January 1: Margaret Avison, "New Year's Poem," Feast of the Solemnity of Mary

New Year's Poem

by:  Margaret Avison

The Christmas twigs crispen and needles rattle
Along the window-ledge.
             A solitary pearl
Shed from the necklace spilled at last week’s party
Lies in the suety, snow-luminous plainness
Of morning, on the window-ledge beside them.   
And all the furniture that circled stately
And hospitable when these rooms were brimmed
With perfumes, furs, and black-and-silver
Crisscross of seasonal conversation, lapses
Into its previous largeness.
             I remember   
Anne’s rose-sweet gravity, and the stiff grave
Where cold so little can contain;
I mark the queer delightful skull and crossbones
Starlings and sparrows left, taking the crust,
And the long loop of winter wind
Smoothing its arc from dark Arcturus down
To the bricked corner of the drifted courtyard,
And the still window-ledge.
             Gentle and just pleasure
It is, being human, to have won from space
This unchill, habitable interior
Which mirrors quietly the light
Of the snow, and the new year.

_____________________________

A poem to start off the new year.

This morning I played the pipe organ for Mass--the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary.  It was cold and snowy, the aftermath of a little storm that blew in on New Year's Eve.  It was a peaceful, beautiful beginning.

Saint Marty is ready for joy, happiness, and laughter.

January 7: Threshold, Last Words, "Rosebud"

I have been giving you New Year's poems all week long.  Poems about crossing a threshold, moving from darkness to light, despair to hope.  Last year was difficult for most people.  Divisive.  Angry. Unhappy.  So, the threshold from 2016 to 2017 is a movement from division to unity, anger to peace, unhappiness to . . . well, you get the idea.

I don't know where that 2017 threshold is right now.  I want to embrace unity and peace, but the world seems to be conspiring against that.  My neighbor still has his "Hillary for Prison" sign plastered on the side of his house (it's a huge sign, taking up most of the wall).  Another neighbor has made a permanent place on his front porch for his "Trump/Pence" sign (along with his white sheets and swastika arm bands, I'm sure).  

I wrote a poem a few years ago about last words.  Words that people say as they move from life to death (or death to afterlife, depending upon your religious leanings).  It's about what goes through a person's mind at the end (or the beginning).  Last thoughts (or first thoughts).

Saint Marty gets to have last word today--the last New Year's poem of the week.

Rosebud

by:  Martin Achatz


Maybe I'll whisper Jiminy,
think of long grass in August
when clouds of grasshoppers
erupted from nowhere, arced
through the air, sang a song
of wing and leg against my shins.
Or maybe I'll mutter Obi,
see a garden of carrots, peas, peppers,
a turtle small as my five-year-old
hand, moving, digging in mud,
hungry for worm or cricket or grub.
Or maybe it will be Omni,
lemon verbena on her dark skin
beside me in the lecture hall, weeks
of wanting to reach out, touch her
in places beyond my study notes,
know every glossary and index of her.
It may be Maria or Screwtape,
nicotine fingers, white hair,
a ribbon of appendix scar, dog bite.
What will travel down the Amazon
of memory to my tongue
those last seconds?  What
sled or bicycle or book?
Something small, no doubt.
A stuffed giraffe.  Chewed-up quilt.
Angel fish.  Yeah, my angel fish.
Think her name was Athena.
Maybe.  Athena, that sounds right.
God, she was beautiful.

January 6: Better or Worse, Margaret Avison, "New Year's Poem"

On this sixth day of January in the year of our Lord 2017, the members of the Congress of the United States of America certified the results of last November's presidential election.  Donald John Trump will be the next President of the United States, for better or worse.  Not that there was any doubt.

Now, you are probably expecting me to go on some rant, being a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.  I am not going to do that.  That does not mean I am defeated or resigned.  That does not mean that I accept any of the tenets of a Donald Trump presidency.  I can't do that.  For the next four years, I will have to watch the lunacy unfold and hope against Armageddon.

I am an American.  I have a daughter who will face inequality in the work place.  I have a son who needs expensive ADHD medication from an unchecked pharmaceutical industry.  Ditto my wife with bipolar meds.  My sister has Down's syndrome and survives on Social Security disability.  I don't think that all Syrian refugees are Muslim terrorists, and I don't think that all illegal Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers.  I believe Black lives matter, and I believe that law enforcement lives matter, too.

I believe that you don't have to agree with me, and I will still love and respect and accept you.  I hope you will do the same.

That is Saint Marty's New Year's hope for everyone.

New Year's Poem

by:  Margaret Avison

The Christmas twigs crispen and needles rattle

Along the window-ledge.

             A solitary pearl

Shed from the necklace spilled at last week’s party

Lies in the suety, snow-luminous plainness

Of morning, on the window-ledge beside them.   

And all the furniture that circled stately

And hospitable when these rooms were brimmed

With perfumes, furs, and black-and-silver

Crisscross of seasonal conversation, lapses

Into its previous largeness.

             I remember   

Anne’s rose-sweet gravity, and the stiff grave

Where cold so little can contain;

I mark the queer delightful skull and crossbones

Starlings and sparrows left, taking the crust,

And the long loop of winter wind

Smoothing its arc from dark Arcturus down

To the bricked corner of the drifted courtyard,

And the still window-ledge.

             Gentle and just pleasure

It is, being human, to have won from space

This unchill, habitable interior

Which mirrors quietly the light

Of the snow, and the new year.