April 27-29: Only Day Dreaming, John F. Kennedy, Better Versions of Ourselves

 Merton on daydreaming . . . 

The strange thing about this light was that although it seemed so “ordinary” in the sense I have mentioned, and so accessible, there was no way of recapturing it. In fact, I did not even know how to start trying to reconstruct the experience or bring it back if I wanted to, except to make acts of faith and love. But it was easy to see that there was nothing I could do to give any act of faith that peculiar quality of sudden obviousness: that was a gift and had to come from somewhere else, beyond and above myself. 

However, let no one think that just because of this light that came to me one day, at Mass, in the Church of St. Francis at Havana, I was in the habit of understanding things that clearly, or that I was far advanced in prayer. No, my prayer continued to be largely vocal. And the mental prayer I made was not systematic, but the more or less spontaneous meditating and affective prayer that came and went, according to my reading, here and there. And most of the time my prayer was not so much prayer as a matter of anticipating, with hope and desire, my entrance into the Franciscan novitiate, and a certain amount of imagining what it was going to be like, so that often I was not praying at all, but only day dreaming.

I'm a big believer in daydreaming.  Not just as a way of killing time or avoiding work that you don't want to face.  I think daydreaming is an essential part of any day.  I get some of my best ideas for my job when my mind starts to wander around my skull.  For instance, last October, I daydreamed about introducing two-time U. S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey for a reading at the library where I work.  Last Saturday, I introduced two-time U. S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey for a reading at the library where I work.

Daydreaming pays off.

Of course, making dreams come true takes work.  A lot of it.  Especially if you're shooting for the stars.  When John F. Kennedy stood before Congress in May of 1961 and said, ".We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. . ."--he was the ultimate daydreamer.  And a whole bunch of people rolled up their sleeves and figured out a way to make Kennedy's daydream a reality.  It only took eight years, and Neil Armstrong was taking his one small step.

Some daydreams are small and easy.  I've been daydreaming about Taco Bell all afternoon.  I can make that happen if I want to.  Other daydreams require the effort of orchestrating a moon landing.  Publishing a book of poems.  Winning the Pulitzer Prize.  Winning the Nobel Prize.  Big daydreams.  Hard work.

Today, I spent a great deal of time grading papers.  It is the end of the semester, and I am buried in essays.  It's my own fault.  I take a lot of time responding to students' work.  Not because I'm lazy.  Because I want my students to know that I care about them and their success.  They are daydreamers, too.  In fact, daydreaming is their primary motivation.  Every day they show up for class, they are dreaming.  Of graduation.  Of careers in medicine or law or forestry or cannabis distribution.  Those visions are what drive them.  They are seekers of happiness and fulfillment.

Ultimately, that's what all daydreams are about--happiness.  We choose our daydreams--and, generally, they don't involve misery or grief or disappointment.  If you daydream about losing your job or home or spouse, then you are probably in need of some sort of psychiatric medication.  No, in daydreams, we become great heroes or lovers or writers or poets or athletes or leaders.  We become better versions of ourselves.

I am a poet.  In my daydreams, I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.  I'm also a contingent college English professor.  In my daydreams, I'm a tenured college English professor.  I'm a blogger.  In my daydreams, I'm the first blogger to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  These versions of myself make me happy.  They motivate me.  Because. as President Kennedy said, we dream of these things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard . . ."

And now, with the ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of his fingers on the keyboard, Saint Marty ends this daydream, one blog post closer to a trip to Stockholm and the Swedish Academy.

June 20: Sage Ejaculation, Infest the Country, Children

But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his own epicurean lips.

"Cook, cook!- where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing with his lance; "cook, you cook!- sail this way, cook!"

The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.

"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, "don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've been beating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don't I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this lantern," snatching one from his sideboard; "now then, go and preach to them!"

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand drooping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.

"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!"

"Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder,- "cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way when you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, cook!"

"Who dat? Den preach to him yourself," sullenly turning to go.

"No, cook; go on, go on."

"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"-

"Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax 'em to it, try that," and Fleece continued.
"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness- 'top dat dam slappin' ob de tail! How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up such a dam slapping and bitin' dare?"

"Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won't have that swearing. Talk to 'em gentlemanly."

Once more the sermon proceeded.

"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters. I don't blame ye so much for; dat is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but then de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help demselves."

"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go on."

"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber."

"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to my supper."

Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried-
"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam bellies 'till dey bust- and den die."

"Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; "stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention."

"All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the desired position.

"Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; "I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook?"

"What dat do wid de 'teak, " said the old black, testily.

"Silence! How old are you, cook?"

"'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered.

"And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?" rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the question. "Where were you born, cook?"

"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke."

"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to know what country you were born in, cook!"

"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he cried sharply.

"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook. You must go home and be born over again; you don't know how to cook a whale-steak yet."

"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he growled, angrily, turning round to depart.

"Come back here, cook;- here, hand me those tongs;- now take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take it, I say"- holding the tongs towards him- "take it, and taste it."

Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy."

"Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more; "do you belong to the church?"

"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly.

"And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?" said Stubb. "Where do you expect to go to, cook?"

"Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.

"Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now what's your answer?"

"When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly, changing his whole air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel will come and fetch him."

"Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch him where?"

"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly.

"So, then, you expect to go into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top, eh?"

"Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks.

"You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?- that's your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!- that's it- now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention."

"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.

"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go."

But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.

"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D'ye hear? away you sail then.- Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.- Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast- don't forget."

"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself," muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.

Yes, I know this is a long passage, but I couldn't find a good place to cut it.  The whole scene smacks of 19th-century racism.  Fleece is a caricature.  An old, uneducated, superstitious black man whom Melville plays for cheap laughs.  Fleece is 90-years-old, and Stubb is treating him like a child.  It is not one of the book's greatest moments.  It almost reads like a minstrel show.

I point these things out because it drives home the point I'm trying to make today--the type of racism exhibited in this chapter is indicative of a huge problem.  A book that's universally hailed as one of the greatest American novels ever written is riddled with racial stereotypes.  Racism is a problem that runs deep in the United States.

Today, Donald Trump reversed his policy of separating illegal immigrant children from their parents.  These kids are being housed in facilities that basically resemble kennels--chain link fences, cement slabs, several children to a cage.  It's despicable, and the President of the United States, until today, has defended the practice, saying immigrants "pour" across the borders and "infest the country."  That's right, folks, he's making an analogy that was used in Germany more than 70 years ago to justify the Holocaust.  Donald Trump is dehumanizing people to justify his actions.  It's right out of the Nazi playbook.

Now, I know you're probably hearing about this situation from all over--newspapers, television, social media, friends, family members.  I don't know on what side of the political spectrum you fall.  I don't care, really.  I grew up in a highly Republican household.  The only Democrat my father ever voted for in his entire life was John F. Kennedy.  In the 2016 Presidential election, he voted for Donald Trump.  People whom I care very deeply about are Republicans.

This isn't about Republican or Democrat.  It really isn't.  It's about little kids.  Scared.  Crying.  Traumatized.  If small children were found in cages in your neighbor's backyard, you'd call the police.  That neighbor would be arrested, put in jail, and imprisoned for child abuse, among other things.  That is a fact.  Yet, when the President of the United States does the same thing, he's "making America great again."

Sadly, this isn't something new for the United States of America.  Ask Native Americans and African Americans.  Or Japanese Americans.  Call them what you want--reservations, plantations, or internment camps--my country has a habit of incarcerating people (including American citizens) who it considers threats to national security.  Most of these people were non-white or non-Christian.  People who didn't look like "us."

I am ashamed of my country right now.  We have become what we are supposed to hate.  And there are people using the Bible to defend this.  Let me be clear on this:  people who think the Bible encourages the victimization of children are not followers of Christ.  They are not defenders of family values.  They are hypocrites and liars, more demagogues than disciples.

I apologize for the bluntness of this post.  I think the time for subtlety has passed.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight that his children are safe and secure and loved, and he prays that ALL children have the same security, the same safety, and the same love.

July 4: John F. Kennedy, Independence Day, Freedom

A great motor yacht named the Scheherezade now slid past the marriage bed.  The song its engines sang was a very low organ note.  All her lights were on.

Two beautiful people, a young man and a young woman in evening clothes, were at the rail in the stern, loving each other and their dreams and the lake.  They were honeymooning, too.  They were Lance Rumfoord, of Newport, Rhode Island, and his bride, the former Cynthia Landry, who had been a childhood sweetheart of John F. Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

There was a slight coincidence here.  Billy Pilgrim would later share a hospital room with Rumfoord's uncle, Professor Bertram Copeland Rumfoord of Harvard, official Historian of the United States Air Force.

John F. Kennedy.  The United States Air Force.  I guess that's as close as I'm going to get to Independence Day anything from Slaughterhouse.  Not that I think Vonnegut hated the United States.  On the contrary.  I think Vonnegut cared a great deal for freedom and truth and goodness.  That's why he wrote.  He wanted the world to be a better place.

I am not going to belabor this post talking about the celebration of Independence Day here in the United States.  I am grateful for the freedoms I have as a citizen of the United States.  Because I live here, I can write blog posts and poems and essays about anything I want.  I can criticize and complain without fear of being thrown into prison.  For now.

I am supremely lucky for everything that I have in my life.  That's it.

I have been to two parades today.  Tonight, after dinner, I'm heading to a community picnic/gathering.  At dusk, there will be fireworks.  My kids will eat snow cones and cotton candy and popcorn.  I have sparklers, too.

Saint Marty is thankful today for freedom.

