August 10, 2025: “May 1968,” Home Again, “Spending Time with My Daughter the Weekend Before She Starts Med School”

There are moments in your life you know will change you completely.  Sometimes those moments are pretty obvious—graduations, weddings, births.  Other times, they take you by surprise—a serious diagnosis, sudden loss, unexpected death of a loved one.  

Sharon Olds has one of those moments . . . 

May 1968

by: Sharon Olds

When the Dean said we could not cross campus
until the students gave up the buildings,
we lay down in the street,
we said the cops will enter this gate
over us. Lying back on the cobbles,
I saw the buildings of New York City
from dirt level, they soared up
and stopped, chopped off—above them, the sky,
the night air, over the island.
The mounted police moved, near us,
while we sang, and then I began to count,
12, 13, 14, 15,
I counted again, 15, 16, one
month since the day on that deserted beach,
17, 18, my mouth fell open,
my hair on the street,
if my period did not come tonight
I was pregnant. I could see the sole of a cop's
shoe, the gelding's belly, its genitals—
if they took me to Women's Detention and did
the exam on me, the speculum,
the fingers—I gazed into the horse's tail
like a comet-train. I’d been thinking I might
get arrested, I had been half-wanting
to give myself away. On the tar—
one brain in my head, another
in the making, near the base of my tail—
I looked at the steel arc of the horse's
shoe, the curve of its belly, the cop's
nightstick, the buildings streaming up
away from the earth. I knew I should get up
and leave, but I lay there looking at the space
above us, until it turned deep blue and then
ashy, colorless, Give me this one
night, I thought, and I'll give this child
the rest of my life, the horse's heads,
this time, drooping, dipping, until
they slept in a circle around my body and my daughter.

There’s a lot going on in this tiny moment Olds describes.  A student protest.  Hostile police.  Horses.  Possible arrest.  An unplanned pregnancy.  Whatever happens, the speaker of the poem is never going to be the same again.

I am home again after attending my daughter’s white coat ceremony and spending time with her and her significant other.  This morning, we had breakfast with them at IHOP, and then we packed up and hit the road.  

Now, that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?  It doesn’t really touch upon how I felt like a piece of myself was dying as I drove away from my daughter who was standing outside her apartment, waving at us.  Or how I would just start crying occasionally as the miles between us increased.  Or all the government vehicles at Mackinaw City (where we stopped for fudge)—ICE and/or Border Control.  Or how moody my 16-year-old son was because he doesn’t really know how to deal with his big emotions.  Or the emptiness of being home again, knowing that my daughter is six hours and a new life away.

It’s a big moment of change.  Our lives will never be the same again.  My daughter is pursuing her dream, and I’m doing my damndest to support her in any way I can.  Yet, another part of me mourns for my little girl in pigtails.  That’s where I’m stuck, and I think I’m going to be stuck for a while.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about this big moment, based on the following prompt from August 9 of The Daily Poet:

On this day in 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden.  Write a poem that uses the names of two regional trees in your area and two types of flowers or ground over.  Have the poem begin in an urban environment and end in a wooded setting.  For extra credit, include a name of a regional bird, shrub, and amphibian.

Spending Time with My Daughter

     the Weekend Before She Starts Med School

by: Martin Achatz

A good friend of mine sees

the world we live in

as a shitty place, filled 

with Hitlers, Stalins, Trumps.

We exchange text messages

about the ash we’re leaving

for our children to

inherit, we even use

the word apocalypse.

I think we’ve both read

way too much Bukowski.

This weekend before, I am

surrounded by asphalt

and buildings and heat,

progress some people

would call it.  I’ve toured

campus, been surrounded

by young people with 

faces bright as ripe

apples, my daughter

one of them.  All are

living in the future

right now, time travelers

who see themselves

not as “I am”

but “I will.”

For me, an old man

more than halfway

through his “I am,”

I drink their optimism

like gin and tonic

on a 100-degree day,

bitter and sweet.

When I hug

my daughter goodbye

tomorrow, head home

over hundreds 

of blacktop miles

(more evidence of our

misguided progress), 

I will take

her spirit with me

like a shiny penny

in my pants pocket.

