October 7: A Blessed Life, Panic and Doubt, Classic Saint Marty, "The Omelet"

Can I tell you that I've had a really great birthday weekend?

Last night, I took my son to see The House with the Clock in Its Walls, which was surprisingly good.  My son has been talking about this movie since the first trailers came out.  Jack Black is always entertaining, even in bad films.  He has a similar kind of manic energy that Robin Williams and John Belushi had.

This morning, I went to two church services.  One of my good friends invited me to the 9 a.m. worship at her church.  She and her son play in the praise band.  It was like a Christian rock concert, replete with lights, fog, and banging loud music.  My son loved it.  Then, I went to the worship service at my wife's church for World Communion Sunday.  Different vibe, but still inspiring.

Now, I'm getting ready for the coming week.  Something happened a little while ago that is sort of playing on a loop in my head right now.  Can't turn it off, and it's bringing me down.  The past (especially a fairly traumatic time from the past) has a way of popping up every once in awhile to haunt you.  Don't worry.  I'm not in harm's way.  I just can't push it out of my mind, and it's making me crazy.

I know that I lead a blessed life.  I know that.  My health is pretty good.  My kids are smart and beautiful.  My wife just threw me a great surprise birthday party.  I have jobs that pay the bills (for the most part).  Lots of friends who care about me.

Yet, memory has a way of triggering the worst kinds of moods.  I don't know if it's post traumatic stress or what.  I have never had a positive memory trigger, been overcome and obsessed about the best times of my life.  The births of my daughter or son.  My wedding day.  Being named Poet Laureate.  No, my memory triggers fill me with panic and dread.  They sit in the pit of my stomach, perch on my forehead.  Caw and screech and growl.  That's what I'm experiencing right now.

My sister is cooking prime rib for me tonight.  Mashed potatoes.  Dinner rolls.  And tapioca pudding.  My favorite things.  I'm trying to push this wave of anxiety away and enjoy this family birthday dinner.  It's getting easier.  I spoke with my wife about it a little while ago, and she was able to make me less anxious.

Now, you disciples reading this are probably thinking that I'm a basket case.  Confession:  I frequently am.  I can go from panic to self doubt to Hershey kisses to panic in the space of about five minutes.  This is normal for me.

A year ago, I was also celebrating my birthday and counting my blessings.  No panic involved . . .

October 7, 2017:  Silent Film, Richly Blessed, This Little Light

The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes.  They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open.  They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.

"So long forever," they might have been singing, "old fellows and pals; So long forever, old sweethearts and pals--God bless 'em--"

Have to apologize for my absence last night.  I was not bunkered down, waiting out a fire-storm.  I was at the monthly poetry workshop I lead at the Joy Center in my home town of Ishpeming, right in the heart of the Upper Peninsula.  There were lots of old pals and colleagues there.  We wrote about ghosts, watched one of my favorite haunted house movies (The Changeling), and ate.

You know, I have realized this Saint Marty's Day that I have been richly blessed this year.  So much good has happened in my life.  If I were in a silent film of a barbershop quartet, the subtitles would probably be the lyrics of "This Little Light of Mine" or Pharrell Williams' "Happy."

I know I'm sounding very Up With People, but I have been very lucky this year, connecting with new friends and reconnecting with old ones.  That has been one of the greatest blessings of being chosen Poet Laureate.  I get to go places, read poems, talk about poetry, and meet wonderful people all over the Upper Peninsula.

Of course, there are still troubling things happening in the world--locally, nationally, and internationally.  So much division and strife.  These last couple days, there was a registered nurses' strike at the local hospital.  Good people, walking a picket line to make the community a better, safer, healthier place.  And, of course, there was Las Vegas this week.  Donald Trump.  Brexit.  North Korea.  There are plenty of things to worry about, and I'm not ignoring them.

However, for today, I'm going to watch my silent film, read the subtitles, hum a song.

Sing with Saint Marty:  "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

And a happy poem for this evening.  I swear. . .

The Omelet

by:  Martin Achatz

The Omelet

I had an omelet this morning,

With scallions and mushrooms and grated

Monterey Jack cheese.  It was so good

I wanted to take a picture of it,

Wanted to fall on my knees, right there

In the crowded dining hall, and say

A rosary for it.  I wanted to push

My way back into the kitchen,

Worship at the feet of Ruth, the aproned

Chef who had created it

In less than two minutes, scraping

Her spatula back and forth over

Her hot, stainless steel palette.

Watching her create that omelet made me

Believe in the Book of Genesis,

That God could create the world

In six days flat and then sit back

And view us like a National Geographic

Special on Sunday morning.

Seeing Ruth work, I couldn't understand

How people denied the existence of God:

Here she was, serving up two-minute

Breakfast miracles for everyone.

If I could serve this omelet

To the entire Middle East, the suicide

Car bombings, the need for guns,

Missiles, and armies would vanish

In a single bite.  An Omelet Peace

Accord would take place, the entire

Planet joining hands to sing

Psalms and dance with timbrels and drums.

Yes, the omelet was that good.

When I go to church this coming Christmas,

While the congregation kneels,

Gives thanks for a baby

Served up with a side of hay

In a manger, I will give thanks

For scallions and mushrooms

And Monterey Jack cheese, for folded and melting

Frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

Two of the biggest blessings in my life . . .

September 30: Saint Marty's Day, Book Club, Classic Saint Marty

Most of my loyal disciples are probably wondering why I haven't been speaking of the big, upcoming holiday.  Well, it's because I've been too busy to give it even one thought.  Today, however, I intend to start my holiday preparations:  dragging out the decorations, putting up the tree, playing traditional carols, baking cookies, buying and wrapping presents. 

