May 26, 2025: "Topography," Memorial Day, "Taps"

Yes, it is Memorial Day in the United States.  Every year, on the last Monday of the month of May, we celebrate and honor members of the U.S. armed forces who sacrificed their lives to defend our nation.  This year, more than any other, it's even more important to remember the true meaning of this day--the preservation of freedom and democracy against tyranny, hatred, and authoritarianism.

Sharon Olds writes about the United States . . . 

Topography

by: Sharon Olds

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
intricately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, Olds' poem is about sex.  It's not very subtle in that regard.  However, it's also about the freedom of speech (that's the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for all those MAGA readers who've never read the document upon which our entire country is based).  Olds can write a sex poem using the United States metaphorically and parodying the Pledge of Allegiance simply because it's her Constitutional right.

In other countries ruled by fascist dictators, poets have been thrown in jail for criticizing political leaders.  Stalin did it.  Putin is still doing it.  Fortunately, the Constitution prevents President 47 from doing it in the United States (for now).  All those brave members of the U.S. military who fought and died in armed conflicts did so in order to bear "true faith and allegiance to the Constitution" (that's in the oath all enlisted personnel take--check it out if you don't believe me).  They sacrificed their lives so Olds could exercise her Constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen.

I was raised to respect and honor all military veterans.  From a very young age, I knew that Memorial Day wasn't just about a three-day weekend and hotdogs and corn on the cob.  It's about who we are and what ideals we should all hold dear, regardless of political affiliation.  

I went to a Memorial Day parade with my family today.  Then, we attended a Veterans of Foreign Wars service at a local cemetery.  We placed flowers at the graves of relatives, including my father, who was a military veteran.

I am not a hater or war-monger or xenophobe.  I believe in the worth of everyone, no matter where you come from, what you believe, or who you love.  As a Christian, I was taught that all human beings are children of God.  Kindness and compassion should be the guiding force of everything we do.

If you don't agree with these ideals, you are NOT a true patriot and you are NOT a true Christian.  Sorry, not sorry.  Read the Constitution and the Bible.  It's pretty straightforward.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for Memorial Day based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem where the first word starts with "A" and the last word of the poem ends with "Z."  Somewhere in the poem mention the alphabet or alphabetical order.  Have the poem be about something that has nothing to do with the alphabet.  For extra credit, try to use a word that begins with each letter of the alphabet.

Taps

by: Martin Achatz

At my father's grave today,

a flag licks the bright

air as if whispering 

his name, mustering  him

to attention, him standing

straight as a cornstalk

as my mother's ashes

sigh beside him, tell

him to settle down,

relax until the angels

blow "Reveille" and all

the war dead fall in,

waiting to be counted

one last time before marching

off to that final reckoning, 

from Private Second Class

Achatz to Staff Sergeant Zamora.

May 29: "From this River, When I Was a Child, I Used to Drink," Memorial Day, Freedom

Mary Oliver grieves for a dying river . . . 

From this River, When I Was a Child, I Used to Drink

by:  Mary Oliver

But when I came back I found

that the body of the river was drying.

"Did it speak?"

Yes, it sang out the old songs, but faintly.

"What will you do?"

I will grieve of course, but that's nothing.

"What, precisely, will you grieve for?"

For the river.  For myself, my lost

joyfulness.  For the children who will not

know what a river can be--a friend, a

companion, a hint of heaven.

"Isn't this somewhat overplayed?"

I said:  it can be a friend.  A companion.  A

hint of heaven.

I spent a good deal of time this morning and afternoon at cemeteries.  It's Memorial Day in the United States.  That's a day set aside to honor members of the country's armed forces who died in combat.  There are parades and concerts and VFW services all over the land, including my little piece of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

I am well aware that I live a pretty privileged life.  I can write blog posts and poems and essays, freely expressing my opinions about MAGA hat-wearing bigots, pandemic deniers, homophobes, xenophobes, gun rights advocates, and misogynists (in short, Trump supporters).  I don't have to worry about being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to be shot or thrown in prison for my beliefs.  Because there are individuals who sacrificed their lives to protect my freedom.  

Some people in the United States think that criticizing the government and elected officials is unpatriotic.  I'm here today to say the exact opposite.  When I say we need sensible gun laws in this country--when I speak out against censorship in libraries and schools--when I point out evidence of systemic racism--when I defend the rights of LGTBQIA+ friends and family members--when I call out people as traitors who violently storm the U. S. Capitol--when I want my daughter to be able to make her own decisions about her body and life--when I do any of these things, I am honoring those men and women who fought and died for my independence.

My father was ultra-conservative his whole life.  Staunch Catholic.  John Wayne was his hero.  He was a member of the John Birch Society and thought Joseph McCarthy was a great patriot.  The only Democrat my father ever voted for was John F. Kennedy.  Aside from that, he was a diehard Republican, right down to Donald Trump.

From a pretty young age, I was the exact opposite of my father, politically and socially.  He knew this.  I may have even said to Dad on more than one occasion that Jesus Christ was a socialist, not a capitalist.  We didn't agree on a whole lot of anything.  Yet, my father respected my right to hold opinions that were in direct conflict with his.  (He may have even appreciated me a little bit for disagreeing with him, although he would never admit it.)