I will cross

the Mackinac Bridge

into a place

that’s been stubborn

in its battle to survive,

a place my daughter

was born, full of

trembling aspen,

sugar maple and lupine,

butterfly weed and wild

turkeys, sweet gale,

and blue-spotted 

salamanders crossing

a paved road to

lay their eggs

near the waves

of vast, blue

waters.

July 14: "In the Evening," Abby, Fellow Insomniac

Billy Collins at the end of day . . . 

In the Evening

by: Billy Collins

The heads of roses begin to droop.

The bee who has been hauling his gold

all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.

In the sky, traces of clouds,

the last few darting birds,

watercolors on the horizon.

The white cat sits facing a wall.

The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.

I light a candle on the wood table.

I take another sip of wine.

I pick up an onion and a knife.

And the past and the future?

Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

It is the end of day for me, too.  Collins is savoring the last remnants of the evening in this poem, and that is exactly what I'm trying to do.

Most of this Sunday, I've been traveling.  First, we came home from Calumet early this morning, dropped off my suitcase, picked up my son and puppy.  Then, we made a quick trip to Mackinaw City to pick up my great niece, Abby--one of my favorite people in the world

Abby is going to be spending the week with us, and my son couldn't be more excited.  These two truly get each other, and it's great to see them together.  Abby and I just finished watching the film Sasquatch Sunset, and she loved it.  (There are reasons why she's one of my favorite people in the world.)

Now, everyone is going/has gone to bed, and, despite the fact that I'm operating on about seven or eight hours of sleep over these past 72 hours, I'm not feeling particularly tired.  It could be because it's so warm--almost 90 degrees today, and it's still about 78 or so.  Or it could be my mind decompressing after a very busy weekend.  Or my mind anticipating a very busy week.

Whatever the reason, I am very much awake.

Maybe I'll read a little.  Or watch another movie.  Go for a walk.  Count some stars.  Eat some of the fudge I bought in Mackinaw City.  Write a poem.  Revise a poem.  Draw a picture.  Or I may just enjoy the quiet.  (Well, semi-quiet.  As I said, it's hot, and I have a fan blowing on me.)

Abby's kind of a night owl, so, she's probably still awake upstairs right now.  If she's anything like me, her brain probably has a hard time shutting down.  Too many things to think about.

Saint Marty is going to enjoy having a fellow insomniac in the house for a week.

July 11: "The Long Day," Call Me Crazy, Jobs

Billy Collins catalogues his day . . .

The Long Day

by: Billy Collins

In the morning I ate a banana

like a young ape

and worked on a poem called "Nocturne."

In the afternoon I opened the mail

with a short kitchen knife,

and when the dusk began to fall

I took off my clothes,

put on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo"

and soaked in a claw-footed bathtub.

I closed my eyes and thought

about the alphabet,

the letters filing out of the halls of kindergarten

to become literature.

If the British call z zed,

I wondered, why not call b bed and d dead?

And why does z, which looks like

the fastest letter, come at the very end?

unless they are all moving east

when we are facing north in our chairs.

It was then that I heard

a clap of thunder and the dog's bark,

and the claw-footed bathtub

took one step forward,

or was it backward

I had to ask

as I turned

to reach for a faraway towel.

Call me crazy, but Collins' day doesn't seem all that stressful.  Working on a poem.  Opening the mail.  Taking a bath.  Contemplating the alphabet.  Does all that constitute a long day?  Perhaps, for him.  For me, the days he describes seems like a walk in the proverbial park.

Most of my days are pretty long.  This morning, I was in my office by 7:30 a.m., tapping away at my keyboard.  I don't think I looked away from my computer until about 10:30 a.m., when I'd scheduled a meeting with someone.  The rest of morning and afternoon were taken up by busy work.  Necessary, but pretty brainless.  In the evening, I led a meeting of the Marquette Poets Circle.  Left the library around 8:30 p.m.  If you're keeping track, that's about a 13-hour day.

When I got home, I had to pack my suitcase for a weekend trip to Calumet where I'm performing.  I pretty much feel brain dead at the moment, and my life isn't going to slow down until Sunday evening, after I get back from Calumet and a quick trip to Mackinaw City.  A lot of time behind the wheel in the next 72 or so hours.

