March 4: Weekend Music, Robert Morgan, "The Grain of Sound"

Most of my weekend is consumed by music.  I pick out music.  Rehearse.  Play at two church services.  I don't mind, though.  During the week, there's not much room for music in my life.  So, I have to get my fill on Saturday and Sunday.

I am not the greatest keyboard player in the world.  I get by.  Having been a church organist for over 30 years, I've learned a few tricks.  I always work with people who have more musical talent than I do.  That makes me a better musician.

Of course, my taste in music isn't limited to simply worship.  I love jazz and blues and classical and ragtime and pop and rock.  Billy Joel and Cheap Trick.  The Doobie Brothers and Lawrence Welk.

Saint Marty even likes banjo music.

The Grain of Sound

by:  Robert Morgan

A banjo maker in the mountains,
when looking out for wood to carve
an instrument, will walk among
the trees and knock on trunks. He'll hit
the bark and listen for a note.
A hickory makes the brightest sound;
the poplar has a mellow ease.
But only straightest grain will keep
the purity of tone, the sought-
for depth that makes the licks sparkle.
A banjo has a shining shiver.
Its twangs will glitter like the light
on splashing water, even though
its face is just a drum of hide
of cow, or cat, or even skunk.
The hide will magnify the note,
the sad of honest pain, the chill
blood-song, lament, confession, haunt,
as tree will sing again from root
and vein and sap and twig in wind
and cat will moan as hand plucks nerve,
picks bone and skin and gut and pricks
the heart as blood will answer blood
and love begins to knock along the grain.

March 3: Contemplating Mortality, Robert Morgan, "Mountain Bride"

Perhaps because of the medical procedure I had today, I have been contemplating mortality a little bit.  Nothing maudlin.  Just reflecting on the tenuous nature of life.  We are here for six or seven or eight (if you're lucky) brief decades, and then we are gone.

I hope that I leave the world a better place when my time comes.  That's my goal.  I want to make some kind of difference in people's lives.  Make them happier.  More comfortable.  I think that's not an unreasonable expectation of a person. In fact, I think that it's something every human being should strive to accomplish.

Saint Marty also thinks everybody should eat chocolate every day.  Just saying.

Mountain Bride

by:  Robert Morgan

They say Revis found a flatrock
on the ridge just
perfect for a natural hearth,
and built his cabin with a stick

and clay chimney right over it.
On their wedding night he lit
the fireplace to dry away the mountain
chill of late spring and flung on

applewood to dye
the room with molten color while
he and Martha that was a Parrish
warmed the sheets between the tick

stuffed with leaves and its feather
cover. Under that wide hearth
a nest of rattlers,
they’ll knot a hundred together,

had wintered and were coming awake.
The warming rock
flushed them out early.
It was she

who wakened to their singing near
the embers and roused him to go look.
Before he reached the fire
more than a dozen struck

and he died yelling her to stay
on the big four-poster.
Her uncle coming up the hollow
with a gift bearham two days later

found her shivering there
marooned above a pool
of hungry snakes,
and the body beginning to swell.

March 2: Speeding By, Robert Morgan, "Rearview Mirror"

I haven't much time before I have to get in my car and drive to a basketball game.  It seems as though I've been watching my entire evening in a rearview mirror, everything speeding by too fast for me to really see it.

I've shoveled.  I've picked up a pizza from Pizza Hut.  I ate dinner.  Watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory.  Now, I have to drop my daughter's friend at his house, and then I have to go to the high school gym to see parents yell at their children as they play basketball.

Saint Marty needs to slow down a little.

Rearview Mirror

by:  Robert Morgan

This little pool in the air is
not a spring but sink into which
trees and highway, bank and fields are
sipped away to minuteness. All
split on the present then merge in
stretched perspective, radiant in
reverse, the wide world guttering
back to one lit point, as our way
weeps away to the horizon
in this eye where the past flies ahead.

