August 10, 2025: “May 1968,” Home Again, “Spending Time with My Daughter the Weekend Before She Starts Med School”

There are moments in your life you know will change you completely.  Sometimes those moments are pretty obvious—graduations, weddings, births.  Other times, they take you by surprise—a serious diagnosis, sudden loss, unexpected death of a loved one.  

Sharon Olds has one of those moments . . . 

May 1968

by: Sharon Olds

When the Dean said we could not cross campus
until the students gave up the buildings,
we lay down in the street,
we said the cops will enter this gate
over us. Lying back on the cobbles,
I saw the buildings of New York City
from dirt level, they soared up
and stopped, chopped off—above them, the sky,
the night air, over the island.
The mounted police moved, near us,
while we sang, and then I began to count,
12, 13, 14, 15,
I counted again, 15, 16, one
month since the day on that deserted beach,
17, 18, my mouth fell open,
my hair on the street,
if my period did not come tonight
I was pregnant. I could see the sole of a cop's
shoe, the gelding's belly, its genitals—
if they took me to Women's Detention and did
the exam on me, the speculum,
the fingers—I gazed into the horse's tail
like a comet-train. I’d been thinking I might
get arrested, I had been half-wanting
to give myself away. On the tar—
one brain in my head, another
in the making, near the base of my tail—
I looked at the steel arc of the horse's
shoe, the curve of its belly, the cop's
nightstick, the buildings streaming up
away from the earth. I knew I should get up
and leave, but I lay there looking at the space
above us, until it turned deep blue and then
ashy, colorless, Give me this one
night, I thought, and I'll give this child
the rest of my life, the horse's heads,
this time, drooping, dipping, until
they slept in a circle around my body and my daughter.

There’s a lot going on in this tiny moment Olds describes.  A student protest.  Hostile police.  Horses.  Possible arrest.  An unplanned pregnancy.  Whatever happens, the speaker of the poem is never going to be the same again.

I am home again after attending my daughter’s white coat ceremony and spending time with her and her significant other.  This morning, we had breakfast with them at IHOP, and then we packed up and hit the road.  

Now, that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?  It doesn’t really touch upon how I felt like a piece of myself was dying as I drove away from my daughter who was standing outside her apartment, waving at us.  Or how I would just start crying occasionally as the miles between us increased.  Or all the government vehicles at Mackinaw City (where we stopped for fudge)—ICE and/or Border Control.  Or how moody my 16-year-old son was because he doesn’t really know how to deal with his big emotions.  Or the emptiness of being home again, knowing that my daughter is six hours and a new life away.

It’s a big moment of change.  Our lives will never be the same again.  My daughter is pursuing her dream, and I’m doing my damndest to support her in any way I can.  Yet, another part of me mourns for my little girl in pigtails.  That’s where I’m stuck, and I think I’m going to be stuck for a while.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about this big moment, based on the following prompt from August 9 of The Daily Poet:

On this day in 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden.  Write a poem that uses the names of two regional trees in your area and two types of flowers or ground over.  Have the poem begin in an urban environment and end in a wooded setting.  For extra credit, include a name of a regional bird, shrub, and amphibian.

Spending Time with My Daughter

     the Weekend Before She Starts Med School

by: Martin Achatz

A good friend of mine sees

the world we live in

as a shitty place, filled 

with Hitlers, Stalins, Trumps.

We exchange text messages

about the ash we’re leaving

for our children to

inherit, we even use

the word apocalypse.

I think we’ve both read

way too much Bukowski.

This weekend before, I am

surrounded by asphalt

and buildings and heat,

progress some people

would call it.  I’ve toured

campus, been surrounded

by young people with 

faces bright as ripe

apples, my daughter

one of them.  All are

living in the future

right now, time travelers

who see themselves

not as “I am”

but “I will.”

For me, an old man

more than halfway

through his “I am,”

I drink their optimism

like gin and tonic

on a 100-degree day,

bitter and sweet.

When I hug

my daughter goodbye

tomorrow, head home

over hundreds 

of blacktop miles

(more evidence of our

misguided progress), 

I will take

her spirit with me

like a shiny penny

in my pants pocket.

I will cross

the Mackinac Bridge

into a place

that’s been stubborn

in its battle to survive,

a place my daughter

was born, full of

trembling aspen,

sugar maple and lupine,

butterfly weed and wild

turkeys, sweet gale,

and blue-spotted 

salamanders crossing

a paved road to

lay their eggs

near the waves

of vast, blue

waters.