So, on this Memorial Day, I want to thank all of the people who fought and died in battle so that I can be a free-thinking, antigun, prochoice, borderline socialist.  John F. Kennedy, my father's favorite president, once said, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter the words, but to live by them."

Saint Marty tries to live out this gratitude every day of his life.

May 30: DiMaggio Is Himself, Memorial Day, True Meaning

Santiago talks about baseball . . . 

"Your stew is excellent," the old man said.

"Tell me about the baseball," the boy asked him.

"In the American League it is the Yankees as I said," the old man said happily.

"They lost today," the boy told him.

"That means nothing. The great DiMaggio is himself again."

"They have other men on the team."

"Naturally. But he makes the difference. In the other league, between Brooklyn and Philadelphia I must take Brooklyn. But then I think of Dick Sisler and those great drives in the old park."

"There was nothing ever like them. He hits the longest ball I have ever seen."

"Do you remember when he used to come to the Terrace? I wanted to take him fishing but I was too timid to ask him. Then I asked you to ask him and you were too timid."

"I know. It was a great mistake. He might have gone with us. Then we would have that for all of our lives."

"I would like to take the great DiMaggio fishing," the old man said. "They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are and would understand."

Nothing more American than baseball.  Even though Santiago and the boy are Cuban, they follow the Yankees and idolize Joe DiMaggio.  If they were wearing red, white, and blue tee shirts and MAGA hats, they'd fit into almost any small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

On this day, the citizens of my country celebrate Memorial Day.  It's a time meant to honor men and women in the United States' armed forces who lost their lives in conflict.  Parades are held.  Solemn ceremonies conducted at cemeteries.  And then, everyone goes off to camp or the beach, barbecues hotdogs and hamburgers, cooks corn on the cob, and slices up some watermelon.   

That's pretty much what we did today.  A parade that lasted all of three minutes in the morning.  Followed by cemetery service.  A tour of relatives' graves.  A nap.  Watching Saving Private Ryan.  Family barbecue.  Then an episode of the new season of Stranger Things.  

I have tried most of my adult life to honor the true meaning of this day and teach my children to do the same.  I'm not particularly jingoistic in my patriotism, but I do recognize and honor the sacrifices people have made for the freedoms I enjoy every day of my life.  Heroes who gave their lives so I can write my blog posts and poems.  So my kids can love whomever they want (for now).  And so that everyone I care about can live their lives the way they want without fear or discrimination.

That's what Saint Marty celebrates tonight.

May 31: Cold and Naked and Alone, Memorial Day, "First Memorial Day After"

Merton wrestles with demons . . . 

But anyway, one day I woke up to find out that the peace I had known for six months or more had suddenly gone. 

The Eden I had been living in had vanished. I was outside the wall. I did not know what flaming swords barred my way to the gate whose rediscovery had become impossible. I was once more out in the cold and naked and alone. 

Then everything began to fall apart, especially my vocation to the monastery. 

Not that it occurred to me to doubt my desire to be a Franciscan, to enter the cloister, to become a priest. That desire was stronger than ever now that I was cast out into the darkness of this cold solitude. It was practically the only thing I had left, the only thing to cover me and keep me warm: and yet it was small comfort, because the very presence of the desire tortured me by contrast with the sudden hopelessness that had come storming up out of the hidden depths of my heart. 

My desire to enter the cloister was small comfort indeed: for I had suddenly been faced with the agonizing doubt, the unanswerable question: Do I really have that vocation? 

I suddenly remembered who I was, who I had been. I was astonished: since last September I seemed to have forgotten that I had ever sinned. 

And now I suddenly realized that none of the men to whom I had talked about my vocation, neither Dan Walsh nor Father Edmund, knew who I really was. They knew nothing about my past. They did not know how I had lived before I entered the Church. They had simply accepted me because I was superficially presentable, I had a fairly open sort of a face and seemed to be sincere and to have an ordinary amount of sense and good will. Surely that was not enough. 

Now the terrible problem faced me: “I have got to go and let Father Edmund know about all this. Perhaps it will make a big difference.” After all, it is not enough merely to desire to enter the monastery.

An attraction to the cloister is not even the most important element in a religious vocation. You have to have the right moral and physical and intellectual aptitudes. And you have to be accepted, and accepted on certain grounds. 

When I looked at myself in the light of this doubt, it began to appear utterly impossible that anyone in his right mind could consider me fit material for the priesthood. 

I immediately packed my bag and started out for New York.

Having existed under a blanket of self-assurance and piety for over half a year, Merton suddenly finds himself back in the trenches of real life--with all of its dirty streets, doubt-filled days, and fragmented dreams.  It's dark-night-of-the-soul time for young Merton, and he finds the whole religious life he'd imagined for himself blown away like ashes after a fire.

Here's the thing:  Merton simply isn't ready to be a monk yet.  He hasn't surrendered himself to God's will without question.  Nope.  He's created a Godly life for himself, one in which he will be comfortable and secure.  Merton is calling the shots, and that really doesn't work.  We all think we know what's best for ourselves, and we pursue those visions every waking minute.  However, those visions, in the end, have very little to do with God, and everything to do with personal happiness.