I don't always enjoy this busyness, especially when it barely allows me time to take a breath.  If I could afford it, I would love to have Collins' long day.  However, I don't think anybody would pay me $20,000 to give a poetry reading or lead a writing workshop.  (Don't laugh!  I can name at least five or six poets who command a fee that big, if not bigger.)  So, I live a fragmented life, moving from one job to another to another to another, sometimes in the space of just a few hours.

Am I tired?  Yes, I am.  Do I enjoy my various jobs?  For the most part, yes, I do.  Would I like to have fewer jobs?  Yes, I would.

But this is all I know.  I can't remember any point in my life (besides high school) when I wasn't holding down at least two occupations.  Currently, I have one full-time job and six part-time jobs.  Yes, six.  Don't feel bad for me, though.  Lots of people do the same thing in order to pay the bills.  I'm not the exception.

I'm just weary tonight, that's all.  It has been a long week, and it's going to be an even longer weekend.

Saint Marty is a little tired in his bones.

August 8: Any of My Secrets, Joy and Sadness, Lovely Messes

Zaphod and Ford and Trillian are still trying to unravel the mysteries of Zaphod's brain . . .

The scene around them was currently plunged into gloom.  Dark mists swirled round them and elephantine shapes lurked indistinctly in the shadows.  The air was occasionally rent with the sounds of illusory beings murdering other illusory beings.  Presumably enough people must have liked this sort of thing to make it a paying proposition.

"Ford," said Zaphod quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Just before Yooden died he came to see me."

"What? You never told me."

"No."

"What did he say?  What did he come to see you about?"

"He told me about the Heart of Gold.  It was his idea that I should steal it."

"His idea?"

"Yeah," said Zaphod, "and the only possible way of stealing it was to be at the launching ceremony."

Ford gaped at him in astonishment for a moment, and then roared with laughter.

"Are you telling me," he said,  "that you set yourself up to become President of the Galaxy just to steal that ship?"

"That's it," said Zaphod with the sort of grin that would get most people locked away in a room with soft walls.

"But why?" said Ford.  "What's so important about having it?"

"Dunno," said Zaphod.  "I think if I'd consciously known what was so important about it and what I would need it for it would have showed up on the brain screening tests and I would never have passed.  I think Yooden told me a lot of things that are still locked away."

"So you think you went and mucked about inside your own brain as a result of Yooden talking to you?"

"He was a hell of a talker."

"Yeah, but Zaphod, old mate, you want to look after yourself you know."

Zaphod shrugged.

"I mean, don't you have any inkling of the reasons for all this?" asked Ford.

Zaphod thought hard about this and doubts seemed to cross his mind.

"No," he said at last, "I don't seem to be letting myself into any of my secrets.  Still," he added on further reflection, "I can understand that.  I wouldn't trust myself further than I could spit a rat."

A moment later, the last planet in the catalog vanished from beneath them and the solid world resolved itself again.  

They were sitting in a plush waiting room full of glass-top tables and design awards.  

A tall Magrathean man was standing in front of them.

"The mice will see you now," he said.

Zaphod knows he can't be trusted.  That's why he performed surgery on his brain, so that he could hide memories from himself and others.  It's a way of protecting himself from himself, if that makes any sense.  A way to erase things from his mind that may be dangerous.

Memories are sometimes gifts; other times, they're curses.  There are absolutely some things in my life I would prefer to forget--failures and disappointments, moments of profound despair.  Those memories only provide pain to me when they flash through my brain.  They include things like the deaths of my sister and brother, my wife's struggles with mental illness and addiction. 

Of course, there are also moments that, if I could, I would relive again and again.  These include kneeling in the snow on Christmas Eve to propose to my wife; the day we married, and all the people who were there to celebrate with us; and the births of both of my children.  These are memories I call upon on my dark days, when joy is in short supply.

Don't start hunting for your bottle of Prozac.  I'm not about to lapse into a post of suicidal depression.  My point is actually fairly simple.  You can't have the good without the bad.  How would you know joy if you don't know sorrow.  That is one of the great struggles of life.  Life can't exist without death.  Love can't exist without heartbreak.  Rest can't exist without work.

