September 5: Headline, Artifacts of Love, Linda Gregg, "Everyday Rice," Confessions of Saint Marty

Taken earlier when Ives and the priest had first arrived, the photograph showed the grandmother wrapping her arms around Mr. Ives, their expressions sorrowful, intensely sympathetic, perhaps even understanding.  The headline above the photograph:  "Forgiveness?"

Ives tries to salvage something out of the wreckage of his son's death.  Rather than existing in a constant state of disbelief and fury, he chooses to walk a different path:  forgiveness.  It's not an easy choice for him.  It's a path still littered with crushing grief and doubt in God.  But Ives tries to create something beautiful out of the debris of his love for Robert.

Each person's life is full of ruins and artifacts of love.  Like a child, every love grows and matures and changes.  For example, the passion I first felt when I met my wife has grown into something stronger, steadier.  There have been lots of storms along the way.  Mental illness.  Addiction.  Separation.  There have also been lots of golden times, as well.  Pregnancies.  Births.  Trips.  Birthdays.  Anniversaries.  That's all part of the deal.

My daughter is starting high school on Tuesday.  Pretty soon, she will have to think about what she wants to be when she grows up.  When she was in elementary school, she wanted to illustrate children's books.  I'm pretty sure her aspirations have changed.  She's a normal high school freshman.  Translation, she has no idea what she wants to be.

I remember her first day of preschool.  When she climbed the steps of the bus, she looked like a jittery rabbit in an open field.  When she got home, she climbed onto my chest and slept for two hours as Frosty the Snowman played over and over on the DVD player.  I held her and said to myself that I would never let anything hurt her.  Ever.

Of course, that's an impossible promise to keep.  If you have love in your life, you will also have hurt and pain.  The stronger the love, the deeper the hurt.  My daughter really loved my sister, Sally.  The day my sister died, my daughter fell apart in my arms.  I couldn't protect her from the ruins.  Now, she's rebuilding her life around the crater of my sister's absence.

That's what we all do.  We love.  We lose.  We love again.  Over and over.  Layer upon layer.  It's the archaeology of life.

Saint Marty hopes that he doesn't have many more ancient pyramids to uncover any time soon.

Everyday Rice

by:  Linda Gregg

Some kinds of love
leave only wreckage behind, as war does.
The world creates itself out of the debris.
Greece at its finest left ruins
and the clanging silence.  The world keeps
the damage along with the patches of light
between these overlapping branches of aspen.
Akhmatova used Dostoyevsky's description
of Kirilov after he hanged himself,
dangling near the cupboard.
There is the smell of narcissus blooming
as I walk across the cabin to rinse the rice
five or six times before making it into dinner.

Confessions of Saint Marty

September 4: All the Things He Never Knew, Faith in God, Linda Gregg, "How It Works," Punny Fairy Tale, Adventures of Stickman

He [Ives] prayed, his eyes upon the painting of the Mother and Child near the altar.  He prayed for his dead adoptive father, and for his mother and father whom he had never known.  For all the things he never knew.

At the end of his life, Ives will never know his birth mother and father or why he was given up for adoption.  He will never understand why his son died at such a young age, or why he struggled with grief and anger for over three decades.  Ives will never understand why there is so much suffering in the world.  Yet, he prays for all of these unknowable things.  All the unanswerable questions of his life.  He gives them up to God.

I think that's one of the reasons I've been so angry these last couple of weeks.  I've been trying too hard to make sense of things that are senseless.  I see no reason behind my sister's death.  Or my brother's.  I don't understand why I've been teaching for the university for over 20 years and will probably never be offered a full-time position.  Why does my wife have bipolar disorder and sexual addiction?  Why haven't I won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry?  Why is Donald Trump running for President of the United States?

I will never know the answers to any of those questions.  Yet, I also believe that everything happens for a purpose.  I have to, because the idea of a completely random universe doesn't really work for me.  For instance, before my sister became very ill, I was forced to leave my job at the surgery center where she had been my boss for 17 years.  At the time, I was confused and angry.  I didn't get God's plan at all.  Now, I understand.  I would never have been able to continue in that job without my sister there.  It would simply have been too difficult.  That was not the molecules of my life bouncing around randomly.  It happened for a reason.

Yet, I will never have all the answers, no matter how hard I search for them.  That's where faith in God comes into play.  Faith is the answer to any unanswerable question.  I have had to rely on my faith quite a bit these last few weeks.  It's been difficult.  Really difficult.  And it continues to be difficult.  Like Ives, I have turned to prayer for all the unknowable things in my life, and that has helped.

Once upon a time, a woodsman named Figaro lived in Firwood Forest.  Figaro spent his days tracking stags and moose.  He was known as the greatest hunter in all of the kingdom.

One morning, Figaro saw a wild boar rooting in a patch of mushrooms.  Without pause, Figaro shot the boar with an arrow, killing it instantly.  He hauled the boar back to his cottage and slaughtered it.  That night, he roasted it over a roaring fire and feasted.

The next morning, Figaro awoke deathly ill.  For three days, he suffered in bed.  On the third day, Figaro died.