I'm not saying that making God happy and having personal happiness are mutually exclusive .  On the contrary.  The greatest happiness you can find is by doing what God wants you to do, no matter how difficult.  Every day is like a pop quiz from God.  Sometimes that quiz is easy--true/false or multiple choice.  Sometimes that quiz is more challenging--essay.  However, pop quizzes are tricky.  You can provide an answer that seems totally correct at the moment, and you'll pass.  In a day's time--or week's or month's or year's--the true answer will come into focus, and your final grade will be submitted.  And you may end up in the same boat as Merton in the above passage.  Alone and in despair.  

Today in the United States, we celebrate Memorial Day.  It's a time to honor those men and women who lost their lives in military service to our country.  This day can be misconstrued as patriotism of the worst kind--filled with hate and violence and intolerance and the glorification of war.  That's human understanding.  A more divine understanding of Memorial Day involves surrender and self-sacrifice.  Giving up everything for a greater good.

All of the graves in the cemetery today adorned with tiny flags (my father's included) represent people who walked the path of selfless sacrifice.  They lifted their crosses and willingly carried them up the hill, to use a Christian metaphor.  They didn't want to die, but they understood the bigger picture.  The one where they could make the universe a better place by their actions.

I honor the selfless today.  Those who gave up everything for something bigger and greater than themselves.  This isn't patriotism talking.  It's admiration for bravery, and thankfulness for sacrifice.  An understanding that, sometimes, God asks you to do the impossible, and you do it.  Without question.

Saint Marty wishes you all a day filled with peace.

And a poem for this Memorial Day . . . 

This Memorial Day After

by:  Martin Achatz

We gather this Memorial Day after
a long season of wintering out, happy
to see faces, brindled hope wagging
its tail as we again summon soldiers limping
home after Bull Runs, Omaha Beaches, too
tired to even think about cool hands
on shell-shocked temples, wanting only
to find a place in sun to stretch out
limbs, press faces into bowls of blue
sky, close eyes that have seen too much
that begs to be forgotten, find a Flanders
Field to rest, peace that can’t be broken
by cries of bullets or rockets ever again,
that will last until tribulation’s trumpet
blasts open the veil of grave, and we all
climb, stunned and new, from the final
battle of dirt and sod and rock, final
Memorial Day where we’ll stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with those
who, as old men in old uniforms remind
us today, paid the Christ price,
brave wounded souls who will nod
at us, smile with the knowledge of having
been through this before, heard their last
breaths rattle a blood-soaked morn, given
up their ghosts so that we could walk
in a world not haunted by sacrifice.

They stand with us now, on this Memorial
Day after, as they will stand
with us on that last Memorial Day,
when we will all understand what it means
to lay down our lives like place settings
on a dinner table, tuck napkins
under our chins, wait for grace
to be said, a thankfulness for all
gifts we have received, will receive,
and we will part our lips at the end, let
an “amen” rattle the universe’s windows
the way they rattled when we took
those first stumbling steps out of the gates
of Eden, and God’s heart split open
like a mother’s sending her only child
off to war.

May 25: Memorial Day, Easy Sacrifices and Ultimate Sacrifices, "Something Better"

Like many citizens of the United States, Memorial Day makes me pause and think.

Usually, I would be at a parade right now, and then a cemetery service, honoring men and women from the United States Armed Forces who paid for my freedom with their lives.  I'm eternally grateful for their sacrifices, and I feel a tremendous responsibility to these brave people whom I never met.  I know that, as they fought in foxholes and jungles and deserts, flew in airplanes, served on aircraft carriers and submarines, first and foremost on all their minds was family.  Mothers.  Fathers.  Brothers.  Sisters.  Friends.  Wives.  Husbands.  Children.  These soldiers went into battle because they wanted the world to be a better place for their loved ones.  Safer.  Freer.  

We are in a strange moment in history.  A moment that many of those courageous men and women never imagined.  The enemy isn't some fascist dictator trying to conquer the world.  Or some terrorist organization dedicated to fear and destruction.  The enemy right now is unseen.  Microscopic.  Indiscriminate.  Deadly.  And it is threatening the entire planet.

We need to take some lessons from the men and women we honor today.  Yes, they were afraid.  Knew they might leave their parents childless, their children parentless.  Yet, they were willing to make that sacrifice to give future generations something better.  That is the burden we accept from them at this time.

The sacrifices we need to make right now are tiny compared to the sacrifices these fallen warriors made.  To make the world safer, freer, we need to stay at home, not storm a beach under machine gun fire.  We need to wear face masks, not to protect ourselves from mustard gas, but a virus.  We need to wash our hands, not to rinse off the blood of our wounded friends, but to protect ourselves from infection.  We can still get take-out pizza.  We're not hunkered in trenches eating K-rations.

The easy sacrifices of today are to ensure something better for tomorrow.  And they honor those men and women who ran into battle for us, with nothing more than hope for our future in their eyes.  That is the miracle of today.

For that, and for those fallen heroes, Saint Marty gives thanks.