On my way to Mackinaw City this week, my kids watched the film Inside Out.  I was driving, so I mostly listened to it.  There comes a moment near the end of the movie where the main character--Joy--realizes that she can't exist without her friend, Sadness.  Think about it.  Whenever you've cried over something--a lost job or a failed school exam or whatever--you immediately afterward experience a sense of calm.  You've walked through a dark forest, and you've reached the other side.  At least, that's the way I think of it. 

My life--everyone's lives--has been a series of encounters with both Joy and Sadness and their friends--Anger, Disgust, Worry, and Fear.  That's the way things work.  If we're not feeling all of these things, then we aren't really experiencing the whole gift of the universe that God gave us.  One experience calls up a whole multitude of emotions.

Try it out.  Step outside tonight, look up into the sky at the moon and stars.  You may feel joy and loneliness together.  Or sadness and awe.  Maybe a little fear.  That's what it means to be human.  We are just a bundle of contradictions.  Sometimes messy contradictions.  Happiness is messy sometimes.  Sadness, too.  Love, in particular, can be really messy.

But I wouldn't give up any of these emotions, whether they're joy or sadness or anger or disgust or loneliness.  The day you stop feeling is the day you stop living.  if you're really lucky, you have someone who's willing to join you on that journey.  Someone who will be there to laugh with you.  Someone who will pick up the pieces when you're falling apart.  Someone who will share in the messes of life.

Saint Marty has made some really lovely messes these past few days in Mackinaw City.

August 7: President of the Galaxy, Mackinaw City, Hope

Zaphod is still reminiscing about meeting a famous person . . .

"The captain was this really amazing guy, Yooden Vranx," said Zaphod.  "He gave us food, booze--stuff from really weird parts of the Galaxy--lots of conkers, of course, and we had just the most incredible time.  Then he teleported us back.  Into the maximum security wing of the Betelgeuse state prison.  He was a cool guy.  Went on to become President of the Galaxy."

Zaphod paused.

I have met some famous people in my lifetime.  On a vacation in New York, my family and I ran into Alec Baldwin.  He was filming near the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we just happened to be eating some hot dogs in the same place.  I shook Kurt Vonnegut's hand.  Listened to N. Scott Momaday tell stories to a classroom full of undergrads.  Watched Gwendolyn Brooks be real cool not more than ten feet away from me.  I could go on.

The thing is, each one of those encounters reminded me of one thing--they are/were just regular people.  Alec Baldwin was sipping coffee.  Kurt Vonnegut looked old and bored and in need of a cigarette.  Momaday smelled like onions.  And Brooks looked like she was in need of a nap.  They were all amazingly . . . human.

Spent the day with my family touring Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City.  It's a historic landmark from colonial times, much like Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island.  There  are archaeological digs on the site, reenactments of musket firings.  My daughter and her boyfriend helped pull a canon out to Lake Michigan, where they loaded it with a gun powder charge and set it off. 

In the evening, we walked along the main drag of Mackinaw City and did all the tourist things.  Bought fudge and caramel corn and over-priced tourist crap.  Coffee mugs embossed with Shakespearean insults.  Tee shirts that changed color in sunlight.  Polished stones.  I talked my son out of a colonial pistol that I know would have ended up Goodwill fodder by Christmas. 

Now, considering my introduction to this post, you're probably expecting me to tell you that I ran into Jeff Daniels in Murdick's Fudge Shop or Bob Seger in the Popcorn Factory.  Although both of those celebrities are Michiganders, I did not run into anybody close to famous.  As far as I know, being the Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula, I was the only celebrity in town.  And nobody asked me for an autograph.  (Please read this paragraph with the appropriate dose of irony and self-deprecating humor.)

It was a wonderful day, despite a rather stressful supper at the local KFC.  The stress was the result of my son's ADHD medication wearing off and some over-cooked popcorn chicken and a mouthful of Mountain Dew.  The result, an ice cube fight and my ten-year-old son saying "Fuck!" loudly in a crowded restaurant. 

These last few days have provided me with something that I haven't felt in quite some time--hope.  That may be a dirty word to some people who see it as something empty, filled with nothing more than empty wishes or dreams.  Me?  I see hope as something that gives meaning when everything else seems meaningless.