November 21: Poet of the Week, Miller Williams, "For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman"

So, there have been five poets who have read at U. S. presidential inaugurations since 1961:  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, Richard Blanco, and this week's Poet of the Week--Miller Williams.  Funny enough, all of these poets participated in the inaugural ceremonies of Democratic Presidents of the United States.  John F. Kennedy.  Bill Clinton.  Barack Obama.  You can decide for yourself why no poet has read at the presidential inauguration of a Republican.

There's a big brouhaha on the Internet right now about what poet would read at the inauguration of Donald Trump.  Lots of bad protest verse is being written.  My prediction is that there will not be a poet at the Trump inauguration.  It would be too difficult to get through the crowds in white sheets.  (That is my one and only Trump joke for this post.)

Miller Williams read at the second inauguration of President Bill Clinton.  Williams was a native of Arkansas (just like Maya Angelou four years before).  Later in the week, I will include Williams' inauguration poem.  Tonight, however, I found one that speaks to any father of a teenage daughter.

Saint Marty wishes he had written this poem.

For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

by:  Miller Williams

Because you’ll find how hard it can be

to tell which part of your body sings,

you never should dally with any young man

who does any one of the following things:

tries to beat all the yellow lights;

says, “Big deal!” or “So what?”

more than seven times a day;

ignores yellow lines in a parking lot;

carries a radar detector;

asks what you did with another date;

has more than seven bumper stickers;

drinks beer early and whiskey late;

talks on a cellular phone at lunch;

tunes to radio talk shows;

doesn’t fasten his seat belt;

knows more than God knows;

wants you to change how you do your hair;

spits in a polystyrene cup;

doesn’t use his turn signal;

wants you to change your makeup;

calls your parents their given names;

doesn’t know why you don’t smoke;

has dirt under his fingernails;

makes a threat and calls it a joke;

pushes to get you to have one more;

seems to have trouble staying awake;

says “dago” and “wop” and words like that;

swerves a car to hit a snake;

sits at a table wearing a hat;

has a boneless handshake.

You’re going to know soon enough

the ones who fail this little test.

Mark them off your list at once

and be very careful of all the rest.

Robert Frost at President Kennedy's Inauguration

October 7: John F. Kennedy, Peanut Butter and Banana, Eric Torgersen, "Snow. Memory," Adventures of Stickman

Remembered how Robert, coming home in tears after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, had asked him, "Did God will that?"

After Robert is murdered, Ives spends a good portion of his life remembering.  It's his way of coping with the loss of his son.  Unfortunately, Ives gets stuck in his memories.  Every time something changes, Ives loses Robert all over again.  The Biltmore Hotel closes, Ives mourns.  Gimbels closes, he mourns.  Ives retires.  Mourning.  It's about letting go, and Ives can't seem to loosen his grip on the past.

I'm sitting in my university office at the at the moment, eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  It's a good sandwich,  It was one of my favorite sandwiches as a kid.  I used to beg my mother to make them for me.  It was a treat.  I don't know why.  Maybe bananas were too expensive.  Or peanut butter.  Whatever the reason, a peanut butter and banana sandwich was the prime rib of my childhood cuisine.

That's a good memory.  Each bite I take of my sandwich tonight is a little stroll through the playgrounds and elementary school hallways of my mind.  It's amazing how something as simple as two pieces of white bread, a couple tablespoons of peanut butter, and a banana can unlock such elemental recollections.  If I had a cold glass of milk mixed with Nestle Quik to go with my sandwich, I would probably never want to leave my office again.

Of course, I will finish my dinner.  I will suck the last smudges of peanut butter from my fingers.  Then I will go to the water fountain and drink.  This moment will pass.  Like snow or a super moon.  Moments are not meant to last.  They just slide into short term memory and, eventually, get filed away in long term.

Tomorrow, I will probably forget this meal.  How it made me feel like I was eight or nine again.  I will take up the mantle of adulthood.  Drive to work.  Punch a time clock.  Earn money.  Worry about bills.

Tonight, however, Saint Marty has a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  And that's enough.

Memory.  Snow.

by:  Eric Torgersen

Snow returns and snow
is memory,
imperfect as memory of dreams
but our only memory of wind,
of feet that circle the house
at night as we sleep.

You were still asleep
when the first of the first snow
fell, renewing the memory
of winter; I forgot my dreams
and ran in the snow, right out in the wind,
not afraid of leaving the house.

That night, in the house
again, refusing to sleep,
I mocked the snow
and vaunted my own poor memory.
"The one who never dreams
of wind

will die in wind,"
you said.  "His house
will be no refuge, nor will sleep;
snow on snow
will erase his memory
and even the landscape of dreams

will no longer hold his dreams;
we know that when wind dies wind
will rise again, but no house,
fallen, rises.  Sleep
if you can but the snow
will return when we are just memory."

"Let the sum of all memory
equal the sum of all dream,"
I said.  "All the world's wind
weighs less than the poorest house.
Dream-winds trouble every hour's sleep,
but snow is only snow is only snow."

Even in tropics we keep the memory of snow;
in dreams, night after night, we're torn from sleep
as our separate houses yield to the single wind.

Adventures of STICKMAN