Something Better

by:  Martin Achatz

I want something better for my kids,
The way all parents want their offspring
To attend college, law or medical
School.  Do something extraordinary.
We scrub toilets, paint walls, deep-fry potatoes
For thirty or forty years, put everything
On hold until we're sure our daughters
Can study veterinary medicine, our sons
Learn to x-ray broken vertebrae, tibias,
Clavicles.  My uncle drove to the GM plant
For over thirty-five years before he received
His pension, then began to paint oil landscapes
Of places he’d dreamed about in rush hour
Traffic on I-75, places full of waves,
Evergreens the color of Chinese jade,
Places he knew he'd never see,
All so his daughter could study,
Become an engineer at Ford.
I don’t want my children to teach
College English part-time, work
Eleven-hour days in an office,
Scribble poems on napkins, lunch bags,
Margins of graded essays, dreaming
Always of a time when those words,
Cut and polished and set in lines of gold,
Will buy vacations to Stockholm or Rome,
Ballet lessons and birthday parties
In hot air balloons.  I want my kids
To know a life better than mine,
Even if it means I eat bologna
With cheese every day, pretending
My cut of lunch meat is somehow
Superior to the one my father ate
At work for over fifty years.

May 27: Memorial Day, My Father's Service, "In Memoriam"

Greetings all!

I hope you have had a relaxing Memorial Day with your friends and family.  I am not going to be talking about all the things that this day represents in the United States.  Others can do that.  Instead, I will tell you what I have done today.

This morning, I attended a short parade this morning and then a ceremony at the local cemetery.  Then, I went to leave a flag and flowers at my father's grave.  You see, he served in the Army during the Korean War.  Never saw action, but he always said it was the proudest time of his life.  There's supposed to be a plaque by his grave, honoring his service, but my brother, in his wisdom, took that plaque out to our family camp.  So my father never gets a flag on Memorial Day, except for the one I place.

Saint Marty honors his father's service this evening.

In Memoriam

by:  Martin Achatz

I take my two-year-old son
To the cemetery this Memorial Day,
Walk him around gravestones
As local war veterans conduct
A service solemn as evening rain,
As a high school band plays
Stars and Stripes Forever,
As the local Methodist pastor
Talks of ultimate sacrifice.
I remain a respectful distance away
So my son's screams won't
Disrupt the placing of wreaths,
The recognition of the Gold Star mother,
A woman whose son bled
To death in a jungle over 40 years ago.
On this day, in this place,
Her grief is fresh, delicate
As the white rose pinned
To the lapel of her jacket.
I lift my son into my arms
When I see the honor guards
Shoulder their rifles and aim.
I whisper in my son's ear,
Warn him of the noise to follow.
He still flinches, jumps
When the guns crack.
Seven of them.  Three times.
I hold my son close, as if I need
To protect him from some unseen
Enemy.  The trumpet begins
To play for the dead.  My son squirms,
Wants down, wants to run,
Collect fistfuls of dandelions.
I struggle to keep him still
Until the music ends,
Until the horn's last notes fade
In the gray morning.  My son
Kicks, pushes, yells until even
The Gold Star mother turns, looks
At us.  I surrender, put my son down.
I watch him race away from me,
Laughing among the stones,
The rows of waving flags.
Happy.  Free.

May 28: Ancient and Unentered Forests, Memorial Day, Big Deals

(As told at the Golden Inn)

The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part.

It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record.

*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.

For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time.

"Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps according to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by and not only was the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired.

"Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free; never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo.

"'Lakeman!- Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?' said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.

"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but- I crave your courtesy- may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well nigh as large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, those grand fresh-water seas of ours,- Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan,- possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buckhorn handled Bowie-knives. Yet was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt- but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

I really like this little passage, which deals, in part, with my little part of the world--Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.  Melville's description of the lakes and forests is pretty dead-on.  Ancient and unentered forests.  Lakes that are more like oceans.  Gaunt pines.  As a U. P. writer, I always appreciate coming across descriptions of my home.  I especially appreciate the fact that I didn't remember that the Great Lakes make a cameo appearance in Moby-Dick.

It is Memorial Day.  This morning, my kids and I went to a parade, and then we attended a service at a local cemetery in honor of war veterans.  It's what we do every year.  A tradition.  From what I understand, Memorial Day used to be a much bigger deal in my neck of the woods.  Huge celebrations.  Parades that were bigger and better than Fourth of July parades.  Community picnics.

Now, those days are long-gone.  Ever since I can recall, this day has been marked by little fanfare.  A six-minute procession downtown consisting of a fire truck, some antique cars, a couple marching bands, and members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars marching almost in step.  The glory days of Memorial Day seem like passages in an old book.  They've passed from reality to the past to history to myth.

I am at my mother's house right now.  We are going to have a barbecue.  Steaks, I think.  I bought a watermelon for dessert.  Another Memorial Day tradition.  Of course, things have changed in the last few years, since the death of my brother, sister, and, now, father.  My remaining siblings sometimes seem to have lost their way.

Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, Easter.  All of these holidays used to be big deals in my family.  Times where we all got together and told stories and ate.  Nowadays, Christmas is a quick trip to Walmart on Christmas Eve.  Halloween is an inconvenience--little kids interrupting Netflix.  And Memorial Day is a few steaks thrown on the barbecue after the latest D-grade movie is over on the television.  The holidays I remember have slipped from reality to the past to history.  Pretty soon, they will be myth.

I hope I never let that happen in my home, with my kids or wife.  I don't want them to remember our lives together like some kind of fairy tale.  Things change.  I get that.  Parades shrink.  The shores of the Great Lakes go from ancient forests to lines of condominiums.  People die.  The easy thing to do is to let these things take over.  Sit in a dark room, stare at your phone or the television.  Sleep all day.

