May 19, 2025: "Cambridge Elegy," Sal, "Opposites Attract"

Tonight, I screened the film Gladiator II at the library.  The entire time I watched it, I was thinking about my sister, Sally, who loved Gladiator, mainly because of Russell Crowe.  I'm not sure Sal would have enjoyed the sequel all that much, because of the serious lack of Russell Crowe in the movie.  But her spirit was certainly sitting right next to me the whole time, watching.

Sharon Olds writes an elegy for a lost young love . . . 

Cambridge Elegy

by: Sharon Olds

(for Henry Averell Gerry, 1941-60)

I scarcely know how to speak to you now,
you are so young now, closer to my daughter's age
than mine -- but I have been there and seen it, and must
tell you, as the seeing and hearing
spell the world into the deaf-mute's hand.
The dormer windows like the ears of a fox, like the
long row of teats on a pig, still
perk up over the Square, though they're digging up the
street now, as if digging a grave,
the shovels shrieking on stone like your car
sliding along on its roof after the crash.
How I wanted everyone to die I if you had to die,
how sealed into my own world I was,
deaf and blind. What can I tell you now,
now that I know so much and you are a
freshman, still, drinking a quart of orange juice and
playing three sets of tennis to cure a hangover, such an
ardent student of the grown-ups! I can tell you
we were right, our bodies were right, life was

really going to be that good, that
pleasurable in every cell.
Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but
better than the bright corners of your eyes, or the
light of your face, the rich Long Island

puppy-fat of your thighs, or the shined
chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I
remember your extraordinary act of courage in
loving me, something no one but the
blind and halt had done before. You were
fearless, you could drive after a sleepless night
just like a grown-up, and not be afraid, you could
fall asleep at the wheel easily and
never know it, each blond hair of your head--and they were
thickly laid--put out like a filament of light,
twenty years ago. The Charles still
slides by with that ease that made me bitter when I
wanted all things broken and rigid as the
bricks in the sidewalk or your love for me
stopped cell by cell in your young body.
Ave--I went ahead and had the children,
the life of ease and faithfulness, the
palm and the breast, every millimeter of delight in the body,
I took the road we stood on at the start together, I
took it all without you as if
in taking it after all I could most
honor you.

It's so difficult losing a person at a younger age.  It sounds as if Olds had made life plans with Henry Averell Gerry.  Those plans included marriage and children.  Olds saw those plans become reality, without Gerry's presence.  She writes the elegy to let him know she's done it--gone down "the road we stood on at the start together"--honoring his youth and potential.

My sister Sal was taken way too early by lymphoma of the brain.  I know she had plans.  She had retirement accounts, a nice camper, nieces and nephews she spoiled.  Always generous, Sal celebrated each Christmas and birthday as if it was going to be the last.  She gave of herself freely, without ever asking for repayment.  That's who she was.

But, of course, you can't have life without death.  Joy without grief.  Love without loss.  That's the way it works.  Everything is defined by its opposite.  You can't know if something tastes salty unless you taste sweet.  Summer can't really be enjoyed unless you know the ice of winter.  Abbott would have been nothing without Costello.  

I would never give up the time I had with Sal simply to avoid the pain of her loss.  Unfortunately, those two things go hand-in-hand.  There was always going to be grief, whether she died first or me.  The depth of love I felt for my sister is defined by sorrow I feel at her absence.  As I said, you can't have one without the other.

So, Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about attraction and opposition, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about a pair of something (of a pair of people) in couplet form (a couplet is a two-line stanza).  Make sure each line in the couplet compliments the other in sound and image; for example, if your first line is about a bride maybe include an image of a groom in the second line or perhaps a veil and bouquet.  Make a list of pairs--Bert and Ernie, apples and oranges, his and hers--then write in couplets inspired by the couple you choose.

Opposites Attract

by: Martin Achatz

Mary Oliver knew this, paired joy

with grief in the same poem,

the way my dad paired 7-Up

with Seven Crown every night

and the moon sometimes sits

in the sky with morning sun,

because it's a matter of negative

calling to positive, magnetically,

Romeo betraying his family name

by falling for Juliet at first sight,

or Robert Redford jumping off

that cliff with Paul Newman.

Salt defines sugar.  Satan defines

God.  You can't have one without

the other.  Just ask the fish swimming

with birds in the reflected clouds.

February 22: Peleg and Bildad, Bert and Ernie, Passion and Logic

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad; how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth-"

"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what lay shall we give this young man?"

"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred and seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?- 'where moth and rust do corrupt, but lay-'"

Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. It was an exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a forthing is a good deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.

"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not want to swindle this young man! he must have more than that."

"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without lifting his eyes; and then went on mumbling- "for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said Peleg, "do ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say."

Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,

"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship- widows and orphans, many of them- and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg."

"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn."

"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be drawing ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou art still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg."

"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my soulbolts, but I'll- I'll- yes, I'll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun- a straight wake with ye!"

As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. "Whew!" he whistled at last- "the squall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, for the three hundredth lay."

Peleg and Bildad are quite the pair.  Peleg is all salt and storm; Bildad, the calm eye of the hurricane.  This moment, like so many in Moby-Dick, is full of comedy.  The pair remind me of Bert and Ernie or Abbott and Costello.  Out of the two, I would say that Bildad is more Abbott/Bert and Peleg is more Costello/Ernie.  It's the difference between being passionate and emotional versus cool and rational.

I think I am a mixture of Peleg and Bildad.  At times, I can get pretty worked up (read my post last night about mental illness and guns if you don't believe me).  Other times, I have the ability to remain almost Spock-like in my demeanor.  Logical and detached.  These dual natures have served me well as a writer.

When I start a writing project (whether it's a new poem or essay or short story), I'm all Peleg.  I rush at it full throttle, ready to wrestle it to the ground in a stranglehold until it surrenders or throws me off.  Those first moments are full of emotion and excitement.  I throw everything I have into it, including the kitchen sink and a unicycle.  I juggle.  Balance a beach ball on my nose.  Tightrope walk without a net.  I am a freakin' Flying Wallenda with a pen.

After that first assault, my Bildad side kicks in.  I step back, read what I've written.  On bad days, I think I'm without talent.  What I have on the page is stupid.  Artless.  If it were a teenage girl, it would be Carrietta White, without friends.  A high school outcast.  Tormented and miserable.

Of course, Carrietta had telekinetic powers and ended up killing most of the people in her high school, along with destroying a good portion of the town.  There is something really visceral about those early drafts.  There's muscle and bone exposed.  But there's also something else.  The writing is able to move things inexplicably.

I think that I'm extending this metaphor a little too far.  You get the idea.  I think all good writers have a little Peleg and Bildad in them.  Passion and rationality.

Tonight, I'm going to work on my Lenten project.  It's going to require some Bildad.  I need to shape and edit.  I have to see if what I have is going to be able to make a house crumble or a mountain walk across the street.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for pen and paper.