March 1: Low Blood Sugars, Robert Morgan, "Honey"

I hate honey.  The hatred is fueled by low blood sugars I had as a child diabetic.  I would wake from a particularly bad hypoglycemic reaction to a sludge of honey on my tongue, my entire mouth coated with it.  It wasn't pleasant.

As an adult, I avoid honey at all costs.  I don't put it on cornbread or biscuits.  I don't sweeten oatmeal with it.  It is said that John the Baptist ate locusts and honey in the desert.  If I had been John, I would have been a strict locust eater.

Saint Marty doesn't even like baklava.

Honey

by:  Robert Morgan

Only calmness will reassure
the bees to let you rob their hoard.
Any sweat of fear provokes them.
Approach with confidence, and from
the side, not shading their entrance.
And hush smoke gently from the spout
of the pot of rags, for sparks will
anger them. If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them. If weeds are trimmed
around the hive they have access
and feel free. When they taste your smoke
they fill themselves with honey and
are laden and lazy as you
lift the lid to let in daylight.
No bee full of sweetness wants to
sting. Resist greed. With the top off
you touch the fat gold frames, each cell
a hex perfect as a snowflake,
a sealed relic of sun and time
and roots of many acres fixed
in crystal-tight arrays, in rows
and lattices of sweeter latin
from scattered prose of meadow, woods.

February 28: Reading Poetry, Robert Morgan, "Audubon's Flute:

Seems like all I've been doing today is reading poetry.  My poetry.  Robert Morgan's poetry.  A couple Sharon Olds poems.  Some Whitman.  Trying to get in the right frame of mind for tonight's reading.

I was tempted to simply assemble some of my favorite poems from other poets to read, but I didn't think the audience would really appreciate that.  After all, they are showing up to hear some original stuff from me.  Oh, well. 

Saint Marty did, however, find a really beautiful poem by Robert Morgan.

Audubon's Flute

by:  Robert Morgan

Audubon in the summer woods
by the afternoon river sips
his flute, his fingers swimming on
the silver as silver notes pour

by the afternoon river, sips
and fills the mosquito-note air
with silver as silver notes pour
two hundred miles from any wall.

And fills the mosquito-note air
as deer and herons pause, listen,
two hundred miles from any wall,
and sunset plays the stops of river.

As deer and herons pause, listen,
the silver pipe sings on his tongue
and sunset plays the stops of river,
his breath modeling a melody

the silver pipe sings on his tongue,
coloring the trees and canebrakes,
his breath modeling a melody
over calamus and brush country,

coloring the trees and canebrakes
to the horizon and beyond,
over calamus and brush country
where the whitest moon is rising

to the horizon and beyond
his flute, his fingers swimming on
where the whitest moon is rising.
Audubon in the summer woods.

February 27: Poet of the Week, Robert Morgan, "Holy Cussing"

My son hits me every time he hears me swear.  Doesn't matter whether I say "hell" or "shit" or [insert your favorite curse word here], if my son is within earshot, I know I will quickly feel a hard slap on my arm or back or whatever part of my body is within reach.  It's not a love tap.  It stings for a good half hour afterward.

I enjoy swearing.  I know it's nothing to be proud of, but a good curse word at just the right moment gives me a great deal of pleasure.

Robert Morgan, the Poet of the Week, knows a thing or two about swearing.

Saint Marty better get his ass moving now.  He has a class to teach tonight.  Son of a bitch.

Holy Cussing

by:  Robert Morgan

When the most intense revivals swept

the mountains just a century ago,

participants described the shouts and barks

in unknown tongues, the jerks of those who tried

to climb the walls, the holy dance and laugh.

But strangest are reports of what was called

the holy cuss. Sometimes a man who spoke

in tongues and leapt for joy would break into

an avalanche of cursing that would stun

with brilliance and duration. Those that heard

would say the holy spirit spoke as from

a whirlwind. Words burned on the air like chains

of dynamite. The listeners felt transfigured,

and felt true contact and true presence then,

as if the shock of unfamiliar

and blasphemous profanity broke through

beyond the reach of prayer and song and hallo

to answer heaven's anger with its echo.