That's not my style.  I fight to keep Christmas special.  Try to fill Halloween with candy and ghosts and trick-or-treating.  Make Memorial Day more than just a half-ass dinner when there's nothing else to watch on television.

I don't want to live the same day over-and-over, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  There's got to be more to life than that.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for a good day with his kids.  For parades.  For remembrance.  For the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the people whom he loves.

May 28: Eric Pankey, "Three Matthew Brady Photographs," Best and Worst of Humanity

Three Matthew Brady Photographs

by:  Eric Pankey

1. Confederate Dead behind a Stone Wall at Fredericksburg, Virginia

Where the glass negative broke:
A silky, liquid black,
Like spilled scrivener’s ink,
Pools in the print’s margin.
                        : :
Mouth gone slack, eyes upward,
            Face glazed with blood, the man—
Lifeless, slumped, and tangled
            In a tarp—looks for God.
                        : :
Two leafless trees hold up
            A scratched sky’s leaden weight.
Autumn? Winter? No wind
            To sway the upright trees.
                        : :
Such a long exposure
To affix the fallen,
(Staged or happened upon,)
Abandoned to this ditch.

2. Wilderness, near Chancellorsville, Virginia

It is a slow process:
                               fallen and standing trees,
Propped, bent, a clutter of intersections—

All moss- and lichen-ridden,
                                             woodpecker pecked,
Bored by grubs, antler-scraped, bark rubbed free—

Hard to tell from the decay
                                           the living from the dead,
The dead from the almost dead—

A tree—
               horizontal across the creek,
Uprooted when a flash flood cut the cut-bank—

Still leaves, blossoms, bears fruit.
                                                    Without a buttress,
A long dead sycamore remains upright.

3. Burying the Confederate Dead at Fredericksburg, Virginia

Jesus said, Let the dead bury the dead.

Two caskets and five or six canvas-
Covered bodies wait beside a trench
Three black men have spent all day digging.

Given their druthers, they’d obey scripture.                       

_________________________

A poem that I think is appropriate for Memorial Day.  It reminds me that Memorial Day is not all about parades and bugles and hot dogs.  Memorial Day is something that commemorates both what is best in humanity and what is worst.

Saint Marty thinks everyone should remember this.

May 26: Gam, Memorial Day, Freedom

The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her- judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions- if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground.

If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth- off lone Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how much more natural, I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about.

For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing each other's track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel; and some of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable chat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils.

Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference; that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority in the English whaleman does really consist, it would be hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does not take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few foibles himself.

So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the whalers have most reason to be sociable- and they are so. Whereas, some merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the mid-Atlantic, will oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon each other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is- "How many skulls?"- the same way that whalers hail- "How many barrels?" And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each other's villanous likenesses.

But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "Gam," a thing so utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and repeat gamesome stuff about "spouters" and "blubber-boilers," and such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also all Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

But what is a Gam? You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it.

GAM. NOUN- A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats' crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often steers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say- to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there like grim death.

Ahab is not feeling all the sociable.  There is no gam between the crews of the Pequod and Albatross.  Unless the captain of the Albatross has news of the white whale, Ahab is uninterested, even hostile.  I think he sees such an interaction as a distraction from his mission of revenge.  I cringe every time I type a phrase like "mission of revenge."  It is bad writing, but an apt description of Ahab's motivation.  He only has one thing on his mind, to the detriment of ship, crew, health, and happiness.

It is Memorial Day weekend.  For my non-American readers, Memorial Day (which happens on the last Monday in May) celebrates members of the American armed forces who have been killed in battle--in the Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf Wars, and Afghanistan.  Typing out that list of conflicts really drives home how much war has shaped recent history.  It's a little sobering.

However, most people in the United States don't really spend a whole lot of time honoring these fallen soldiers this weekend.  Instead, Memorial Day is simply an excuse not to work, to travel and have family barbecues.  In a way, these three days are the equivalent of what Melville describes as a gam.  Family and friends going out of their way to see each other, eating and drinking and telling stories.  It's become the unofficial launch of the summer.

I don't mind the gam nature of this weekend.  I like seeing friends and family.  I like eating barbecued hot dogs and watermelon and corn on the cob.  Enjoy the celebration of summer freedom.  As a kid, I remember this weekend as a time to run under sprinklers in the afternoon, play outside with friends until dusk, catch frogs and fireflies in the night.  Campfires.  My parents sitting in lawn chairs, drinking from long-necked beer bottles.

On Monday, I will take my kids to a Memorial Day parade.  Then, we will drive out to the cemetery for a Veterans of Foreign Wars ceremony.  There will be a 21-gun salute.  Taps will be played.  My daughter and son have been attending these events since they were babies.  I like to remind them that it's not all about getting a day off from school, that it's not all gam.  Afterward, it will be family and barbecue, as required.

I believe in honoring veterans.  They paid a lot so that I can sit here in McDonald's with my son and sister, eat, and write this blog post without fear of some government agent rushing in to arrest me.  I can criticize the President of the United States.  Disagree with Congress.  Point out that it's just as patriotic to stand for the national anthem as it is to kneel.  Because that's what my country should be.  It's what those men and women died for.  Freedom.

Saint Marty is thankful today for all fighters for democracy and freedom.

