July 19: "Special Glasses," Out of Mind, Gratitude

Billy Collins has special vision . . . 

Special Glasses

by: Billy Collins

I had to send away for them

because they are not available in any store.

They look the same as any sunglasses

with a light tint and silvery frames,

but instead of filtering out the harmful

rays of the sun,

they filter out the harmful sight of you--

you on the approach,

you waiting at my bus stop,

you, face in the evening window.

Every morning I put them on 

and step out the side door

whistling a melody of thanks to my nose

and my ears for holding them in place, just so,

singing a song of gratitude

to the lens grinder at his heavy bench

and to the very lenses themselves

because they allow it all to come in, all but you.

How they know the difference

between the green hedges, the stone walls,

and you is beyond me,

yet the schoolbuses flashing in the rain

do come in, as well as the postman waving

and the mother and daughter dogs next door,

and then there is the tea kettle

about to play its chord--

everything sailing right in but you, girl.

Yes, just as the night air passes through the screen,

but not the mosquito,

and as water swirls down the drain,

but not the eggshell,

so the flowering trellis and the moon

pass through my special glasses, but not you.

Let us keep it this way, I say to myself,

as I lay my special glasses on the night table,

pull the chain on the lamp,

and say a prayer--unlike the song--

that I will not see you in my dreams.

It would be highly convenient to be able to purchase glasses that filter pain from your life.  I would pay good money right now for a pair of glasses that filtered Donald Trump from my eyesight.  It's so much easier ignoring a problem if you can't see it.  As the old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.

I'm not really sure that's the way it works, though.  I mean, even if Collins can't see the woman in the above poem, he's still writing about her (or her absence).  Yet, there's something attractive about a day-to-day existence that is devoid of upset or heartbreak or struggle.  I know problems don't magically vanish if you ignore them, but I also know that obsessively thinking about problems isn't healthy, either.

On the flipside, it would be amazing to own a pair of glasses that only allow you to see joy and happiness.  Or that transform everything into joy and happiness.  Think about it.  Anxiety becoming peace.  Grief becoming resurrection.  All without medication.  

Of course, you don't really need a pair of glasses to focus on happiness.  It's simply a matter of attitude.  If I choose to see only darkness, that's all I'm going to see.  And if I choose to see only sunlight, I'm going to need a pair of sunglasses and sunscreen.  

So, I'm focusing on what make me happy today:

• I screened E. T. the Extraterrestrial at the library today and sat in the back of the room, feeling like a kid again and blubbering until my eyes were sore.
• I had a chicken potpie pasty for dinner tonight, and it was delicious.
• I went for a walk with my wife, son, niece, and puppy after supper and got ice cream.  I got a vanilla malt.
• I watched another Bigfoot movie with my son and niece tonight (Exists--a really decent horror flick).
• It's Friday.
• I get to sleep in a little tomorrow.

That's a pretty good gratitude list.  All without looking through magic lenses.  

Just like Billy Collins, Saint Marty is hoping to have sweet, joyful dreams.

May 26: Old Saying, Carol Ann Duffy, "History"

There's an old saying that if you don't know history, you are bound to repeat it.  Something like that.

I believe that statement is true.  It's true for people, for countries, for the whole human race.  We need to learn from our mistakes.  Wars that we've fought.  Genocides.  Slavery.  Famine.  Drought.  Poverty.  Climate change.  We need to learn from all of the things that humanity has wrought on this little chunk of rock we call home.

If we don't learn, we will kill each other.

'Nuff said from Saint Marty tonight.

History

by:  Carol Ann Duffy

She woke up old at last, alone,
bones in a bed, not a tooth
in her head, half dead, shuffled
and limped downstairs
in the rag of her nightdress,
smelling of pee.

Slurped tea, stared
at her hand- twigs, stained gloves-
wheezed and coughed, pulled on
the coat that hung from a hook
on the door, lay on the sofa,
dozed, snored.

She was History.
She'd seen them ease him down
from the Cross, his mother gasping
for breath, as though his death
was a difficult birth, the soldiers spitting,
spears in the earth;

been there
when the fisherman swore he was back
from the dead; seen the basilicas rise
in Jerusalem, Constantinople, Sicily; watched
for a hundred years as the air of Rome
turned into stone;

witnessed the wars,
the bloody crusades, knew them by date
and by name, Bannockburn, Passchendaele,
Babi Yar, Vietnam. She'd heard the last words
of the martyrs burnt at the stake, the murderers
hung by the neck,

seen up-close
how the saint whistled and spat in the flames,
how the dictator strutting and stuttering film
blew out his brains, how the children waved
their little hands from the trains. She woke again,
cold, in the dark,

in the empty house.
Bricks through the window now, thieves
in the night. When they rang on her bell
there was nobody there; fresh graffiti sprayed
on her door, shit wrapped in a newspaper posted
onto the floor.