think it has something to do with the dreary weather.  Driving to and from work today, the fog was so thick I worried I was going to run into a deer that got lost in the woods and wandered onto the mist-choked highway.

Marie Howe gets a little Emily Dickinson-esque . . . 

Death, the Last Visit

by: Marie Howe

Hearing the low growl in your throat, you’ll know that it’s started.

It has nothing to ask you.  It only has something to say, and

it will speak in your own tongue.

Locking its arm around you, it will hold you as long as you ever wanted.

Only this time it will be long enough.  It will not let go.

Burying your face in its dark shoulder you’ll smell mud and hair and water.

You’ll taste your mother’s sour nipple, your favorite salty cock

and swallow a word you thought you’d spit out once and be done with.

Through half-closed eyes you’ll see that its shadow looks like yours,

a perfect fit.  You could weep with gratefulness.  It will take you

as you like it best, hard and fast as a slap across the face,

or so sweet and slow you’ll scream give it to me until it does.

Nothing will ever reach this deep.  Nothing will ever clench this hard.

At last (the little girls are clapping, shouting) someone has pulled

the drawstring of your gym bag closed enough and tight.  At last

someone has knotted the lace of your shoe so it won’t ever come undone.

Even as you turn into it, even as you begin to feel yourself stop,

you’ll whistle with amazement between your residual teeth oh jesus

oh sweetheart, oh holy mother, nothing nothing nothing ever felt this good.

It’s funny.  I wrote a poem this evening about death, as well.  Most poets are pretty obsessed with mortality.  It’s one of the pitfalls of being a poet.  Death kindly stops for you all the time.

Here is Saint Marty’s new poem . . . 

Writing a Poem

by: Martin Achatz

Doesn’t it always start with a question,

like why is that snowman standing alone

in a field or how did Mom make perfect

pancakes every time or did my sister

feel my hand holding hers in those last

breath moments before her lungs went

to sleep and heart became a drumbeat

on a distant battlefield, when hearing

was all she had left, my voice entering

her ear canal, slowly drifting toward

the shores of her mind—a kid’s

inner tube blown across the lake by

a summer squall until it washes

ashore, finds a home in cattails where

it waits to be remembered, claimed

like a lost soul?

April 12, 2026: “Part of Eve’s Discussion,” Wild Week, “A Whole Civilization”

It has been a wild week.  

Tuesday morning, President #47 threatened to wipe out “a whole civilization.”  You read that right—he said he was going to genocide the country of Iran if it didn’t open up the Strait of Hormuz.  After his post on Truth Social, the whole world seemed to be holding its breath, not sure if the orange lunatic was going to actually start World War III.

If you’ve ever lived through the threat of some kind of apocalyptic weather/environmental event—hurricane, blizzard, tsunami, volcanic eruption—that’s what it felt like.  The planet was teetering on the brink of something cataclysmic, and only one person could prevent it.  And that one person was/is a mentally unstable Putin wannabe.  

Don’t worry.  This post isn’t going to be a political rant.  Y’all know I stand on the side of compassion, kindness, empathy, and freedom.  You know, all that shit you heard in church last Easter Sunday.  No, I won’t go all Sam Kinison on you (The man’s a fuckin’ baby with nuclear codes!!!!  Ahhhh, ahhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh!!!!!).   I’m more interested in that collective held breath—everyone waiting to see what was going to happen.  Like Christmas morning, except Santa Claus has missiles packed in his sleigh.

Marie Howe writes about just-before moments . . . 

Part of Eve’s Discussion

by: Marie Howe

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,

and flies, just before it flies, the moment when rivers seem to still

and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when

a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,

very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you

your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like

the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,

it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only

all the time.

Howe is talking about an anticipated experience that never materializes—a bird right before eating from your palm, a river right before a squall, a car right before it starts spinning on lake ice.  If you’re anything like me, you’ve already imagined the experience in your mind.  The bird has already gorged itself on the seed.  The storm has already whipped the river into froth.  The car has already spun and spun and spun like an amusement park ride.  

I think the world has become so focused on speed.  We want the fastest cell phones.  Fastest cars.  Fastest WiFi connections.  Call it the Era of Instant Gratification.  Anticipation is practically non-existent.  Movies don’t even stay in theaters all that long anymore.  They’re released, and, four weeks later, they’re streaming on Netflix or HBO Max.  You don’t have to wait six months or a year for the DVD or Blu-ray.  

President #47 did NOT go through with his threat.  Supposedly, there’s a two-week moratorium on bombing between Iran, Israel, and the United States.  (Somebody needs to let Netanyahu know about this ceasefire, by the way.)  The bird flew off without eating the seed.  The storm blew itself out like a birthday candle.  And the car’s tires found traction.  For two weeks.  Then, all bets are off.

