May 27: My Little Girl, Carol Ann Duffy, "We Remember Your Childhood Well"

My daughter is going away for the weekend.  She is going with her boyfriend's family out to their camp.  It's rustic.  No electricity.  Outhouses.  Bugs.  Trees.  Snakes.  Bears.  Deer.  I fear for her safety.

I find it a little difficult sometimes to let my daughter go on trips like this, because I'm her father and I've looked out for her my whole life.  I'm still getting used to this whole growing up and spread the wings stuff with her.  I trust her.  She's a good girl with a very good head on her shoulders.

I am a little nostalgic for the days when she really depended on me, when she really was my little girl.  Childhood is slipping away, and that makes me a little sad.  I miss braiding her hair and saying prayers with her at night.  I do not miss Dora the Explorer.

Saint Marty is thankful for his beautiful daughter.

We Remember Your Childhood Well

by:  Carol Ann Duffy

Nobody hurt you. Nobody turned off the light and argued
with somebody else all night. The bad man on the moors
was only a movie you saw. Nobody locked the door.

Your questions were answered fully. No. That didn't occur.
You couldn't sing anyway, cared less. The moment's a blur, a Film Fun
laughing itself to death in the coal fire. Anyone's guess.

Nobody forced you. You wanted to go that day. Begged. You chose
the dress. Here are the pictures, look at you. Look at us all,
smiling and waving, younger. The whole thing is inside your head.

What you recall are impressions; we have the facts. We called the tune.
The secret police of your childhood were older and wiser than you, bigger
than you. Call back the sound of their voices. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Nobody sent you away. That was an extra holiday, with people
you seemed to like. They were firm, there was nothing to fear.
There was none but yourself to blame if it ended in tears.

What does it matter now? No, no, nobody left the skidmarks of sin
on your soul and laid you wide open for Hell. You were loved.
Always. We did what was best. We remember your childhood well.

January 11: Soundtrack of My Life, Track K. Smith, "The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"

I always wonder what the soundtrack of my life would be.  My early life would probably be dominated by the Star Wars theme by John Williams.  Luke Skywalker and R2D2.  Later, the 1980s, the soundtrack would be be Risky Business and Amadeus, a mixture of rock and Mozart. 

In the 1990s, I became a church organist.  "How Great Thou Art."  "Amazing Grace."  Got married in 1995.  Became a father in 2000.  Dora the Explorer.  SpongeBob SquarePants.  And now?  We're back to Star Wars.

Saint Marty has come full circle.

The Universe:  Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

by:  Tracy K. Smith

The first track still almost swings.  High hat and snare, even
A few bars or sax the stratosphere will singe-out soon enough.

Synthesized strings.  Then something like cellophane
Breaking in as if snagged to a shoe.  Crinkle and drag.  White noise,

Black noise.  What must be voices bob up, then drop, like metal shavings
In molasses.  So much for us.  So much for the flags we bored

Into planets dry as chalk, for the tin cans we filled with fire
And rode like cowboys into all we tried to tame.  Listen:

The dark we've only ever imagined now audible, thrumming,
Marbled with static like gristly meat.  A chorus of engines churns.

Silence taunts a dare.  Everything that disappears
Disappears as if returning somewhere.