So, tonight, I don't need Gwendolyn Brooks reciting poetry.  Or Kurt Vonnegut chain smoking in the backyard.  Tonight, I have hope that comes from firing a cannon across Lake Michigan.  From holding hands with my wife, walking down the path to a colonial fort.  From my son dropping f-bombs in the presence of Colonel Sanders.

Saint Marty will hold on to this hope, carry it home with him tomorrow, let it fill his days with light and joy.

August 6: Conkers, Living in the Moment, Miraculous Day

Ford tells a story of something crazy Zaphod did as a child . . .

"What's all this?" said Trillian.

"Ancient history," said Ford, "when we were kids together in Betelgeuse.  The Arcturan megafreighters used to carry most of the bulky trade between the Galactic Center and the outlying regions.  The Betelgeuse trading scouts used to find the markets and the Arcturans would supply them.  There was a lot of trouble with space pirates before they were wiped out in the Dordellis wars, and the megafreighters had to be equipped with the most fantastic defense shields known to Galactic science.  They were real brutes of ships, and huge.  In orbit round a planet they would eclipse the sun.

"One day, young Zaphod here decides to raid one.  On a trijet scooter designed for stratosphere work, a mere kid.  I mean forget it, it was crazier than a mad monkey.  I went along for the ride because I'd got some very safe money on him not doing it, and didn't want him coming back with fake evidence.  So what happens?  We get in his trijet which he had souped up into something totally other, crossed three parsecs in a matter of weeks, bust our way into a megafreighter I still don't know how, marched on to the bridge waving toy pistols and demanded conkers.  A wilder thing I have not known.  Lost me a year's pocket money.  For what?  Conkers."

I think we've all done crazy things as kids.  Probably not as crazy as storming onto the bridge of a megafreighter with a toy gun, demanding conkers.  For those of you who don't know what conkers is, it is, according to Google, "a children's game in which each child has a conker on the end of a string and takes turns trying to break another's with it."  It's a British thing.  A conker is the seed of a horse chestnut tree.  So, basically, one kid is trying to smash the other kid's horse chestnut on a string.

I don't know about you, but that game sounds like it's the recipe for some bruises and smashed knuckles.  Of course, kids really don't care.  It's all about the thrill of the game.  Living in the moment.  No concerns about visits to the ER or eye injuries.  Just smashing conkers.

Today was all about following that rule--living in the moment.  At this moment, I am sitting in a hotel room in Mackinaw City, almost in the shadow of the Mackinac Bridge.  We just got back from a day on Mackinac Island.  First stop on the island this morning was the Butterfly House and Insect Museum.  Imagine walking through a room where all different types of butterflies are zooming and fluttering around you--blue and orange and yellow.  It took my breath away.  Then I toured Fort Mackinac with my kids.  After that, my daughter pushed me through a Haunted Theater while behind me my son kept yelling, "I don't want to do this!  I do NOT want to do this!"  And then, to make it a true Mackinac Island experience, we stopped and bought some fudge.

I really tried to live in the moment today, pushing all of my worries and fears away.  I had a wonderful time, and the three biggest joys of the day were:  1) seeing my son marching at Fort Mackinac with the soldier actors; 2) hearing my daughter laughing in my ear as she pushed me toward an immense haunted rat; and 3) holding my wife's hand on the ferry ride back to Mackinaw City.  Those are going to be core memories for me.  Ones to which I will return on days when happiness is in short supply.

I have to thank both of my sisters for these moments.  They are the ones who made this whole trip possible.  My summer vacation this year would have consisted of me driving to McDonald's, buying a pop (that's soda for all my non-Yooper disciples), and sitting in a corner booth to write in my journal and read.  Both of my sisters, Bev and Ruth, have seen me through some hard times, and, when the chips are down, they provide blessings to raise me up.

Those are my lessons of wisdom for today.  Living in the moment.  Pushing away the worries of tomorrow.  Loving the people in your life.  Knowing there are people who will always go the extra mile for you.  All of these things.  Miracles.  All of them.

Saint Marty had a miraculous day.

September 22: The Quadrant, First Day of Autumn, Obsession and Bigfoot

The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab, coming from his cabin cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship's prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his latitude.

Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid 
Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne. Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with colored glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up towards the sun and murmured to himself: "Thou seamark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I am- but canst thou cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!"