March 17, 2025: "The Couple," Saint Patrick’s Day, "Reek Sunday on Croagh Patrick"

Yes, it is Saint Patrick’s Day.  No, I didn’t drink green beer or eat corned beef and cabbage, and I completely forgot to wear any green clothing.  (I was saved by the fact that my winter coat is green, and there was a splash of green in my socks.). 

These days, I’m just completely distracted by social media posts and news reports about the latest Agent Orange idiocy.  Just this afternoon, I saw a car pulled over to the side of U.S. 41 driving home.  Behind that car was a State Police cruiser, and behind the State Police cruiser were two vehicles marked “Border Control.” Yes, even the Upper Peninsula of Michigan isn’t immune to the three-ring circus of the Oval Office.  

Mostly, I’m worried about the future of my kids.  I was speaking to my daughter the other day, and she said how terrified of the government she is.  The world they’re going to inherit is going to be vastly different from the world I inherited from my parents.

Sharon Olds writes about the relationship between her son and daughter . . .

The Couple

by:  Sharon Olds

On the way for the country, they fall asleep

in the back seat, those enemies,

rulers of separate countries, sister and

brother.  Her big hard head

lolls near his narrow oval skull

until they are crown to crown, brown

hair mingling like velvet.  Mouths

open, the rosebud and her cupid’s bow,

they dream against each other, her calm

almond eyes and his round blue eyes

closed, quivering like a trout.  Their toes

touching opposite doors, their hands in

loose fists, their heads together in

on consciousness, they look like a small

royal bride and groom, the bride still a

head taller, married as children

in the Middle Ages, for purposes of state,

fighting all day, and finding their only

union in sleep, in the dark solitary

power of the dream—the dream of ruling the world.

All siblings have their differences.  I had three brothers and five sisters growing up.  Three of those siblings have died in the past ten years.  My two remaining brothers are Trumpers.  My sisters align more with my cultural and political standpoints.  Not completely, but close enough.  I love my siblings, but I don’t get along with all of them. 

My son adores his sister, and the feeling is mutual.  Sure, they have their disagreements.  There have been blowups between them, but those storms don’t last very long.  Then they’re back gaming together online at night.  My son can be quite . . . passionate and mercurial with his emotions.  My daughter, on the other hand, takes after me—always thinking things through, trying to see an issue from all sides.

I know that my daughter and son love each other.  Long after I’m gone, when I’m just a forgotten book in the library, they will be close friends.  I’m sure of that.  From the beginning, my son has cherished his sister’s attention.  My daughter waited eight years for her brother, and she has adored him since the day she first held him as an infant.

So, no matter what happens in the United States—whether the constitutional democracy is preserved or an Orange dictatorship prevails, my kids will have each other’s backs.  That gives me comfort as this country edges closer and closer to a Margaret Atwood dystopia.  My daughter and son are going to be alright.

Maybe we can just pray to Saint Patrick, asking him to drive the snakes out of the White House and Congress.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem in celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, write a poem about Ireland or something Irish.  It can be Delaney's Bar or the Book of Kells, Guinness beer or a Celtic cross.  If you're Irish yourself, explore your own heritage.  But even if you're not Irish, make sure to include images of Ireland and Irish culture.  You can start the poem with the line, The last time I was in Ireland or I've never been to Ireland, but . . .

Reek Sunday on Croagh Patrick

by: Martin Achatz

Thousands climb to the summit

every July, some barefoot to atone

for that one-night stand in college

and the abortion after, or the cheeseburger

eaten on Good Friday when Christ

hung on the cross like a graduation

picture.  Even Saint Patrick fasted

forty days at the top, tortured by

a murder of demonic birds, a female

serpent named Corra offering him

colcannon, barmbrack, soda bread

salty as tears.  My friend scaled

Croagh Patrick in her sandals,

her feet already hard as diamonds, 

not seeking forgiveness or penance,

but simply to breathe the holy air,

touch with her toes the hungry stones.

This was before she got sick and needed

a miracle, when her life seemed

endless as the summer solstice.

She sat, read Seamus Heaney poems

to the grasses and winds, felt

displaced in time, Corra coiled

around Patrick's naked body, testing

his faith with her forked tongue,

both of them robed in sunlight.

My friend brought me a rock

from that sacred place, on its surface

a smudge of mineral, maybe hematite

or copper, in the shape of a figure

(Adam?  Bigfoot?  Patrick?) strolling

like a prayer toward God's distant eardrum.