May 29: Dream of Giraffes, Memorial Day, Writing

Under morphine, Billy had a dream of giraffes in a garden.  The giraffes were following gravel paths, were pausing to munch sugar pears from treetops.  Billy was a giraffe, too.  He ate a pear.  It was a hard one.  It fought back against his grinding teeth.  It snapped in juicy protest.

The giraffes accepted Billy as one of their own, as a harmless creature as preposterously specialized as themselves.  Two approached him from opposite sides, leaned against him.  They had long, muscular upper lips which they could shape like the bells of bugles.  They kissed him with these.  They were female giraffes--cream and lemon yellow.  They had horns like doorknobs.  The knobs were covered with velvet.

Why?

One of the reasons why I love Slaughterhouse Five is that it constantly surprises me.  Part memoir.  Part history.  Part science fiction.  Part surrealism.  Vonnegut is able to bring all of these elements together in the book.  This passage, where Billy, under a cloud of morphine, transforms into a giraffe, is a little Kafkaesque, without the cockroach, and a little Naked Lunch.  It is so wonderfully strange, especially when Billy starts having a menage with two female giraffes and their long, muscular upper lips.

I have spent most of the day being a writer, which is something that I don't get to say very often.  I went to a Memorial Day parade this morning, and I attended a Memorial Day service at a local cemetery.  My family and I brought some flowers to a few graves of relatives (including my sister's).  Then, I went home and started working on an idea for a piece that I've been thinking about for quite some time. 

I wrote for close to six hours.  It's in a finished form, but I'm not really sure what it is.  I envision it as a prelude to something much longer.  By itself, it could be a prose poem or a short lyric essay.  It really felt great to write without interruption, to allow myself the luxury of being a Vonnegut for a little while.  I didn't write about giraffes having tongue sex in a garden, but I was definitely outside of my comfort zone as a writer. 

Now, at the end of a three-day weekend, with a week of work and grading ahead of me, I'm a little depressed.  I know that I won't have another extended period of writing for quite some time.  With this new piece, I have about three projects that I'm working on now.  That's my writing process.  If I get stuck with one project, I turn my attention to another for a while.  I got this idea from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. 

When I was a teenager, I read an article about Asimov.  The article said that Asimov's writing space contained three desks, and on top of each desk was a typewriter.  Asimov told the journalist that he always had three different books in progress at the same time.  When he reached a roadblock with one book, he would swivel his chair to the second desk and start typing on the second typewriter, which contained the manuscript for a completely different book.  When he got stuck on the second book, he swiveled to the third desk and third typewriter and third manuscript.  Asimov was brilliant.

My problem is that I don't often have days like today.  During the week, I have to steal ten minutes at a time for writing.  Sometimes during lunch.  Sometimes when I'm waiting for my daughter at the dance studio.  Sometimes right before bed, after I've corrected four or five student essays.  I don't get pages written.  I get paragraphs, if I'm lucky.  Usually, it's one of two sentences.

Therefore, today was a blessing.

Saint Marty is thankful for being able to write for six hours.

May 30: Shreds of Creation, Memorial Day, Experiment in Freedom

What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley, but to keep myself open to their meanings, which is to try to impress myself at all times with the fullest possible force of their very reality.  I want to have things as multiply and intricately as possible present and visible in my mind.  Then I might be able to sit on the hill by the burnt books where the starlings fly over, and see not only the starlings, but grass field, the quarried rock, the viney woods, Hollins Pond, and the mountains beyond, but also, and simultaneously, feathers' barbs, springtails in the soil, crystal in rock, chloroplasts streaming, rotifers pulsing, and the shape of the air in the pines.  And, if I try to keep my eye on quantum physics, if I try to keep up with astronomy and cosmology, and really believe it all, I might ultimately be able to make out the landscape of the universe.  Why not?

Dillard is constantly looking behind names, trying to understand the intricacies of meaning.  It's not enough to be able to say, "This is a sugar maple leaf."  Dillard wants to know its cellular makeup:  cuticle, mesophyll, epidermis, chlorophyll, stoma.  She wants to understand its greenness.  Where it fits in the story of the universe.

It is Memorial Day.  This morning, I went to see a parade and then attended a VFW service at a local cemetery.  I listened to the bands play, bagpiper pipe.  And the speakers talk of sacrifice and freedom.  A pastor got up and spoke about the honor of giving up your life for the sake of another.  I always find these proceedings really moving.  They reinforce the real meaning of this American holiday.  It's not about a three-day weekend and grilling hotdogs and bratwurst.  It's about what's behind all that:  men and women who have given up their freedom for my freedom.  That's Memorial Day's cellular makeup.

I tend to shy away from people who are rabidly patriotic.  Everything done in the name of patriotism is not always a good thing.  Crackpots and fanatics are able to twist the ideas of freedom and democracy to serve any cause, from xenophobia to homophobia.  However, there are just causes, reasons to be patriotic.  The defeat of Adolf Hitler--a just cause, a reason to be gratefully patriotic.  The emancipation of slaves and preservation of the union--another just cause and reason to be patriotic.

I am not here today to argue over the morality and ethics of war.  I am here to talk about the meaning behind Memorial Day:  there were/are people who put themselves in harm's way so that I can sit here with my laptop and express my ideas freely.  So that I can attend the church I want.  Read the books I want.  Believe whatever I want.  That's what Memorial Day is all about.  Sacrifice for the ideal of freedom, no matter how messy and flawed that freedom may be.