As Howe says at the end of her poem, “. . . it was still like that, only / all the time.”  It’s exhausting living in a state of constant anticipation.  Even if Tuesday’s  threat has been postponed, it’s still present.  And the people of the United States have been living on this edge like this for close to ten years now.  Almost an entire generation of young people only remember #47 and Joe Biden as Presidents of the United States.  (You can argue with me if you want, but at least President Biden never brought us to the brink of armageddon, and he isn’t a convicted felon.)

We are a divided country.  That’s a fact.  Also a fact:  the inmates are in charge of the asylum right now.  When my kids and grandkids read this post dozens of years from now, I want them to know I stood on the side of love and kindness during this held-breath moment.  And I will continue to do so.  

I have friends who are incredibly pessimistic about the future.  That’s not me.  I believe that democracy is still alive in the United States.  The fact that Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán lost the election in his country by a landslide today gives me hope.  In the end, good people win, and despots end up on the trash heap.  We will recover from the past ten years of MAGA-induced insanity, but it will take a while.  No instant gratification available.  Sorry millennials.

In the meantime, we gather, protest, speak up, speak out, listen to and recite poetry at readings (like I did today), and sing songs.  

Here’s a poem Saint Marty wrote last Tuesday . . . 

A Whole Civilization

by: Martin Achatz

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
                    --- Donald Trump

We sit on this side of the world,
complain about egg prices, milk
prices, pill prices. We pump gas
into our SUVs, complain about that, too.
We have to get to Florida for our spring breaks.
Because we’re civilized.

They sit on the other side of the world,
wait for the whistle of missiles,
watch skies on fire, and dig
their daughters’ bodies from school
rubble. They weep, wail, tear their clothes,
wonder how frightened their children
were when heaven collapsed on top of them.
Because they’re civilized.

April 7, 2026: “The Singularity,” War, “Up from the Grave”

I spent most of today worrying about war.

This morning, #47 said that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”  Yes, you read that correctly.  The President of the United States threatened to bomb Iran—infrastructure, power plants, schools, men, women, children.  In case you don’t know, that’s genocide.  And a war crime.  World leaders have been put in prison and executed for shit like this.  If you don’t believe me, read up on the Nuremberg trials.

Marie Howe writes about the beginning (and end) of the universe . . . 

The Singularity

(after Stephen Hawking)

by: Marie Howe

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity

we once were

so compact nobody 

needed a bed, or good or money

nobody hiding in the school bathroom

or home alone

pulling open the drawer

where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good

belongs to you.  Remember?

There was no Nature.     No

them.    No tests

to determine if the elephant

grieves her calf.   of if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed

oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up to what we were

when we were ocean,    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was

liquid, and stars were space, and space was not

at all—nothing,

before we came to believe humans were so important

before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?

What once was?    Before anything happened?

No  I, no we, no was

no verb.       no noun

only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is  is  is  is  is

All  everything  home.

No I or we or was, Howe writes.  Human beings are really good at killing each other.  We’ve been practicing it for a few millennia.  Cain killed Abel, and that got the ball rolling.  Now, we have a demented sociopath who said he was going to kill an entire country.  He backed off tonight and set another deadline (two weeks from now).  So Armageddon is on hold for another 14 days.

The question is:  are we at the beginning or the end?  

I’m not sure.  Any other President of the United States (Democrat or Republican) would have already been impeached and removed.  Yet, #47 is still in the Oval Office.  For now.  We have two weeks to do something before we’re back in the same boat.

If you still support this deranged Hitler wannabe, please stop reading this post now.  Ya ain’t gonna like it.  When Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Green say that it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment, you know there’s something seriously wrong.  

I’m not sure about the endgame.  Optimistically, in the next two weeks, Congress does its job:  impeachment and removal.  Or the 25th Amendment is invoked.  Or another stroke occurs.  Let’s not kid ourselves, though:  the current Vice President isn’t fit to serve in the Oval Office, either.  (Currently, he’s schmoozing with Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister/dictator of Hungary.). Where does that leave us?

It leaves us living in a country run by war criminals.

Saint Marty wrote this poem on Easter Sunday . . . 

Up from the Grave

by: Martin Achatz

Ham.  Mustard.  Bread.  Dad’s Easter salvation.

April 4, 2026: “Hymn,” Easter Vigil, “Holy Saturday”

In past years, I would be in church right now, sitting on an organ bench.  If you’ve never attended a Mass before, and you want to get the full Catholic experience, the Easter Vigil is for you.  It’s more Catholic than the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition.  (Yes, I’m probably going to hell for that little joke.)