That's right.  Saint Marty's Day is almost upon us.  As of this moment, there are exactly four days, eight hours, and 21 minutes shopping days left.  So, it's time to deck the Saint Marty's Day halls.  And don't forget the traditional dessert for Saint Marty's Day:  tapioca pudding. 

I know what you're all thinking right now:  I forgot to send out my Saint Marty's Day cards.  That's alright.  You still have a couple days left.  Saint Marty's Day is Friday, so, if you get your cards in the mail by Tuesday, they should reach their destinations in plenty of time.

In case you are a Saint Marty's Day atheist, let me share a few pictures from Saint Marty's Day celebrations around the world.

Japan:

Greece:

Rome:

England:

North Korea:

As you can tell, everybody from all 'round the world is getting in the Saint Marty's Day spirit. 

Tonight, I'm hosting my book club.  It's our annual Saint Marty's Day meeting.  That's right, Saint Marty's Day nog will be consumed this evening.  At the end of the night, we will hold hands, stand in a circle, and sing old Saint Marty's Day carols like "We Wish You a Merry Saint Marty's Day" and the old English "In the Bleak Saint Marty's Day."  It will be a lovely time.

A year ago, I was contemplating time and Saint Marty's Day as well . . .

September 30, 2017:  Standing on Thin Air, Randazzo's Fruit Market, 50th Saint Marty's Day

Billy now moved about the party--outwardly normal.  Kilgore Trout was shadowing him, keen to know what Billy had suspected or seen.  Most of Trout's novels, after all, dealt with time warps and extrasensory perception and other unexpected things.  Trout believed in things like that, was greedy to have their existence proved.

"You ever put a full-length mirror on the floor, and then have a dog stand on it?" Trout asked Billy.

"No."

"The dog will look down, and all of a sudden he'll realize there's nothing under him.  He thinks he's standing on thin air.  He'll jump a mile."

"He will?"

"That's how you looked--as though you all of a sudden realized you were standing on thin air."

Standing on thin air.  I frequently experience that feeling.  I can be walking along, smell something like an orange or banana, and suddenly I'm walking through Randazzo's Fruit Market in Detroit with my mother when I was five or six.  I shell a peanut, put it in my mouth, and I'm sitting at the Shrine Circus, watching the tigers jump through a flaming hoop.  I'm in thin air, between now and then.

Billy knows a few things about becoming unstuck in time.  This week, as I approach my 50th Saint Marty's Day, I'm going to be a little unstuck, too.  You're going to have to forgive me if I wax nostalgic about my past.  I'm standing on a mirror, looking down and up on myself.

I have a daughter who's a junior in high school.  She was born in the first year of the new millennium.  She never knew the twentieth century.  Can't remember a time when iPods and iPhones didn't exist.  I have a son in the fourth grade.  He thinks that Barack Obama was and should have been President of the United States forever.  (He and I agree on this little point.)

I will be cleaning my house this afternoon.  Then I will go to church and play the pipe organ.  For dinner, pizza from Pizza Hut.  These are things that I have done on Saturdays, without too much variation, for years.  Not exactly traditions.  More like comfortable routines.  That's what I see in the mirror I'm standing on today.

Saint Marty is thankful for routines.


I feel all warm and fuzzy now.  Don't you? 

Saint Marty's Day is on the way!

September 16: Sunday Afternoon, Classic Saint Marty, "Song of Ourself"

Welcome to Sunday afternoon.

It has been a warm and lazy day.  Church in the morning, followed by a potluck.  When I got back from church, I went on a bike ride because it was such a beautiful day.  I've made a vow to do some form of exercise every day, if I can.  Yesterday, I went for a walk with my wife and son.  Today, a four-mile bike ride.  Hopefully, come Thanksgiving day, I will be in some kind of shape for the annual Turkey Trot.

This evening, I'm attending a pipe organ concert at my church.  The organ recently underwent a 70-thousand-dollar restoration, so this is the culmination of that project.  I've been playing this instrument for close to 35 years, and I've never heard it sound better.  However, after the bike ride, I'd rather stay at home, read, and get my lesson plan ready for tomorrow.  My motivation for human interaction is at low ebb.  But I will go and play nice with other people.

Two years ago, I was at the start of a weekend, not the end . . .

September 16, 2016:  Migration of Caribou, Box of Kleenex, Road to Hell

In autumn the winding passage of ravens from the north heralds the great fall migration of caribou...

It is autumn, although I have seen no ravens from the north.  And I certainly didn't see any caribou tonight, although I did see a whole lot of football players running up and down a soggy field.  So, it was sort of like watching the fall migration of caribou.  Don't ask me if the home team won.  My daughter plays in the pep band, and we always leave after she plays during half-time.

Speaking of autumn, the annual fall illness has descended upon my household.  My daughter was out of school for two days this week, and she's still taking antibiotics.  My wife just crawled into bed with a box of Kleenex.  Me?  I'm attempting, for the second time, to watch The Wonder Boys with my daughter.  (For details on my first attempt, refer to last night's second post.)

It's Friday night, if you haven't guessed by the whole football thing.  After nine o'clock, and I still have papers to grade and poems to write.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will be able to get some major work accomplished.  That's my goal, anyway.  Of course, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I always have a lot of good intentions at the beginning of a weekend.  Tonight is like an apple, high on a branch, just waiting to be plucked.  I love Friday nights.  The potential of them.  The whole weekend stretching out before me.  It's one of my favorite times of the week.

Of course, come Sunday, I will have accomplished only half (if I'm lucky) of what I intended to do, and I will be feeling like a failure.

Tonight, however, Saint Marty is an unlit candle.  An uneaten Milky Way.  A pepperoni pizza waiting to be delivered.

And a little art and poetry for a Sunday afternoon . . .

September 2: Evening of Relaxation, Classic Saint Marty, "Old Boot in a Field"

I have been working and writing for most of this day.  No poems.  Just stuff that I needed to get done.  Blurbs that needed to be written.  E-mails that needed to be answered.  Nothing too exciting, but necessary.