And Saint Marty is deeply grateful to the people who have given their lives to make this experiment in freedom called the United States possible.

On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you

May 29: Sunday Afternoon, Reading a Good Book, Classic Saint Marty

Sunday.  The day before Memorial Day.  The afternoon is spreading out before me with little to do, except writing this post.  I am trying not to think of the work week ahead, my last in the cardiology office where I'm currently employed.  If I think about what's ahead, I tend to panic a little bit.  Just a little.

So, instead, I will spend the rest of the day finishing reading a book.  It was written by one of my former writing professors and a good friend.  It's called Wolf's Mouth, and it's by John Smolens.  It's fantastic.  I have a little less than a hundred pages left.  That will keep my mind off the future for a little while.

In church today, I read a poem that I wrote on Memorial Day, five years ago.  My son was two years old, and life was quite a bit simpler (although I probably didn't realize it at the time).  All of my siblings were still alive.  My own family was intact after a few years of real turmoil and struggle.  I had actually forgotten about the poem until about a week ago.

So, I am hoping and wishing that both of my Constant Readers have a relaxing day.  Full of quiet happiness.

Now, a note from a . . . different time:

May 30, 2011:  Memorial Day, New Poem, Dance Party

I just dropped my daughter off at the local Pizza Hut for a party with her dance instructor and fellow students.  I have about an hour until I have to pick her up, plenty of time to get this post done.

It's been a fairly lazy morning and afternoon.  My family and I went to a Memorial Day parade, which lasted all of five minutes.  From what I understand, Memorial Day parades used to be as big a deal as Fourth of July parades around here.  However, over the years, people have forgotten the true meaning of Memorial Day and simply think of it as the three-day weekend that kicks off summer.  I want my daughter and son to realize the true significance of Memorial Day.  Therefore, I make them go to the parade, and then I take them to the local cemetery for the service conducted by the VFW.

My daughter is used to this little tradition.  She has learned to pay attention and be respectful.  My son, who is only two-years-old, is another story.  He doesn't get it.  So I spent most of my time at the cemetery walking with him among the headstones, catching bits and pieces of the ceremony over the loudspeakers.  However, he will eventually understand in years to come.

My heart and my thanks go out to all people serving in the military this day, and to their families, as well.  I can sit here, blogging away on my computer without fear of censorship, because of the sacrifices made by soldiers who protect my freedoms.  And to all who have lost loved ones in current and past wars, my deepest gratitude and prayers.

My poem is about this ultimate sacrifice.

Today, Saint Marty humbly salutes people who really understand the meaning of bravery.

Thank you.  Amen.

In Memoriam

I take my two-year-old son
To the cemetery this Memorial Day,
Walk him around gravestones
As local war veterans conduct
A service solemn as evening rain,
As a high school band plays
Stars and Stripes Forever,
As the local Methodist pastor
Talks of ultimate sacrifice.
I remain a respectful distance away
So my son's screams won't
Disrupt the placing of wreaths,
The recognition of the Gold Star mother,
A woman whose son bled
To death in a jungle over 40 years ago.
On this day, in this place,
Her grief is fresh, delicate
As the white rose pinned
To the lapel of her jacket.
I lift my son into my arms
When I see the honor guards
Shoulder their rifles and aim.
I whisper in my son's ear,
Warn him of the noise to follow.
He still flinches, jumps
When the guns crack.
Seven of them.  Three times.
I hold my son close, as if I need
To protect him from some unseen
Enemy.  The trumpet begins
To play for the dead.  My son squirms,
Wants down, wants to run,
Collect fistfuls of dandelions.
I struggle to keep him still
Until the music ends,
Until the horn's last notes fade
In the gray morning.  My son
Kicks, pushes, yells until even
The Gold Star mother turns, looks
At us.  I surrender, put my son down.
I watch him race away from me,
Laughing among the stones,
The rows of waving flags.
Happy.  Free.

May 28: Gene Autry, Claudia Emerson, "Animal Funerals, 1964"

As I sit here, typing this second post, I am listening to Christmas music,  Gene Autry singing "Up on the Housetop."  I am still at McDonald's, so I tend to get looks from people walking by, as if listening to Christmas music on Memorial Day weekend somehow makes me suspect.  I want to tell an old gentleman who just shuffled by, pushing a walker and staring at me, that I do not suffer from any form of serious mental illness.  That the music just helps me concentrate, makes me feel happy.  Of course, if I try to explain, I might seem even more unstable. 

I also just discovered, while looking for a Claudia Emerson poem to post, that Ms. Emerson passed away in 2014.  She was only 57.  As I read her New York Times obituary, it made me incredibly sad.  So young and talented. 

Now Bing Crosby is singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas."  It's such a melancholy little tune.  Wistful.  Nostalgic.  It sort of increases the feeling of loss over Claudia Emerson.  No, I didn't know her personally, but there's something incredibly intimate about reading a person's poems.  Like you're reading letters from a really close friend.  And now that close friend is gone.

