May 13: James Scannell McCormick, "Prayer to St. Drogo of Sebourg"

I have a sonnet from Scannell tonight, a beautiful reflection on loss and sacrifice. 

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  This poem does touch upon motherhood.  St. Drogo's mother died in childbirth.  She made the ultimate sacrifice for her baby.  I'm not sure if many people would consider this poem appropriate for a celebration of mothers, but I do.  It reminds me of everything noble about motherhood.

Saint Marty salutes all mothers this evening, in prelude to tomorrow.

Prayer to St. Drogo of Sebourg

by:  James Scannell McCormick

You: no sooner come to a life folden

And fine as a psalter's roundel (lovers, say,

In April -- blue cloaked, posed and poised on a lawn

Of pinks) -- unmothered. She died in birthing you.

In the west, the Channel heaved, mussel-indigo:

What is having to loss? Forgone of your

Belongings, you, sinful pilgrim, walked to

Rome in penitence. Again. Again. We are

Sinners, all. And yet who gave any thanks

Or help -- a cup of warmth, a free inglenook-

Seat? When sickness blistered your face to flanks

Of skinned hares, and no one would bear to look

At you, you sealed yourself in a hermit's cell --

So smallest comfort serves to preserve our souls.

May 12: Coho Salmon, James Scannell McCormick, "Fish"

I have a Michigan poem from my friend Scannnell for tonight.  It's about fishing.

I have never been much of an outdoor sportsperson.  Unlike most native males from the Upper Peninsula, I have only gone deer hunting once in my life.   Didn't shoot anything.  Instead, I sat on a tree stump and ate M&Ms.  However, I used to go fishing quite a bit with my brother when I was a kid.

The largest fish I ever caught was a 28-inch coho salmon, and it was a complete accident.  I was about twelve-years-old, and my brother put a red worm on my hook and told me to cast it into the river while he went back to the truck for some serious tackle and bait.  Seconds later, there was a flash of silver and a tremendous splash.  My line started screaming out from my reel.  I yanked back hard on the rod, setting the hook in the great fish's mouth.  Then I yanked back again.

The salmon came sailing out of the water, landing on the rocks in front of me, where it began smacking and flailing its way back to the water.  I was terrified.  My brother was quickly on the rocks, cornering my prize.  I took it home, got my picture taken with it, and never saw it again.

That's the only really good fishing story Saint Marty has.

Fish

by:  James Scannell McCormick

To the "Michigan Fish Poets"

When I was a little boy I went down to
Big Bay beach, where two older boys, shirtless, were up
To their thighs in water, and they were catching smelt
With their hands, then holding them flat on the concrete
Jetty, where, for fun, they poked out the fishes' eyes
With linden sticks and threw the fish back in again,
And the fish weren't hovering like bullets in gunmetal blue
Stasis, or mouthing prayers, but thick tear-tracks of blood
Followed their pain-curling bodies in the bone-cold water.
Which is why, believe me, I, too, know about fish.

May 11: James Scannell McCormick, "Scene from the Life of St. Ursula"

I have a soft spot for stories and books and poems about saints.  Obviously.

As I've said before, I think it has something to do with that striving for perfection, despite our humanness.  My favorite part of any saint's biography is what life was like before the touch of God.  When the saint struggled with lust and hunger and greed and envy and pride.  That's what interests me, because that allows me to see the possibility of grace in my life.

Marty is all about a little saintly grace.

Scene from the Life of St. Ursula:  Papal Audience

by:  James Scannell McCormick

After Carpaccio

 Who is she? White-mitered bishops, cardinals
In toques of crimson, mill and press: Princess?
But come from some unsettled tract at the fierce
Brink of the world. In her mastered Latin, fall

And lift -- her outlandish mother tongue? -- like swells
Against a hull. In gemmed circlet and dress
Color of sky's zenith, she kneels -- as does
Every single girl (Thousands!) who fills

That zealous cortege. What can the Holy Father
Make of such an unmatched showing of love?
What can he say? Between the squat shadow

Of the Tomb, the thick, silted Tiber, he wavers.
In their midst, single, fixed desire: to receive
Blessing; in his heart, holy envy: to follow.

May 10: My Wife, James Scannell McCormick, "A God"

Tonight, I have a love poem from my friend.

It's funny.  During the week, my wife and I see each other for about three or four hours a day.  I leave the house before she is awake.  During the school year, I sometimes don't get home until after she's asleep.  We talk on the phone at lunchtime.  "How's your day going?"  "How's work?"  "Do you want me to pick something up for dinner?"  That's it.