I'm looking forward to an evening of relaxation.  Maybe a little reading.  Some writing, if my mind cooperates.  A movie with my wife.  Other than that, nothing that is going to raise my blood pressure in any way.

Last year, I was thinking a little about dreams and possibilities on Labor Day weekend . . .

September 2, 2017:  Private Parts, Mysterious and Unreachable, Possibilities

Werner Gluck, the young guard, was a Dresden boy.  He had never been in the slaughterhouse before, so he wasn't sure where the kitchen was.  He was tall and weak like Billy, might have been a younger brother of his.  They were, in fact, distant cousins, something they never found out.  Gluck was armed with an incredibly heavy musket, a single-shot museum piece with an octagonal barrel and a smooth bore.  He had fixed his bayonet.  It was like a long knitting needle.  It had no blood gutters.

Gluck led the way to a building that he though might contain the kitchen, and he opened the sliding door in its side.  There wasn't a kitchen in there, though.  There was a dressing room adjacent to a communal shower, and there was a lot of steam.  In the steam were about thirty teen-age girls with no clothes on.  They were German refugees from Breslau, which had been tremendously bombed.  They had just arrived in Dresden, too.  Dresden was jammed with refugees.

There those girls were with all their private parts bare, for anybody to see.  And there in the doorway were Gluck and Derby and Pilgrim--the childish soldier and the poor old high school teacher and the clown in his toga and silver shoes--staring.  The girls screamed.  They covered themselves with their hands and turned their backs and so on, and made themselves utterly beautiful.

Werner Gluck, who had never seen a naked woman before, closed the door.  Billy had never seen one, either.  It was nothing new to Derby.

I remember being that young and inexperienced, when girls and sex were mysterious and unreachable.  I remember the talk in high school gym locker rooms, all of its crudeness and longing, guys bragging about things they had never seen or done.  When I think about those four years, that's what I recall:  the longing of that time.

Me?  I felt that longing, but I wasn't that excited about being an adult.  I liked the freedom from grownup things, like jobs and taxes and college.  Yes, I had my share of teenage angst.  Worried about popularity and dating and grades and the future.  But, there was also a lot of hope about possibility.  The possibility of seeing that girl naked.  The possibility of becoming a famous writer or actor or scientist or singer.  The possibility of having sex.  When there's possibility, there's hope.

Of course, possibility doesn't disappear when you become an adult.  They just become a little less abundant.  When you get married and have children, you HAVE to do certain things.  You have to provide for your family in some way, and most people will do anything.  Shitty jobs.  Shitty wages.  Shitty benefits.  Responsibility limits your possibilities.

I would love to quit my jobs and spend the next year or two writing a book.  But I have a wife with bipolar.  I have a daughter and son in school, taking dance classes, expecting birthday presents and Christmas presents.  I can't just quit my jobs to pursue a dream.  That doesn't mean that my dream is dead.  It's modified.  I carve writing time out of my day.  In the morning.  In the evening.  In the middle of the night. 

That's my reality.

Saint Marty is thankful today for possibilities.

And a little piece of art and poetry for this rainy, Labor Day Sunday:

August 19: Facebook Memory, Classic Saint Marty, "Emmaus"

This morning, when I woke up, Facebook had sent me a memory:  a picture of my sister who died three years ago on this day.  It took me by surprise.  In the back of my head, I knew it was the anniversary of her passing, but I wasn't prepared to see her face smiling at me from my phone.

I just got back from visiting the cemetery with my daughter.  It's been a long, warm, sad day.  I've spent most of it mowing grass.  In an hour or so, dinner at my parents' house.

Today's Classic Saint Marty is from three years ago . . .

August 19, 2015:  Bewildered Expression, 6:27 a.m., Maggie Nelson, Unbearably Vivid Colors

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.   Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

My sister died this morning at 6:27 a.m.

When I saw her last night, she was breathing hard, each intake hitting her chest like a hammer.  I leaned over, said her name and then, "It's me.  Marty."  Her eyelid lifted, and she focused on me.  I told her about my long day of work.  I told her about classes starting next week.  Just before I left, I leaned over and whispered, "You don't have to be afraid, Sal.  You don't."

When I got to my parents' house at around 5 a.m., my sister was surrounded by the people who loved her.  My mother and father, siblings, nieces, nephews, and best friends.  We all stood around her, touched her hands and feet, told her how much we loved her.

Her breaths got slower, the spaces in between longer, and then she was simply gone.

I thought I was prepared for it.  I thought I was going to hold myself together.  I thought a lot of things.  But, in those moments following my sister's death, I felt an incredible emptiness enter me, as if I had been scooped out like a pumpkin at Halloween.  I wasn't prepared.

It has been about twelve hours since that moment.  I am still not prepared for a world without my sister.  For 17 years, I worked with her.  Eight- and nine- and ten-hour days.  I spent more time with her than any of my other siblings, and we knew each other deeply.  Trusted each other deeply.  Loved each other deeply, without having to say it.

There will be no cartoon tonight.  No laughter.

My sister once said to me, "You know, I wish I was as strong as you."

Saint Marty isn't strong tonight.  He's heartbroken.

98 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

Vincent van Gogh, whose depression, some say, was likely related to temporal epilepsy, famously saw and painted the world in almost unbearably vivid colors.  After his nearly unsuccessful attempt to take his life by shooting himself in the gut, when asked why he should not be saved, he famously replied, "The sadness will last forever."  I imagine he was right.

Loss never gets easier.  It gets more distant, until days like today, when it becomes fresh again, like grass that's just been cut, bleeding the smell of green into the air.

A poem for today . . .

