July 7: No Land Was Visible, Family Gathering, Poetry Workshop

Santiago can't see land . . . 

"It was noon when I hooked him," he said. "And I have never seen him."

He had pushed his straw hat hard down on his head before he hooked the fish and it was cutting his forehead. He was thirsty too and he got down on his knees and, being careful not to jerk on the line, moved as far into the bow as he could get and reached the water bottle with one hand. He opened it and drank a little. Then he rested against the bow. He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.

Then he looked behind him and saw that no land was visible. That makes no difference, he thought. I can always come in on the glow from Havana. There are two more hours before the sun sets and maybe he will come up before that. If he doesn't maybe he will come up with the moon. If he does not do that maybe he will come up with the sunrise. I have no cramps and I feel strong. It is he that has the hook in his mouth. But what a fish to pull like that. He must have his mouth shut tight on the wire. I wish I could see him. I wish I could see him only once to know what I have against me.

Everyone feels like this every once in a while.  Out of sight of land.  Isolated.  Like Santiago.

Even when you're surrounded by people you love, you can feel like that.  The hardest part of being that far out to sea is finding your way home safely.  It takes a lot of rowing.

Tonight, I went to a family gathering.  So many people who I love and who love me.  I couldn't stay for long because I had a poetry workshop to lead.  Therefore, I ate, drank a little, posed for a group picture, and then left.

Then, I led a poetry workshop.  The theme of the night was American Artists.  Three of my best friends were there in person, and two of my best friends joined via Zoom.  And we did poetry prompts based on paintings by Edward Hopper and Mary Cassat and Georgia O'Keefe and Grant Wood.  It was a wonderful evening of writing and sharing.

It was an evening of connection.  For most of the week, I've felt a little . . . at sea.  Tonight, being with family and friends, I saw land, found my way home.

Saint Marty is grateful for people who love him and vanilla ice cream tonight.

A poem from tonight . . . 

Knothole, 2022

after Norman Rockwell's "Knothole Baseball, 1958"

for H.

by:  Martin Achatz

In this splintered view, I see
rocky beach littered with seaweed,
rank with salt and fish smell. Waves.
So many waves, from white foam
on the shore to that distant line
where the ocean falls over
the horizon, and so far out
that it looks like the back
of a flea, a whale breaching,
sending a filament of water
into blue sky. I press my face
hard to the wood, hungry
for crabs scuttling, pearled
insides of clams cracked open
by hungry gulls. Crumpled
near the water's edge, a pile
of clothes, blue terrycloth towel,
like parings from an apple just eaten.
And arms stroking the water, legs
kicking, a body, your body,
gliding toward the sun. All
sea and salt and breath. Chasing
that ball of fire as if your life
depended on it.

January 10: Flying Saucer, Doctor's Appointment, In a Zoo

When Billy finally got home to Ilium after the airplane crash, he was quiet for a while.  He had a terrible scar across the top of his skull.  He didn't resume practice.  He had a housekeeper.  His daughter came over almost every day.

And then, without any warning, Billy went to New York City, and got on an all-night radio program devoted to talk.  He told about having come unstuck in time.  He said, too, that he had been kidnapped by a flying saucer in 1967.  The saucer was from the planet Tralfamadore, he said.  He was taken to Tralfamadore, where he was displayed naked in a zoo, he said.  He was mated there with a former Earthling movie star named Montana Wildhack.

To paraphrase Han Solo, here's where the fun begins in Slaughterhouse Five.  Billy time jumping.  Billy abducted by aliens and kept in a zoo with the beautiful Montana Wildhack.  Suddenly, Vonnegut's Dresden book morphs into a 1950s porno science fiction flick.  Billy becomes a prophet and a patient.  You're not quiet sure if he's telling the truth or belongs in a mental institution.

I had a doctor's appointment today.  Saw a liver and digestive disease specialist.  As I was sitting in the exam room, waiting for the doctor to appear, I stared out of the windows.  There's a snowstorm blowing through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan right now, so the scene below looked almost like a Christmas card.  Cars mounded with snow.  The air a frenzy of white.

Waiting for a doctor to show up is a humbling experience.  I wasn't quite sure what he was going to say, what course of treatment he was going to recommend.  I was sort of at the mercy of a man that I had never even met.  I sort of felt like Billy Pilgrim in the zoo on Tralfamadore.  A specimen to observe and probe.

Thank goodness, the doctor was nice.  A little too serious, but that's okay.  When you're talking about family histories of bleeding ulcers and stomach cancer, you probably want a guy who's earnest and concerned.  (Please don't worry.  I do not have a bleeding ulcer or stomach cancer.  Those were just a couple of the questions the doctor asked.)

I left the hospital with an appointment for an upper endoscopy.  I walked out into a world of cold and white.  There's always a strange stillness that descends in a snowstorm.  I felt like I was stepping into an Edward Hopper painting, the world all muffled and lonely.  Like I was entering the deserted Automat.  So it goes.

That was Saint Marty's afternoon.  In a zoo on Tralfmadore. Waiting for the alien probe.