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: "Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself- these passed over the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away; while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out- "To the braces! Up helm!- square in!"

In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient steed.

Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck.

"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!"

"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes- mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck- sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard Ahab mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!"

Well, nothing is going to sway Ahab from the course he set for the Pequod at the beginning of the novel.  The White Whale is in his sights, and it's full steam ahead.  Until he sees Moby Dick's white belly facing the sun, Ahab isn't going to be happy.

In a small way, I understand this kind of obsession.  For the last couple of years, it's been Bigfoot for me.  I've been chasing the hairy guy poetically for quite a while.  I own about 12 Bigfoot tee shirts.  Some Bigfoot socks, as well.  A friend gave me a Bigfoot lapel pin this summer.  Every once in a while, I get a Bigfoot Snapchat from someone.

As I drive through towns, I spot Bigfoot statues outside of bookstores and restaurants and bars.  When I visited Mackinaw City this summer, every store I visited had something large and hairy.  I can't get away from him, not that I want to.

I wonder if Ahab experienced the same thing.  He would go to a pub, and the special of the day was the Moby burger with Dick fries.  At the corner store, Wonder white whale bread.  When he went to a bar, he probably ordered something like a Moby margarita.  At least that's what I imagine, if my Bigfoot experience is anything like Ahab's.

It is the first day of autumn, and I have been away from this blog for several days.  Mostly because of illness.  Last night was the first time that I've felt human since Monday.  And this morning, I taught poetry to a group of kindergartners and first graders.  When the audience is that young, you pretty much have to be a circus performer.  I did everything I could to keep them entertained.  I read a poem about burping, scared the crap out of them with a poem about the color black.

Now, my goal was to have them compose a poem about the colors green and gold, since those are the school colors and it is homecoming weekend at the university where I teach.  That was my goal.  Of course, most of the kids could barely write their letters, let alone spell, so it took a lot of one-on-one time with each child.

And then, near the end of the workshop, I said that I was writing a collection of Bigfoot poems, and one little boy just lit up.  He started talking so fast that I could barely understand him.  His mother laughed and said, "He loooooves Bigfoot.  Bigfoot was really popular in the little Ohio town we came from."

My obsession once again made a surprise appearance.  This time, in a group of little kids who couldn't spell "broccoli"  but knew who Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were.  (For non-Bigfoot fans, those are the names of the two guys who captured Bigfoot on film about fifty years ago near Bluff Creek in California.  The most famous image--Bigfoot walking, loping along, arms swinging, looking directly at the camera.)

It was the best part of the workshop this morning, seeing that little boy totally geek out on Bigfoot.  When I left the building, into the crisp autumn air, the little boy was walking beside me, still talking about Bigfoot--"Have you ever seen Bigfoot?  Did you know what size shoe Bigfoot would wear?  I'm going to write a children's book about Bigfoot when I grow up."

Saint Marty is thankful today for a first-day-of-autumn Bigfoot encounter.

August 1: Childhood Memories, Keith Taylor, "Prairie Fire"

I have to say that you can't leave all of your problems behind when you go on vacation.  They come with you.  If you are struggling with money, those struggles come with you.  If you have health problems, you still have to take pills.  If you're an addict, you might as well pack a suitcase for your addiction.

That's a simple fact.  I'm currently at the Boyne Mountain Resort on vacation.  We've been coming here for several years in the summer.  It's beautiful, quiet, and a little old-fashioned.  It reminds me of the places I used to go to when I was a kid.  A little touristy, filled with all kinds of families from different places.  Basically, it's an upscale Mackinaw City.  (Those of you who have never been to Michigan will have to Google that reference.)

Childhood vacations have a tendency to move from memory into myth.  The good times seem even better.  The waterfalls seem bigger.  The mountains seem taller.  The amusement park rides seem more dangerous.  Those sepia times are gilded with all the hope that comes with youth.

Saint Marty hopes he gives his kids some sepia memories these next few days.

Prairie Fire

by:  Keith Taylor

                            i.m.:  Donald Taylor

Uncertain about the difference
between his memory and the myth,
the thing he'd been told and what he'd see,
he kept the image of rising clouds
of black smoke looming like dark mountains
to the west, with a flickering skirt
of fire growing larger, noisier,
dancing through the grass toward home.