Emmaus

by:  Martin Achatz

My sister lies in her bed
while her neighbors scream
in the hallway outside her door.
My sock, something’s wrong
with my sock, moans one voice.
And, Give it back, give it back now,
begs another, so full of longing
that I want to find its owner,
reach into my pants pocket,
empty its contents into
the speaker’s hands, hope
that, among the five quarters,
scrap of paper with a phone number,
burned-out Christmas bulb,
Tootsie Roll wrapper, maybe,
just maybe, he may find
what he’s lost.  My sister
has grown deaf to these voices.
She grips her bedrails,
grimaces, pulls herself closer
to me, the effot making her
shake as if some fist
is pounding on the door of her
body.  Do you want a drink?
I ask.  No, she says.
Are you warm enough? I ask.
She nods, closes her eyes.
Should I change the channel?
I ask.  No, she says again.
Then silence as she drifts
like a vagrant kite on a windy
day.  I wonder if she dreams
her body whole, climbs through
the window of her room, begins
walking down the road, between
the snowbanks, under the moon.
Maybe she meets other people
who tell her about the things
they can’t find.  Socks.  Cocker spaniels.
Birthday cards.  Wives.  Poems.
Husbands.  Photographs.  Friends.
The road is crowded with loss.
But they all keep moving, like pilgrims
on some cold Easter morning, hoping
to meet the one who will have
directions, will know how to get home.

August 5: Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, Sharon Olds

Welcome to Sunday evening.

Book Club ended about an hour-and-a-half ago.  My friend, author John Smolens, was the guest of honor.  We ate, talked, asked questions, drank, and talked some more.  It was a lovely gathering.  My Book Club has been going strong for close to 15 years or so.  That's a pretty good track record.  Members have come and gone.  Meeting nights have changed.  We've added a Secret Santa gift exchange at Christmas.  (Okay, I forced that one on everyone, but nobody's complaining.)  I can honestly say that some of my best friends are in this group of people.

They've seen me through a lot of ups and downs in my life.  They were there when my wife and I separated.  They were there when we reunited.  They've seen both of my kids grow up.  And, when my brother and sister and father died, they were at the funerals.  That's the kind of friends I have. 

I've been very lucky to have this group of people in my life for so long.  They really have lifted me up, over and over and over.

And a Classic Saint Marty from about three years ago . . .

August 4, 2015:  Felix the Cat, "Jaws," Sharon Olds, "Wonder"

Later, because it was Christmas, Ives had somehow felt compelled to leave the nice watch he'd bought his son in the room, instead of returning it to the store.  He put it in his top drawer, as if his boy would come in anytime now to claim it.  That drawer was stuffed with school paraphernalia, prayer cards, baseball cards, playing cards, a Felix the Cat comic that Ives had illustrated himself, years before.  And pamphlets, a dozen of them, from different seminaries, clipped together, one of them with the sun's rays extending outward in the shape of a cross, the title:  In God's Service.  On a shelf Robert had a edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, which he had bought when he was ten with his own money; an Oxford Book of Saints, his marker left on the page describing Saint Francis of Assisi.  A row of books on sciences, a picture book of pretty flowers from Celeste.  A paperback novel called Invasion of the Star Creatures and a book on ancient Egypt.  He saw that in a row on the inside cover his son had drawn three symbols:  that of an ankh, chrismon, and crucifix, one leading to the next.  In a bag he found a copy of Fanny Hill, which had one of his son's friend's names in the margin, certain pages marked off.  It made him laugh.  Then on Robert's desk, where each night he had worked by lamplight on his schoolwork--what "good" youngsters do--he found an edition of A Christmas Carol, which Annie had given him, opened to one of the middle chapters.

Ives is surrounded by reminders of his son.  The Christmas following Robert's death, Ives goes into Robert's room and catalogs his son's belongings--his books and cards, scribbled notes.  It's almost as if Robert is going to walk through the door, sit down, pick up his copy of A Christmas Carol, and start reading where he left off.  Robert's story is incomplete, and Ives wants him to return to finish it.

Greetings from Munising, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior.  Actually, I'm in a hotel in Wetmore, which is a couple of miles beyond Munising.  It has been a fairly pleasant day, discounting a disappointing lunch and messed-up hotel reservations.  My kids spent several hours at a swimming pool with a water slide, and I got to watch America's Got Talent. 

As I sit on my bed typing this post, I'm wearing one of my favorite tee shirts, with the classic logo for the movie Jaws on it.  For years, I'd wanted this shirt.  Every time I hit Old Navy, I'd scour the vintage tee shirt racks looking for it without success.  Then, one year, I found it--in my six-year-old son's size.  We bought it for him, and he wore it all the time.

One day, my son and my sister (the one who is currently a patient at the University of Michigan hospital) handed me a package.  Inside was a vintage Jaws tee.  My sister ordered it from Amazon.  Every time I wear it, I think of her.  I think of how my son loves my sister, and vice versa.  They probably planned my tee shirt surprise for over a week.

Like Ives, I feel like my sister's story isn't complete.  She's supposed to come to my daughter's high school graduation, show up for my son's school Christmas programs.  This morning, my son saw me wearing my Jaws shirt, and he said, "Me and Aunt Sally bought that for you."

"Yes," I said.  "You sure did."

My son touched the shirt and said, "I miss Aunt Sally."

I nodded and said, "Me, too, buddy."

I'm still hoping that my sister, by some miracle, beats this cancer.  Still hoping that she's around to see my son graduate from high school and my daughter go to college.

Saint Marty isn't on vacation from hope.

