December 9: "Moby" Dip, Christmas Essay, Honey

Many years ago, when I was focusing on A Christmas Carol in my blog, I used to do what I termed Carol dips.  It was based on a practice I once read about where people would use the Bible like a Magic 8-Ball.  A believer would ask a question ("Will I contract the plague?" or "Will Mommy be burned at the stake for witchcraft?") and then simply flip through the Bible, stabbing a finger at a random page.  The verse that the finger landed on contained the answer to the question.  I used Dickens' book in the same manner.

Today, I'm going to do a Moby dip.  I will ask a question here, flip through my copy of Moby-Dick, and see where my finger lands.

Now, what question should I ask?  I have a few options to choose from:

1. Will the medical office where I work remain open after January 1, 2019?
2. Will I ever finish my book of Bigfoot poems and get it published?
3. Will Donald Trump resign as President of the United States?
4. Will Robert Mueller put Donald Trump in jail?
5. Will I ever get a full-time teaching position at the university?
6. Will I ever get my Christmas essay written soon?

I could go on, but you get the idea.  Anything that is troubling the mind is fair game.  And, right now, my immediate concern is Question 6.  I'm really struggling with my Christmas essay at the moment.  So . . .

Will I ever get my Christmas essay written soon?

And the answer is . . . 

. . .  Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed . . . 

Okay.  It's about a guy being mummified in honey.  I'm not quite sure how to read that.  Perhaps it's an indication that the writing of my Christmas essay will end sweetly and easily, the words dripping onto the page, leaving behind a beautiful creation for posterity.  An essay encased in honey, if you will.

There you go.  Herman Melville says that I'm going to get that essay written soon.  Thank God.  Now I can relax.

Oh, yeah.  I should probably write, too.

It's a ridiculous, superstitious practice, but there's some satisfaction in it.  Like calling a psychic on the phone and having her tell you that you will soon come into a great deal of money.  It fills you with a kind of hope, even if it's false hope.

Saint Marty will take hope where he can get it.

March 1: Low Blood Sugars, Robert Morgan, "Honey"

I hate honey.  The hatred is fueled by low blood sugars I had as a child diabetic.  I would wake from a particularly bad hypoglycemic reaction to a sludge of honey on my tongue, my entire mouth coated with it.  It wasn't pleasant.

As an adult, I avoid honey at all costs.  I don't put it on cornbread or biscuits.  I don't sweeten oatmeal with it.  It is said that John the Baptist ate locusts and honey in the desert.  If I had been John, I would have been a strict locust eater.

Saint Marty doesn't even like baklava.

Honey

by:  Robert Morgan

Only calmness will reassure
the bees to let you rob their hoard.
Any sweat of fear provokes them.
Approach with confidence, and from
the side, not shading their entrance.
And hush smoke gently from the spout
of the pot of rags, for sparks will
anger them. If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them. If weeds are trimmed
around the hive they have access
and feel free. When they taste your smoke
they fill themselves with honey and
are laden and lazy as you
lift the lid to let in daylight.
No bee full of sweetness wants to
sting. Resist greed. With the top off
you touch the fat gold frames, each cell
a hex perfect as a snowflake,
a sealed relic of sun and time
and roots of many acres fixed
in crystal-tight arrays, in rows
and lattices of sweeter latin
from scattered prose of meadow, woods.