This Memorial Day weekend, where the dead are honored, I am thinking about loss a little bit.  (Don't worry, I'm also thinking about barbecue and bratwurst.)  And now, I'm adding Claudia Emerson to the list of people I've lost this year.  Loss is a big part of living.  I know this.  I'm just not happy about it.

Maybe Saint Marty should do something to brighten his mood, like watch Terms of Endearment while thinking about the music he wants played at his funeral.  Planning ahead is always uplifting.

Animal Funerals, 1964

by:  Claudia Emerson

That summer, we did not simply walk through
the valley of the shadow of death; we set up camp there,

orchestrating funerals for the anonymous,
found dead: a drowned mole—its small, naked palms

still pink—a crushed box turtle, green snake, even
a lowly toad. The last and most elaborate

of the burials was for a common jay,
identifiable but light and dry,

its eyes vacant orbits. We built a delicate
lichgate of willow fronds, supple, green—laced

through with chains of clover. Straggling congregation,
we recited what we could of the psalm

about green pastures as we lowered the shoebox
and its wilted pall of dandelions into the shallow

grave one of us had dug with a serving spoon.
That afternoon, just before September and school,

when we would again become children, and blind
to all but the blackboard's chalky lessons, the back

of someone's head, and what was, for a while longer,
the rarer, human death—there, in the heat-shimmered

trees, in the matted grasses where we stood,
even in the slant of humid shade—

we heard wingbeat, slither, buzz, and birdsong—
a green racket rising to fall as though

in a joyous dirge that was real,
and not part of our many, necessary rehearsals

Couldn't find Emerson's gravestone, but this one makes me sad, too

May 27: Muscular Energy, Three-Day Weekend, Opera

There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.  On a sunny day, sun's energy on a square acre of land or pond can equal 4500 horsepower.  These " horses" heave in every direction, like slaves building pyramids, and fashion, from the bottom up, a new and sturdy world.

It is May, and Dillard is basking in sunlight.  Birds riot in the forest canopy.  Fauna and vegetation explode to life like popcorn.  Summer is coming to Tinker Creek, with all its potential energy.  As Dillard points out, in an acre of dirt or water, 4500 sun horsepower gallops.  The world is being rebuilt.

There wasn't a whole lot of sun today in my little square of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Mostly, fog in the morning and a whole lot of gray in the afternoon.  Thunderstorms are forecasted for tonight.  Not a really auspicious beginning for a three-day holiday weekend.  (For my international readers, the last weekend of May celebrates Memorial Day, a time set aside to honor fallen war veterans.  Also, it's sort of the unofficial start of summer.)

That's okay, though.  I didn't have much opportunity for the outdoors, anyway.  It has been a long week.  I'm exhausted.  My whole plan for tonight involves a little PBS and a little reading and a little wine.  I was thinking about going to see a movie with my wife, but it seems that the only things Hollywood has to offer are superhero flicks.  Not my cup of tea.  Since I didn't like The Angry Birds Movie the first time, I have no intention of inflicting that on myself again.  Thus, Plan
B:  opera, a novel, and white wine.

That sounds like a perfect way to start the summer for Saint Marty.  (Saint Marty's wife may not be too excited about the opera.)

May 25: Mother, Memorial Day, Announcement, "Ives" Dip

My mother came home from the ER last night around 10 p.m.  The doctors ran all kinds of tests.  The whole time, all my mother kept saying was, "I don't care what you do to me.  Just let me sleep."  After much poking, bloodletting, and urine collecting, she was diagnosed with dehydration.  So, they pumped about two bags of saline into her and gave her walking papers.

She's doing much better.  I haven't seen her much this Memorial Day.  I attended a parade this morning.  In the rain.  I went to the cemetery for the VFW service.  In the rain.  Then my wife, kids, and I went to the local veterans home to visit my wife's great uncle, who served during World War II.

The rain lasted almost all day.  This afternoon, I spent some time reviewing poetry submissions for the university's literary magazine.  I had a ton of them.  However, I enjoy the process of discovering new poetic talent.  I know, in a couple of days, many writers are going to be very happy when they get their acceptances in the mail.

Memorial Day, for me, is the official beginning of summer, and I have an announcement to make:  I am going to institute a summer schedule for this blog.  From now until Labor Day, I'm only going to be writing one post per day.  I have several writing projects that I want to complete over the next few months, and I also want to take advantage of the warm weather in the Upper Peninsula.  It doesn't last very long.

Not to worry, though.  There will still be Poets of the Week.  Mr. Ives' Christmas will still be featured every day (except Sundays).  I will just be doing all these things in one daily post instead of two.  After June, July, and August, Saint Marty will return to its normal programming.

My question for Ives dip Monday is this:

Will I get a lot of writing done this summer?

And the answer from Mr. Ives is:

And [Ives] would think about that pretty woman in his office named Maria, with her air of permanent sorrow, and how she would cry in the middle of the afternoon with memories of the people, especially the children, she had watched die in Auschwitz; she had been only a child of ten when the Russians liberated the camp...

OK, that's not very encouraging.  But, I'm still going ahead with my plans.  Tomorrow, I will announce the Poet of the Week.  Stay tuned for more summer surprises.  New poems.  Contests.  Nude selfies.  (Just seeing if you're paying attention.)

Finally, Saint Marty gives thanks to all veterans and their families this Memorial Day.  He is profoundly humbled by their sacrifices.

Thank you.  Amen.