Wonder

by:  Sharon Olds

When she calls to tell me my father is dying
today or tomorrow, I walk down the hall
and feel that my mouth has fallen open
and my eyes are staring.  The planet of his head
swam above my crib, I did not understand it.
He lay, behind bevelled-glass doors, beside
the cut crystal decanter, its future
shards in upright bound sheaves.
He sat by his pool, not meeting our eyes,
his irises made of some boiled-down, viscous
satiny matter, undiscovered.
When he sickened, he began to turn to us,
when he sank down, he shined.  I lowered my
mouth to the glistening tureen of his face
and he titled himself toward me, a dazzling
meteor dropping down into the crib,
and now he is going to die.  I walk down the
hall face to face with it
as if it were a great heat.
I feel like one of the shepherd children
when the star came down onto the roof.
But I am used to it, I stand in familiar
astonishment.  If I had dared to imagine
trading I might have wished to trade
places with anyone raised on love,
but how would anyone raised on love
bear this death?

July 22: Book Club, John Smolens, Classic Saint Marty

Book Club this evening.  My friend, John Smolens, and his wife are joining us for a discussion of his novel Angel's Head.  For those of my disciples who may be unfamiliar with John's work, you don't know what you're missing.  He's a first-rate writer, a great teacher, and a damn fine human being, to boot.

Of course, I have been preparing for this gathering for two days. Cleaned my house yesterday.  Cooked a snack last night.  Now, I've just grilled some bratwurst.  People will be showing up in little less than an hour, and my control freakishness is kicking into high gear.  That's why I decided to sit down and type this blog post.  It calms me down.  Takes my mind out of the immediate moment.

Of course, this break will only last a until I publish these words, and then I will be in full-throttle freak mode for the next 45 or so minutes.

Funny, I was thinking about being a control freak a year ago on this day, as well . . .

July 22, 2017:  Little Green Hands, Control Freak, Grace

All the little green hands closed tight, because Montana's terror was so unpleasant to see.  The head zoo keeper ordered a crane operator, who was standing by, to drop a navy blue canopy over the dome, thus simulating Earthling night inside.  Real night came to the zoo for only one Earthling hour out of every sixty-two.

Billy switched on a floor lamp.  The light from the single source threw the baroque detailing of Montana's body into sharp relief.  Billy was reminded of fantastic architecture in Dresden, before it was bombed.

Montana has lost control of her life, if she ever had control of it at all.  She was sunning herself next to a swimming pool in Palm Springs, and she suddenly finds herself in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore without a single notion of how she got there.  Complete loss of control.  She is at the mercy of her zookeeper.  And it terrifies her.  The veil of her life has been torn away, and what's behind the curtain isn't too pleasant.

I must admit that I'm a little bit of a control freak.  I like routine.  Getting up at the same time every day.  Doing the same things every day.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time every day.  Going to bed around the same time every day.  I find great comfort in that kind of schedule.  It allows me to believe that I'm in control of my life.

Of course, I know that isn't true.  Just like every other human being on the planet, I am at the mercy of lots of factors.  Environment--yes, global warming is real.  Health--can't control illness.  Finances--money does make the world go 'round.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  My routine is built on a pretty shaky foundation.  One little shift in that foundation and everything falls apart.

In the last few years, I've experienced a lot of shifts in the foundation.  Some good, some bad.  That's life.  When that happens, the veil that covers the dome of my life is torn away for a while, and I'm reminded how little control I actually have of my existence.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that God is some race of aliens from a distant planet.  I'm saying that most of us walk around, confident in our places in the world, and then God sends us reminders of Who's really in control.

Now, when this happens, we can react like Montana.  Scream and scream.  Or we can accept the reminder (good or bad) as a blessing.  A moment of grace.  As Flannery O'Connor said, "All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful."  Most people think of grace as the Holy Spirit descending in a beautiful cloud.  I'm here to tell you that grace can hurt like a bitch sometimes.

But, grace, in whatever form, is good.  And Saint Marty gives thanks for it in his life.

July 15: Blessings, Classic Saint Marty, Blueberry Picking

I have felt very blessed today.  Church in the morning.  This afternoon, I drove out to some great friends' house to pick blueberries with my daughter and her boyfriend.  My friends have ten acres of prime blueberry country along Lake Superior.  We had a wonderful time, despite it being close to 102 degrees in the patches where we were picking.  And then, to cool off, we went swimming in Lake Superior for about an hour.

Like I said, it was a day full of blessings.

Four years ago, I was focusing on my blessings, as well:

July 15, 2014:  A Whole Noodle, Finding Blessings, Giving Thanks

Wilbur ate heartily.  He planned to leave half a noodle and a few drops of milk for Templeton.  Then he remembered that the rat had been useful in saving Charlotte's life, and that Charlotte was trying to save his life.  So he left a whole noodle, instead of a half.

Wilbur struggles with his feelings for Templeton.  After all, the rat doesn't do a whole lot to make himself likeable.  He steals food and prowls the garbage dump.  Templeton is a rat, and E. B. White didn't have a great fondness for rats.  But White makes Templeton a hero.  Wilbur knows that Charlotte would have ended up in Avery's bug collection if it hadn't been for Templeton's buried rotten goose egg.  The little pig recognizes that the rat has been a blessing, and Wilbur gives thanks.

Sometimes it's hard to recognize blessings, especially if you're a natural pessimist, like me.  Right now, I could complain that I'm tired, that I don't have enough money to pay for my daughter's braces, that I just received another shut-off notice from a utility company.  I'm great at complaining, because modern society is geared toward making people feel inadequate.  I'm not thin enough.  My house isn't big enough.  My car isn't new enough.  I don't look like Brad Pitt or George Clooney.

Yet, blessings are all around me.  I have a job.  I work with good people.  My kids are healthy.  My car is in good shape.  My house doesn't have mice.  There's food in my refrigerator.  I sometimes get to do things I love--read my poetry, play in a band, have friends over to talk about books.  Eat an occasional brownie.  So, I really am blessed.  I have enough.  Just enough.