However, I did not play any church service tonight.  Instead, I did laundry, wrote some poetry, practiced music for Easter morning, and put together some baskets from my son and wife.  (No egg hunt this year, per my 17-year-old son.)  After I’m done typing this post, I’m going to read a little Hemingway.  Maybe watch a movie (The Passion of the Christ perhaps).  There will be plenty of liturgy and singing in my life tomorrow morning.

Marie Howe sings . . . 

Hymn

by: Marie Howe

It began as an almost inaudible hum,

                    low and long for the solar winds

                                        and far dim galaxies,

a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,

                    a song without words for the snow falling,

                                        for snow conceiving snow

conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,

                    the hum turning again higher—into a riff of ridges

                                        peaks hard as consonants,

summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices

                    then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows

                                        the lakes’ skitters surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking

waves, the salt-deep; the warm bodies moving within it;

                    the cold deep; the deep underneath gleaming, some of us rising

                                        as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down

as it turned into dark; as each of us rested—another woke, standing

                    among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;

                                        we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,

left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,

                    in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,

                                        in the mud of the shanty towns, breaking into

harmonies we’d not known possible, finding the chords as we

                    found our true place singing in a million

                                        million keys the human hymn of praise for every

something else there is and ever was and will be

                    the song growing louder and rising.

                                        (Listen, I too believed it was a dream.)

In yesterday’s post, I discussed my dislike for Lenten and Easter hymns, in general.  My opinion was formed through years of being a church musician and choir director.  That doesn’t mean that I hate Eastertide.  Quite the contrary.  I have wonderful childhood memories of receiving immense, chocolate-filled baskets.  And there was always a note attached; I was one of those kids who wrote to Santa and the Easter Bunny.  Didn’t want to take any chances.  The notes from Mr. Bunny were always signed with a big, black paw print.

Even though it’s only 9:34 p.m., our Easter baskets have already been delivered.  I can smell the chocolate from where I’m sitting on the couch.  Of course, I’m tempted to grab something, but I will hold strong until tomorrow morning.  Then I will allow myself to eat one Cadbury Creme Egg before heading off to church.  It’s a little tradition I’ve established over the years. 

This afternoon, I practiced the musical pieces I have to play for church tomorrow morning.  I was pleasantly surprised that I knew every single hymn.  I also went to do laundry at the laundromat, thinking it would not be too busy.  (I was wrong.). Every single washer and dryer were in use when I arrived.  I had to wait a couple minutes to get my loads going.

Overall, it has been a blessedly quiet Easter Eve.  And for that, I say, “Amen.”

Saint Marty wrote a poem at the laundromat this afternoon . . . 

Holy Saturday

by: Martin Achatz

I know

I will make mashed potatoes

with a pound of butter

a full carton of heavy whipping cream

plenty of salt

I know

I will also make Stove Top

a lot of it, because it’s my son’s favorite

I know

my son expects a basket

in the morning, full of Cadbury and Reeses

sweet resurrection

I know

people will gather in church tonight

candles and incense and dark

so dark mothers could lose kids in it

I know 

it is spring in Austria

my Austrian friend told me

mountains and fields shouting

Hallelujah!

I know

my Christmas tree is still

blazing in my living room

like Easter morning

April 3, 2026: “The Willows,” Triduum, “Good Friday”

I only get to write this once a year—happy Good Friday!

Yes, Lent is over., and were are in the middle of the Triduum of the Christian calendar.  Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  (Pretty much all services—aside from the Catholic ones—were canceled yesterday due to a snow and ice storm.)  I did not go to church yesterday.  Today, however, I played two Good Friday commemorations, one Catholic and one Lutheran.

I have to be honest.  Lenten and Easter music just don’t excite me.  I’ve been a church musician for close to 40 years now (started playing pipe organ when I was 17 years old), and I still dread Ash Wednesday with all its minor keys and dirges.  I know Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation and sacrifice, headed toward the loudness and light of Easter morning, but I won’t cry if I never have to play “O Sacred Head Surrounded” or “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” again.  (Let me stress:  I’m against the crappy hymns and music of Lent and Easter, NOT the seasons themselves.)  You would think that, after 21 centuries, churches might have come up with a few good pieces of liturgical Eastertide music.

Now, before I start getting comments from angry churchgoers listing favorite Lent and Easter tunes, I will say that, given the choice between the funereal ditties of Lent and the overwrought anthems of Easter, I will choose the overwrought.  I can get into a rousing chorus of “Up From the Grave He Arose” as much as the next Christian, but it’s just so . . . ostentatious is the word I’m looking for, I guess.  I prefer subtlety.  What can I say?  I’m a poet.