When Figaro got to heaven, he stood before God and asked Him, "Why did I have to die?"

God looked at Figaro and shrugged.  "I was boared."

Moral of the story:  Always cook pork to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

How It Works

by:  Linda Gregg

I will tell you a story about
how death works.  One year
when he was hunting,
my father lay down
by a cliff on the top
of a mountain.
As he lay there mostly asleep,
he heard a breathing
close to his face.
The breathing of a mountain
lion.  When he looked,
there was no lion.
When he rolled over
and looked down the ledge
he saw a great eagle
an arm-reach away
hovering over a huge space.

Adventures of STICKMAN

September 3: Foundling Home, Shirley Temple, Linda Gregg, "The Resurrection," Adventures of Stickman

He thought about that crisp afternoon, years before, when the sky had opened and the world had seemed full of goodness, its meaning still baffling him . . . He remembered how, in the foundling home, the nuns gathered the children around a Christmas tree, and that one of the nuns had read aloud from a book:  "And behold there was a star, a beacon in the night.  And from the east there came angels and kings to worship the newborn son of God."

Ives becomes nostalgic for his childhood near the end of the novel, after he has found peace regarding his son's death.  He is no longer angry or grief-stricken.  He even thinks back to his time as an orphan in a foundling home wistfully, after years of feeling unwanted and abandoned.  Ives has reached an age where he looks back with fondness on many things that used to cause him heartbreack and pain.

At some point in life, everyone becomes nostalgic for the past.  I have been thinking about my daughter's first day of kindergarten.  At the time, my life was in great turmoil.  My wife and I were separated, and I was living the life of a single parent.  I did everything to make my daughter's life happy.  On her first day of school, I dropped her off with her Disney princess backpack.  She toddled into the classroom, looking incredibly small and vulnerable.

I remember going home that morning and baking my daughter's favorite cookies:  oatmeal butterscotch.  I put them on a plate, placed them on a table near her chair in the living room, and counted down the hours until I could pick her up.

Yes, at the time I felt like my world was falling apart.  Just getting up in the morning was a great chore.  But I still wish I could have my little kindergartner back, instead of my 14-year-old ninth grader.  We used to be best buds.  She used to think I was cool.  Now, I am simply the reason for much eye rolling and sighing.

Nostalgia is a strange thing.  It makes painful memories seem not so painful, and it makes the good times seem like Shirley Temple movies, where everybody is crying and hugging and tapdancing at the end.

Saint Marty misses his Little Princess.

The Resurrection

by:  Linda Gregg

Let the tower in your city burn. Let the steps
to the shadowed building by the lake burn
even though it is made of stone. Let the lion
house burn so that the roaring and burning
will be heard together. Let the old, poor,
wooden house where I lived go up in flames, even though
you returned and sat on the steps that led
up to where we used to exist. Let it all burn,
not to destroy them, but to give them the life
my life gives to them now. To make them flare
as they do in me, bright and hot, bright and burning.

Adventures of STICKMAN

September 2: Habits of This Life, Sister's Car, Linda Gregg, "17399 Edgewood Road, Fayetteville, Arkansas," Adventures of Stickman

That had all happened long ago, and a few weeks before another Christmas Ives awoke in the bedroom of his apartment on Ninety-third Street as a much older man and recalled how for years he would get up for work at seven in the morning, and swear that he could hear his son, Robert, whistling the theme to The Andy Griffith Show in the hallway, as he used to in the days when he delivered newspapers.  Ives would dress, half expecting to find the boy in the hall, ready to start his morning's work regardless of the weather; or he would hear Bach sung faintly through his door, or find one of the books his son had been reading in the living room, left casually open on the couch as if he had just been reading it again.  And although he would think, "Caroline," another part of him imagined his boy, nostalgic for the habits of this life, materializing from the hereafter.

You can't get around the fact that Ives is a haunted man.  His son, Robert, is around him all the time.  Ives hears him in the mornings as he's getting ready for work.  Everything reminds him of Robert.  Books.  Music.  Weather.  In the midst of his overwhelming grief, Ives wants to feel his son's presence again.  He's chasing ghosts.

For the past couple days, my car has been out of commission.  So I have been driving my sister's car.  It's a strange feeling, because many of my sister's belongings are still in the car, including a picture of my daughter in her gymnastics uniform when she was around eight years old.  As I drive down the highway, I think about how many times my sister drove the same route, over and over, every day for the past twenty years. 

Last night, I was driving home near dusk.  It was a warm night, and I had the windows rolled down.  I reached over and turned on the radio.  It was tuned to a local rock station.  I reached over again to change the station, but then I stopped.  It was my sister's car, and it was her music.  I'm sure nobody had touched the radio since she had stopped using the vehicle.  I leaned back and listened to that station all the way home.

I don't think I'm chasing ghosts like Ives.  It feels like ghosts are chasing me.  Memories of my sister simply insert themselves into my days.  Tonight, driving in my sister's car again, I passed a local lake.  It was gray and rucked with waves.  As I looked at it, I could almost hear my sister singing an ABBA song, full-voiced, happy to be heading home after a long day of work.