My prayer focus this week is giving thanks, every day.  Thanks for the good things and the bad things, because bad things (like rats) can sometimes be the catalyst of grace.

Repeat after Saint Marty:  "I am blessed.  I am blessed.  I am blessed."

A blessing for a disease-carrying, filthy rodent.

Tonight, I'm going to be working on poems for a Bigfoot Poetry Reading that I'm giving tomorrow night.  

Saint Marty is the most blessed person in the world tonight.

July 8: A Little Melancholy, Classic Saint Marty, "Word Made Flesh"

I have spent most of this day working on a new Bigfoot poem.  About eight or nine hours now.  I have reached the point where I'm ready to let my close readers see it.  I'm not saying it's done.  However, it is in a form that I don't find embarrassing.  I've gone through about five or six drafts so far.

Now, I find myself a little melancholy.  Sundays often put me in this kind of mood.  No particular reason.  So far, I've held off the Sunday blues by concentrating on my writing.  Now, I don't have that distraction.

Three years ago, I wasn't writing poems.  I was preoccupied with something else that was making me feel blue . . .

July 8, 2015:  Glorious Life, Smartest Person, Matthea Harvey, "Michelin Man Possessed by William Shakespeare"

Glorious life ending.  There must have been a moment when his son had gasped for air, the last time, as Jesus must have.  But as Jesus had risen, he wanted his son to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact, and everything to be as it had been not so long ago.

Ives has this thought not long after his son is murdered.  Robert's death was so sudden and unexpected.  One moment, he was a happy high school senior, planning on entering the seminary.  The next moment, he was a statistic of crime and poverty.  Ives longs to return to his happier life, wants his son to emerge from his bedroom and say "Hey, pop, what's up?" like old times.

I understand Ives' thinking here.  When life changes drastically in a short period of time, nostalgia is a natural reaction.  Yes, I'm going to talk about my sister who's ill again.  Forgive me.  She's on my mind a lot.  I get updates daily on her condition at the University of Michigan.  I also spend much time thinking how different things were a year ago.

My sister is the smartest person I've ever known, and I've known a lot of smart people.  Poets and mathematicians and doctors.  My sister could read the manuals for complex pieces of medical equipment and have them memorized.  Literally.  She knew medical laws and regulations better than any risk manager.  People respected her opinions.  Trusted her.

For the last four or five days, my sister hasn't been able to talk.  Today, she spoke a little.  She said part of a prayer with my other sister.  The Hail Mary.  The words weren't completely clear, but she was obviously responding.

She is never going to be the person she once was.  Next week, she is going to have a brain biopsy.  Terrifying.  The goal of the doctors at the moment is to get her stable enough to come home, I think.  Nobody is talking about prognosis right now.

I miss my sister.  I miss seeing her at work, sitting in her office, telling people what to do.  It's almost as if some other creature is fighting to control her.  Like she's possessed by this thing that doesn't want her to eat or drink or talk or think.

Like Ives, Saint Marty wants his sister to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact.

Michelin Man Possessed
by William Shakespeare

by:  Matthea Harvey

I've taken many forms over the years,
but this may be the strangest one.  I see
through his eyes but cannot shed a tear.
I can feel his feet, but am not free
to leave this spot by the garage.  I think
he feels a kind of love for the balloon
who bobs nearby.  Each day he sees her sink
an inch.  Though I want to tell him of the moon
and slippered feet in marble halls, these tires
at our waist are a mischief.  I make believe
they are couplets of rubber, but barbed wire
would be more apt.  It's very hard to breathe.
Make us a man, or make us a machine--
but do not leave us trapped here in-between.

And I have a little poem of my own for this warm Sunday evening, from a manuscript I've been working on for a few years . . .

Word Made Flesh

by:  Martin Achatz

Lord, make my poem stretch, yawn.

Descend like the Blue Fairy, take

My words, mutter a blessing

Over them, give them muscle, tendon,

Make them pirouette, arabesque

Into a body on the brink of puberty.

Let my words sprout hair in secret

Places, girl chest bloom into orchids

Or boy sapling swell with resin

To fill buckets at Spring’s first blush.

I want my poem to kiss my mouth,

Head out into the world, tote books,

Lunch pail, ready to redeem humankind

Stanza by stanza, line by line,

Syllable by syllable, flesh by flesh.

Lord, did You sit at Your desk,

Scribble Jesus on a scrap of paper,

Then fold it, crease it, origami it

Into legs, arms, head, beard,

Let it walk away from Your pen

Into a world of critics, just waiting

To judge Your line breaks, imagery,

Your turn of phrase, your metaphor?

How much did it hurt when the reviews

Came in, when they took Your poem,

Tore it up, lined their bird cages with it?

Did You think of writing something else?

A sonnet that could bound like an elk,

A villanelle that sang like a loon,

A sestina that wallowed like a bison?

My friend, Lydia, makes paper cranes.

Perhaps You could write some haiku,

Give them to her.  She would take them,

Make neck and beak, body and tail.

She could give them wings, let them fly,

Hear them brush the air like jazz:

Praise, praise, praise, praise.

June 24: Force of Nature, Classic Saint Marty, Adult Reponsibilities

I find myself in the middle of craziness.  Lots of poetry things going on.  The kickoff of Art Week in a neighboring city.  A Sidewalk Chalk Poetry Contest that I'm helping to judge.  A concert to attend this evening.  And then, if I'm not brain dead after all that, I'm going to see the new Jurassic World movie with my wife and kids.

I don't mind days like this.  It's all part of being a parent and a poet and a teacher.  You can add a few other hats onto that list if you want.  Last night, I was able to write a draft of a new poem.  That makes me very happy.  Like I've accomplished a lot. 

It's difficult sometimes to maintain my energy.  Just met with a poet friend of mine for a little while.  She said to me, "I don't know how you do it.  You're a force of nature."  My response was something like, "I just take things one at a time.  That's how I survive."