Yet, I think about my wife all day long.  Hear her laugh in my ear.  Feel the warm palm of her hand on my neck.  She's present for me, all the time.

Saint Marty guesses that's what love is all about.

A God

by:  James Scannell McCormick

Thumb-heel at the back of my neck, nails in my stubbly nape,
You wrench my head back and my mouth wide open.

Usually I’m no fiery vessel; usually I’m as unburning
As a stone-pile in dawn frost.

But you tear me from tongue-root to pubic-bone.
Lightning-rod, I spark and flare.  Even my knees glow.

O incandescence.
You want to speak all the time now, I not at all.

May 9: Quiet Night and a Beautiful Poem, James Scannell McCormick, "Stars"

I have little in the way of wisdom or insight this evening.  I'm sort of brain numb after four days of massive grading.  (This is the last time I will speak of grading for a while.  I promise.)  I am in need of a quiet night and a beautiful poem.

The night is ahead.

The poem is below.

Saint Marty needs to write his friend a fan letter. See if Scannell remembers him.

Stars 

by: James Scannell McCormick 

(Pope Urban VIII orders all birds in the Vatican Gardens strangled)
July 1630

          Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini. 

From the ceiling, sundown fingers the corona of Tassi's mural
Then feels along the armillary sphere—Ram, Bull, Twins—to here:
Crab. And in the cooling gardens, they begin their nightcalls:

Talky swallows from under the curled eves, sharp-noted thrushes; later,
Nightingale; at daybreak, raucous peacocks, cheeky wrens
Whose God-watched falling, though tiny, is subject to the stars:  Their

Progress, regress have foresaid each Cardinal's death, and even
The Pope's own horoscope is cast plain as an astrolabe's rete.
The earth can't be moved. But the same isn't true of heaven:

The heretic Dominican sealed a papal chamber, draped it in white
Silk and sprinkled rose vinegar on the floor. Against the malign
Influences of Mars and Saturn, he brought distilled liquors.  He lit

Incense of myrtle and laurel, played soft music for benign
Jupiter and Venus. And the arc of the moon's eclipse veered
North, sparing Rome. Thus it seemed possible to realign

Disaster, recurve fate's chord. Not so. Pasquino has already jeered
Bees, the Curia balks, and the Vatican susurrates with Hapsburg spies'
Conspiracies. Even the birds are unnerved, on guard.

They mistrust sleep. The apartment has grown dark, sky bruise
Blue between the shudders' slats. Outside, above the stone pines, bats
And nightjars will screech, feed into this night of the dies caniculares:

Not even a weak, soaked breeze from the Quirinal to relieve the disquiet,
Bird-mad hours, until, at the wakeful horizon, mute
Sirius will descend, a hand making for morning's hot throat.

May 8: Poet of the Week, James Scannell McCormick, "Dog"

James Scannell McCormick is the Poet of the Week.

I went to school with Scannell way back in the early 1990s, when he was running marathons and finishing up his PhD in creative writing at Western Michigan University.  He was one of my favorite people during my time in Kalamazoo.  Funny and Catholic and Irish.  We really hit it off.

The last communication I had with Scannell was right before I got married.  We sent him an invitation to the wedding, and he sent back a beautiful card.  Then he sort of disappeared from my life, the way friends do sometimes.

I came across a poem online a few days ago, and it brought back a storm of wonderful memories.

So Saint Marty is going to embrace those memories for a week.

Dog

(Intermezzo for Charlie)

by:  James Scannell McCormick

It’s all in the left hand, says your mistress. Brahms
Is all in the left hand. Why does she bother
With the piano at all, Charlie, you stretching from flews

To dewclaws on the sleepy carpet, and your leash hanging
So unoccupied behind the door?  Hot August afternoons and scent
Of the salt sea—those are the days that should

Be yours, dog:  your pushed-in muzzle was bred for
No good reason except to gnaw your rump and stub
Of tail, to snap at the frenzied buzz of rainbow

Scarabs.  Shaking the phlegm from your eyes, you’re the guardian
Of Belmont Heights, of the quiet limit of the world.
Hey, Boo!  Hey, Booger!  Hey, Monkey-face, Pig-face! calls

Your master, who makes skinned tennis balls drop miraculously from
The absolute blue of heaven. Why shouldn’t the whole world
Be Monterey jack in your dish, chew toys and scairdy-

Cats, Thai-beef morsels, watchbands, and ice-cubes that you
Take so delicately in your underbiting jaws?  You live in
A truer grace: Good boy! Yeah! What a good boy!