Marie Howe gives us a subtle poem today . . . 

The Willows

by: Marie Howe

As we are made by what moves us,

willows pull the water up into their farthest reach

which curves again down

divining where their life begins.

So, under travels up, and down and up again,

and the wind makes music of what water was.

A beautiful little poem that packs a lot of joy.  It’s a celebration of “what moves us.”  Water—the one thing we (trees, plants, birds, insects, human beings) all depend upon.  We can go for days without food.  Water, on the other hand, is necessary for survival.  

Howe’s words more to me about Lent and Easter than “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ever has.  Because it’s about the force that sustains and uplifts us.  Even the wind sings a water hymn in the last line.  That’s what this season is about—walking across a desert and finding a cool, fresh running river at the end.  Whether you’re a Christian or not, we can all understand the relief of a glass of icy water on a hot summer day.  

You see what I’m getting at, I hope.  For me, Lent and Easter aren’t about the ashes and bells and incense and chants.  This season is about being offered a hose to slurp from after sweating in the fields all day long (metaphorically speaking).  

There’s another ice storm blowing in tonight.  I’m sure the grocery stores in the area were jammed with people trying to get their last-minute Easter shopping done prior to the freezing rain.  Think Black Friday, but everyone is fighting over hams and baskets and Cadbury Creme Eggs.  My wife and I did our final shopping last weekend.  We’re not planning on going out a whole lot tomorrow.  (I may hit the laundromat, but that’s about it.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem during one of his Good Friday services today . . . 

Good Friday

by: Martin Achatz

I sit,

listen

to this

familiar

story of betrayal, love, forgiveness, redemption,

think how my mom, with knees calcified by

arthritis,

knelt in

church every

Good Friday,

knobbed 

knuckles

folded, 

accepted 

her pain

like a kiss 

from her 

dead mother.

April 1, 2026: “Seventy,” April Fool, “Contemplating Old Age”

Nobody tried to make me an April Fool today.  No pranks.  No tall tales.  When I got home from work, my son came down the stairs from his bedroom and said to me, “Celeste says she’s pregnant.”  I didn’t fall for it; I’ve survived too many first days of April.  Perhaps I’ve become jaded in my old age.

Marie Howe writes about getting old . . . 

Seventy

by: Marie Howe

So, I’ve grown less apparent apparently:

The young men walk their dogs, and when our dogs meet

we look at the dogs without raising our eyes to each other.

The fathers stand outside the elementary school laughing

with the mothers—Exactly, one of them says to the other—

my passing presence faded like a well-washed once-blue cotton shirt.

Finally, I can slip through the world without being so adamantly in it.

And look, here comes the blind photographer

walking as he does, his hand resting on the shoulder of his companion.

And now the riot of children pouring through the open school doors.

Late winter, an unseasonably warm afternoon

and the summer ice cream truck at the corner—

cold early March and there it is—playing its familiar kooky tune.

There’s some good things about getting old, according to Howe.  The most important perk:  growing less apparent.  She’s able to walk down the street, pick up her kid from elementary school, and not be viewed as a sexual object, or be noticed at all.  Old age brings anonymity.

I spent most of today working on library stuff for May.  Literally, I sat at my desk for eight hours, typing and pointing and clicking.  The good news is that I actually got a lot of shit done, including all of the programming for May.  Now, sitting and typing this post at 10 p.m., I am exhausted.  

I find I tire more easily now.  I’m not sure if this is a symptom of old age, or if I simply overwork myself on a daily basis.  Plus, I spent a few hours this afternoon and tonight trying to figure out a credit card issue.  (I wasn’t successful.  I’m going to have to call my credit union tomorrow morning.)  I used to be able to get by on about three or four hours of sleep a night.  Not any more.  Now, my goal when I get home is to get in my pajamas as quickly as possible.  Naps have become my favorite pastime.

That’s my wisdom for tonight.  I feel old and tired.  It doesn’t help that it’s Holy Week.  For church musicians, these next seven days are like a fraternity hazing.  If I make it to Sunday afternoon, I will be ready for a long Easter slumber.

Saint Marty even wrote a poem about feeling old . . . 

Contemplating Old Age

by: Martin Achatz

All day I nurse a sour belly, knee ache, back

twinge.  I catalogue yesterday’s events, pray

I haven’t slipped a disc, torn some cartilage.  My

spry days, when I could run five miles, traverse

mountain paths, sleep only two hours  a

night, are long gone, replaced by naps, flour

allergies, piss trips at midnight, a potbelly.

How did I get so old?  It snuck up on me,

the way Christmas sneaks up, with fruitcake,

cards, dead friends and family, all the wrack

time inflicts before your final curtain call.