A few years ago, I was sort of thinking about the same issues.  How to maintain youthful enthusiasm in the face of adult responsibilities . . .

June 24, 2015:  London, Youthful Passion, Louise Gluck, "The Open Window"

It had been a lovely trip, London everything they had wanted and imagined--for Annie, reading selections from several Dickens novels at the time, it was an enchantment; they took strolls through the Queen's gardens, fed the swans in Regents Park; tried to envision the shantytowns that Dickens had once written about, along the Thames, the city's architecture sometimes suspending their notion of modern time.  In fact, out of their usual context for a glorious period of several weeks, the veil of grief had somehow lifted from their hearts, Ives regaining a sense of childhood wonderment about many things.  Walking about the city with a black-bound sketchbook, Ives drew madly, as he once had as a kid . . . 

Ives' trip to Great Britain does something to him.  As a kid, he used to sit for hours with his sketchbook, drawing cartoons, people, buildings.  He was obsessed with art.  Everything he saw inspired him.  He sent samples of his work to Walt Disney, and Disney himself wrote back, encouraging him to continue drawing.  That's what Ives recaptures in London.  Passion.  Curiosity.  The love of life.

I used to have the same kind of youthful passion that Ives rediscovers in London.  Everything made me want to write.  I'd read a Stephen King novel, and it made me want to write about vampires in a sleepy Upper Peninsula town.  I'd go swimming, and it made me want to write about the moon climbing over Lake Superior.  I saw the original Star Wars (before the episodes and director's cuts), and I wanted to be Isaac Asimov.  I had that much enthusiasm and drive.

I still write every day.  During the course of my 14 or 15 waking hours, I still sometimes find inspiration.  Not as often as when I was a kid, though.  Life gets in the way.  Sick kids.  Broken windows.  Car troubles.  These things tend to stifle my passion.

Right now, I'm sitting in my office at the university.  I rode with my sister to work, and I have a couple hours before I have to punch the time clock.  So, I'm typing my blog post.  I did the same thing last Wednesday.  I find my mind much clearer at this time of the day.  The worries of job and home intrude less on my thoughts.  In the space of a half hour or 45 minutes, I'm done, and I've written something that I'm not ashamed to publish.

It makes me wish I had a life that allowed me to follow this writing practice every day.  I would be able to produce so much more work.  However, rising at four every morning, writing for three hours, and then driving to the medical office to work for eight hours is not a schedule I could maintain forever.  By 8 p.m. today, I know I will be exhausted.  Falling asleep on the couch.  I don't even know how I'm going to answer phones and deal with patients for the next nine hours.

I'm not complaining.  I'm just wishing I could somehow reclaim some of my youthful enthusiasm for writing.  I feel a little too old and too tired at the moment.

Maybe Saint Marty needs to take a trip to London.  It worked for Ives.

The Open Window

by:  Louise Gluck

An elderly writer had formed the habit of writing the words THE END on a piece of paper before he began his stories, after which he would gather a stack of pages, typically thin in winter when the daylight was brief, and comparatively dense in summer when his thought became again loose and associative, expansive like the thought of a young man.  Regardless of their number, he would place these blank pages over the last, thus obscuring it.  Only then would the story come to him, chaste and refined in winter, more free in summer.  By these means, he had become an acknowledged master.

He worked by preference in a room without clocks, trusting the light to tell him when the day was finished.  In summer, he liked the window open.  How then, in summer, did the winter wind enter the room?  You are right, he cried out to the wind, this is what I have lacked, this decisiveness and abruptness, this surprise--O, if I could do this I would be a god!  And he lay on the cold floor of the study watching the wind stirring the pages, mixing the written and unwritten, the end among them.

Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations at this desk

June 10: Bike Ride, Tony Awards, Classic Saint Marty

Welcome to Sunday afternoon. 

I have not accomplished a whole heck of a lot today.  After church, I decided to get some exercise.  So, I went for a bike ride.  It was about 75 degrees outside, and I was out and about for some 45 minutes.  My initial goal was to bike down to Negaunee, our neighbor city to the east.  It would have been about a six-mile round trip.  I quickly shelved that plan after realizing a very important fact:  there are tons of hills on the path. 

Therefore, I simply biked around my fair city.  I quickly discovered another important fact:  there are tons of hills in my home town.  I think it's the only place in the world where it's uphill both ways, wherever you go.  It was uphill on the way out, and uphill on the way home.  I was sweaty, tired, and a little sore when I finally pulled into my driveway.

Tonight, I will be watching the Tony Awards with my wife, daughter, and my daughter's boyfriend.  He's really thrilled with the prospect, I'm sure.  My daughter is kind of a theater geek.  Go figure.  A lifetime of dancing and music has sort of warped her.  In a good way.  My wife and I, of course, have been theater geeks since childhood.

Those are my big plans for this evening.  Nothing too earth-shattering.

Six years ago, after a weekend of dance recitals, my plans on this day were pretty much the same . . .

June 10, 2012:  Dance Recital Part 2, Tony Awards

I spent the afternoon in a dark theater for the matinee of my daughter's dance recital, or, as I like to to call it, Dance Recital Part 2.  It was, again, about two and a half hours long, but I love watching my daughter perform.  She's so joyful and funny.  And she didn't disappoint.  Her solo dance was exquisite.  Of course, I'm a little biased.  I mean, I've been her manager since the beginning of her career a little over eleven years ago.  I deserve to brag and be sentimental.

Now, I'm sitting in my living room, watching the 2012 Tony Awards.  It's a good way to end a long weekend of theater.  I mean, who doesn't love Neil Patrick Harris, except some small-minded, humorless homophobe?  I think even Mitt Romney loves Neil Patrick Harris, in his presumptive Republican presidential candidate way.  That is to say, by possibly getting his picture taken with Neil in a vain attempt to appear hip and open-minded.

