October 6: "First Snow," Questions and Answers, Selfcare

Mary Oliver has questions . . . 

First Snow

by:  Mary Oliver

The snow

began here

this morning and all day

continued, its white

rhetoric everywhere

calling us back to why, how,

whence such beauty and what

the meaning; such 

an oracular fever! flowing

past windows, an energy it seemed

would never ebb, never settle

less than lovely! and only now,

deep into night,

it has finally ended.

The silence

is immense,

and the heavens still hold

a million candles; nowhere

the familiar things:

stars, the moon,

the darkness we expect

and nightly turn from.  Trees

glitter like castles

of ribbons, the broad fields

smolder with light, a passing

creekbed lies

heaped with shining hills;

and though the questions

that have assailed us all day

remain--not a single

answer has been found--

walking out now

into the silence and the light

under the trees,

and through the fields,

feels like one.

I almost skipped this poem from Mary Oliver--not because it isn't full of beauty and truth, but because I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and, if the word "snow" is invoked too many times in October, you may wake to a world transformed by white.

That's what Mary Oliver is talking about here--the power of snow to make the familiar somehow mysterious and new.  Trees glitter, and fields smolder with light.  Nothing looks the same.  Any person who has experienced a first snow understands this erasure--the mustards and umbers of autumn wiped out by the silent whites of winter.  The world becomes a blank page waiting for a poem.

Today, I continued my campaign of selfcare.  I took yet another day off from work and tried to relax.  In the morning, after dropping my son off at school and wife at work, I drove to the shores of Lake Superior and watched the sunrise.  It was cold, and it got colder and colder as the day progressed, with a wind driving bouts of drizzle and mist.

I did take my puppy for a couple walks, but I stuck to wooded paths, so the trees sheltered us from the brunt of the wind and needles of rain.  In the afternoon, I returned to Lake Superior after picking my son up from school, and I watched a squabble of seagulls drifting above the foam and waves.  By that time, the sun was firmly sheathed in gray clouds, so it felt like a coming-of-snow kind of afternoon.

For Oliver, the first snow turns everything into a question--what's under that white heap?  where did the tree stump go?  whence such beauty?  Of course, none of these questions have apparent answers, and, really, it's silly to search for them.  The answer is the question itself.  Beauty isn't something to be understood or dissected.  Beauty just is.

Eventually, snow will arrive in my neck of the Upper Peninsula (hopefully later than sooner).  And it will be thrilling when it happens.  It always is.  I haven't ever lost that childish excitement when the air suddenly becomes a riot of white for the first time, whether in October, November, or December.  (I'd prefer January, but that's magical thinking.)

So, I'm in my flannel pajamas tonight.  After I'm done typing this post, I plan to . . . Well, to be honest, I don't have a plan.  I may read a book.  Watch a movie.  Listen to my 15-year-old son swear in his room like a Marine drill sergeant as he plays computer games.  Or I may just lie on the couch and listen to what scraps of silence I can find.  

Saint Marty isn't looking for answers.  All he wants are multiple-choice questions.

July 6: "Daisies," Questions and Answers, Kids and Poets

Mary Oliver takes what is given . . .

Daisies

by:  Mary Oliver

It is possible, I suppose, that sometime

     we will learn everything

there is to learn:  what the world is, for example,

     and what it means.  I think this as I am crossing

from one field to another, in summer, and the

     mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either

knows enough already or knows enough to be

     perfectly content not knowing.  Song being born

of quest he knows this:  he must turn silent

     were he suddenly assaulted with answers.  Instead

oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly

     unanswered.  At my feet the white-petaled daisies display 

the small suns of their center-piece--their, if you don't

     mind my saying so--their hearts.  Of course

I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and

      narrow and hidden in the roots.  What do I know.

But this:  it is heaven itself to take what is given,

     to see what is plain; what the sun

lights up willingly; for example--I think this

     as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch

the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the

     daisies for the field.

It was a strange day.  Productively busy.  As a programmer for a library and a university professor, I spend most of my daytime hours answering questions, from both library patrons and my students.  That's really all Oliver does in her poems, too:  she grapples with big, big questions about small, small things.  Like daisies.  Notice, I didn't say that Oliver tries to answer those big, big questions.  Nope.  I think she knows that, most of the time, questions are much more interesting than answers.

So, today I designed documents, printed flyers, finalized projects, and prepared for a poetry workshop that I led this evening.  A lot of these tasks was busy work--stuff that didn't require a whole lot of brain power to complete.  Necessary everyday/every month busy work.  It had to get done.

Then, I spent over an hour on the phone with my medical insurance company, trying to clear up problems that I've been experiencing with my new prescription plan.  It was a long conversation, asking lots of questions until I finally got the answers I was looking for.

As you can see, life (or at least my life) is mostly about questions.  Even my approach to poetry is all about questions.  As Oliver says, a poet (herself) is either the one "who knows enough already" or the one who "knows enough to be / perfectly content not knowing."  Poets don't need to know answers.  They just need to ask really interesting questions.  That's it.

The poetry workshop I led tonight was all about summertime.  We wrote poems about fruit picking  and fireflies and bounty.  Everyone has different ideas about summer.  Those ideas are based on personal experiences, most of them from childhood.  Writer Willa Cather once famously said, "Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen."  So, the question that ruled the evening was, "What does summer mean to you?"

And the answers to the question were multitude, each person bringing very different, very personal childhood visions of summertime, from the surreal to the sublime.

Childhood reality is different than adult reality.  As a child, you can accept magic and mystery without question.  Reindeer CAN fly.  There IS something living under your bed.  Fireflies ARE summer fairies.  And you CAN stop rainstorms by chanting "rain, rain, go away, come again some other day."  No science or Google or Wikipedia needed.  

Hence, summer can be a season of questions without answers.  Summer is hot because it is.  Blueberries are blue because they are.  Owls hoot because they do.  The corner house is haunted because it is.  As a kid, I never thought about climate change or blueberry ripeness or owl predation or human tragedy.  As I said before, explanations are just not that interesting.  Mystery--that's where it's at, especially for kids and poets.  I think Oliver would agree with me.

The next time you hear a weird sound in the woods, don't whip out your phone and try to identify it.  It's Bigfoot letting you know he's hungry.  If you find a field of beautiful blue flowers you've never seen before, just lie down in it.  It's a fairy garden.  If a white light streaks across the heavens tonight, make a wish on it.

Saint Marty prefers making wishes to making beds, any day.

The Unknown Creature in my Backyard

after Edward Thomas

by:  Martin Achatz

It gallumphed across the lawn, its hunch

of back swaying the way an elephant

sways as it glides over savanna

grass, full of slow dignity and mission.

We were miles from river 

or lake, but my mind said "beaver," even 

though I knew that was wrong.

That night, and many nights after,

I waited for my visitor to reappear,

waited for my next chance to name

and catalogue and thereby own it.

I never saw it again, except 

in my dreams where it lived 

in an underground kingdom

of warrens and tunnels lined

with daisies and hematite.

Yes, it nodded at me, I am

here, filling the world with

unknowing, forcing you to exist

in a state of mystery, the way

Joseph did every day with Jesus,

not quite sure what to do

with this little piece of God

living under his roof.