Saint Marty wonders if his sister is nostalgic for the habits of the life she left behind.

17399 Edgewood Road, Fayetteville, Arkansas

by:  Linda Gregg

A few days before I am to move
out of this house (where you have
never been) I find myself
standing in this empty room
watching the quilt
hanging on the clothesline,
remembering the black-and-white
cows out back.  Remembering how
the soft air would come in the half-open
kitchen window.  The beauty
of the glass all clean
and the light shining through.

Adventures of STICKMAN

September 1: Blackening of His Soul, Revenge, Linda Gregg, "The Passion," Adventures of Stickman

In those moments, he [Ives] would pray for guidance, for wishing death upon another seemed so ugly that each time it occurred he felt a blackening of his soul.

When Robert's killer is released from juvenile detention after serving his sentence, many people from Ives' neighborhood urge Ives to do "right" by his son.  Someone even sends Ives a .22 pistol to take care of the job.  Ives throws the gun into the river and prays for forgiveness to enter his heart, which is full of anger and grief.

I think we all experience moments like the one described above.  Dark moments when we contemplate dark things.  For example, I have been struggling a great deal in the past week with anger.  You all know that.  At times in the past seven days, I have wished heart attacks, strokes, and professional failure on several people.  Of course, like Ives, I felt incredibly guilty afterward and turned to prayer.

Revenge is ugly.  It's fun to think about, but, in the end, it really doesn't make any situation better.  For instance, I am currently having an issue with certain colleagues at the university, one of whom I barely even know.  After seeing this person in the hallway of the department this afternoon, I sat in my office for a while, imagining this person having a psychotic break, showing up tomorrow dressed like Donald Trump and accusing everybody of being illegal aliens.  I have to admit that the fantasy gave me quite a bit of pleasure.

In the end, however, I know that I will always have crosses to bear, injustices to endure.  That's the way life is.  It simply isn't fair, and I have to learn to accept that.  People are hired for jobs that I want.  People win writing contests that I enter.  People live in better houses, drive better cars, earn more money than me--even if they are not kind, not talented, and not very Godly.  It sucks, but that's the way the world is.

So, tonight, I'm trying to accept my life situation.  I'm praying for guidance, and I'm hoping a little grace comes my way.

Saint Marty doesn't think that's too much to ask.

The Passion

by:  Linda Gregg

What is death to the man who is already dead?
What are cucumbers to him, or the color
of the sea?  Surely the people God loves most,
and trusts more, are passionate.
They listen to the wind in dry wild grass.
They know what is beautiful survives
in those who contain the farthest place.
It is true that the voice of heaven promises
a place without hunger or thirst.  But clearly
it is not harmony, peace, or wisdom we see
in the face of the risen Christ.  It is
the carnage of rapture, lovers transformed
into glory by the crucifixion of their hearts.

Adventures of STICKMAN

August 31: Linda Gregg, "Finding the Way," "Ives" Dip Monday, Adventures of Stickman

Linda Gregg is the Poet of the Week.  I thought I had already featured her, but, looking back through old posts, I did not find her name.

The first poem I'd like to feature combines two of my favorite things:  spirituality and humor.  Yes, it's a little irreverent.  Yes, some people might think it's slightly sacrilegious.  That's OK.  I'm irreverent and sacrilegious, too, at times:

Finding the Way

by:  Linda Gregg

Today I went to the village church
where bells rang steadily
for a special ceremony.
Outside were baskets full of bread
as the body of Christ.  I discovered
the Greeks believe God's body has
the flavor of sesame and cumin.

There's something about this poem that makes me really happy.  I don't know why.  I think it has something to do with the very human observation in the closing line.  God tastes like sesame and cumin.  I wish I had written this poem.

I dropped my daughter off at the high school tonight for band camp.  Next week, she starts her first week as a freshman.  She's been complaining and crying and whining about this camp for almost a full week.  In short, she's been driving us crazy.  Now I understand why.

When I pulled up in front of the school and put the car in park, I looked over at her.  She didn't move, and I realized that she was terrified.  She didn't want to get out, and she didn't know what to do.  I tried to say something encouraging.  I think it was about seeing old friends and making new ones.  It didn't help.  She looked like she was ready to throw up.

I offered to walk her to the band room.  She didn't want me to.  So, she got out of the car and slowly walked across the parking lot.  I watched as she literally hid behind a truck.  Then she started walking again.  I watched her until she disappeared inside the school.

As I was driving home, I said a little prayer for her.  I want her to be happy and confident.  I want her to find people who like her.  I want her to know what I know:  that she's amazing.

It is Ives dip Monday.  I have a lot on my mind tonight.  But foremost in my thoughts is my daughter.  So, my question this evening is:

Is my daughter having a good time at band camp?

And the answer:

My finger keeps landing on the blank pages in between sections of the novel.

I guess that means that it's all going to be new.  New people.  New experiences.  Hopefully new friends and new happiness.

At least, that's what Saint Marty hopes for his beautiful daughter.

Adventures of STICKMAN