Anyway, that's all I have to say tonight.  I'm going to watch the Tony Awards now.  They're doing a rocking number from the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar at the moment.  It's going to be a good night.

Saint Marty is ready to kick back and eat some licorice, which, as everyone knows, is the perfect Tony Awards snack.

Tony Awards.  Dance Recital weekend.  School is done.  My daughter is going fishing tomorrow with her boyfriend.  My son is staying at grandma's house tonight.  I have writing projects to complete. 

Saint Marty is thankful for summer days.

June 3: Mowing the Lawn, Classic Saint Marty, "Attic Stairs"

The first Sunday in June. 

When I got back from church this morning, it looked like it was going to rain.  The clouds were muddy, and there was a cold breeze.  It had rained earlier, a short burst of precipitation about seven this morning.  When I woke up, I could hear it pelting the windows.

I needed to mow the lawn today.  That was my plan--go to church, come home, cut the grass.  I almost changed my mind, but I decided to take a chance.  It was a jungle in my backyard.  My front yard was a little more subdued.  So, I dragged out the mower and started.  Over the hour-and-a-half that I was working, the sky kept getting darker and darker.  Any minute, I expected the clouds to split open on my head.

It didn't happen.

I finished the job, put away the mower.  Went for ice cream, even though it was only about fifty degrees.  Then I came home and took a shower.  Now, at 5 p.m., the rain has finally started.  Can hear it hitting the dining room window.  It's a lazy sound.  Makes me want to just put on my pajamas, turn off all the lights, close my eyes, and listen.

You know, I have said this before--I have a very blessed life.  I have a home, beautiful wife, great kids, two jobs that almost pay all the bills.  I'm not rich.  Barely have a bank account.  Some weeks, I'm not sure how I'm going to put gas in my car.  But these are all first world problems.  My daughter and son aren't begging on the streets for food or scavenging through garbage cans for returnable cans.  I don't have to sell my blood or internal organs for money.  My wife isn't cooking up stray dogs for dinner.

In the midst of my day-to-day struggles, I sometimes lose sight of how lucky I really am.  I think everybody does.  Sure, I'm not teaching this summer, and, because of this, we're going to be living paycheck-to-paycheck for the next three-plus months.  But, this drought will end.  It always does.  Just when I'm shopping one of my kidneys around at the end of August, the first paycheck from the university shows up.

It's easy to get discouraged.  I'm going to try to avoid that in this coming week.  Last week of school for the kids.  End -of-year dance recital next weekend.  Doors are closing and opening.  I'm leading a Bigfoot poetry workshop this Thursday.  Really looking forward to that.  Poetry workshop and open mic tomorrow night.  As the song goes, June is bustin' out all over.  Blessings in the air like lilacs. 

Four years ago, I was feeling a little sorry for myself, too.  Lots of things were changing.  My brother had just died.  I started a new job that I really didn't want.  I was floundering around for some kind of hope . . .

June 3, 2014:  A Childish Way, Discouraged, Prayer for Hope

"That remains to be seen.  But I am going to save you, and I want you to quiet down immediately.  You're carrying on in a childish way.  Stop your crying!  I can't stand hysterics."

 Charlotte loves Wilbur tremendously, but she can't stand it when he turns into a blubbering mess.  Charlotte never doubts that she will eventually save her friend from the smokehouse.  Wilbur, on the other hand, has several crises of faith.  He believes in Charlotte, but he sometimes descends into bouts of hopelessness and despair, punctuated with sobbing and wallowing in manure.

Hope is a great motivator, but, like a pumpkin sprout, it takes a lot of work to keep it alive.  Water.  Fertilizer.  Sun.  More water.  The one summer I tried to grow pumpkins, I ended up spending $50 on dirt and probably four times that on irrigation.  The results of my efforts:  two pumpkins the size of large blueberries.  Hope is even harder than a pumpkin to nurture.

Like Wilbur, I tend to wallow in manure quite a bit.  I have hope.  I know I do.  I can feel its seed deep inside me.  However, I have a hard time keeping it alive.  As I just said, I'm a wallower.  I have never had a green thumb.  My tendency is toward darkness.  I'm a mushroom, not a pumpkin.

Tonight, I find myself a little down.  Nothing has really happened to cause me to feel this way.  My new job is going well.  I have Intro to Film to teach at the university for the fall semester.  I'm the new Poetry Editor of the university's literary magazine.  I should feel pretty good about my life.  But I don't.  Not tonight, anyway.  I feel stuck.  I'm tired of struggling.  Money.  Work.  Teaching.  Everything.

Hope.  That's what I need.  That's what the world needs.  A vision or chance of something better.  World peace.  A pay raise.  An end to global warming.  A full-time job at the university.  Universal healthcare in the United States.  A publisher for my newest poetry collection.  An end to world hunger.  Something better.

That's my prayer intention for this week.  I'm going to pray for hope, for myself, for you, for this entire messed-up world.

Saint Marty wants to be a pumpkin, not a pile of manure.

Sometimes, out of manure, comes something beautiful

And a poem for tonight .. . .

Attic Stairs

by:  Martin Achatz

after Theodore Roethke's "Root Cellar"

Nothing could climb those stairs, crowded as corn

Fields at harvest, clothes piled like old photos--

Son at three months, daughter in kindergarten--

Leaning, spilling from diaper boxes,

Sleeves and legs akimbo, like monkey bars and slides.

And what a crib of smells!

Dresses fresh as dandelion soup,

Pajamas, lotion-seeped, urine-rich,

Shoes, bottles, burp cloths, leather, rubber, and spit.

All held on to child:

Even the wood steps cried a small milk cry.