I hail from a family of plumbers, and I always wanted to know from whom my artistic abilities came. I love writing, drawing, acting, singing, playing music. My father was a great plumber; that was his art. My mother loved singing and reading and, occasionally, doodling, but she was a pretty common sense lady. No flights of fancy for her. My siblings were/are pretty brilliant, as well. My sister Sally had a photographic memory; she was one of the smartest people I will ever know. My sister, Rose, who had Down Syndrome, was a genius of love; she could make anyone feel like the most important person in the world. My brothers (all three of them) have/had innate skills with plumbing and electricity. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Marie Howe contemplates past lives . . .
Reincarnation
by: Marie Howe
Sometimes when I look at our dog Jack I think
he might be my radical American History professor come back
to make amends—he gazes at me so sorrowfully.
What is it Jack, I say, why do you look like that? But Jack
doesn’t answer; he lies down and rests his head on his paws.
Black hair covered nearly all of that man’s body, thick
under his blue oxford shirt when I put my hand there.
Perhaps that accounted for the bow tie,
the pipe, the tweed cap.
This time I can teach him to sit and to stay.
Stay, I say to Jack who looks at the treat in my hand
and then at me, and at the treat and then at me, and he stays.
Come, I say to Jack, but Jack does not always come.
Sometimes he waits and looks at me a long time,
as when my professor would lean back in his chair
draw on his pipe and gaze at me.
But when I hold a treat Jack comes, and I remember how
the professor would lick dripping honey from the jar
lick peanut butter from the knife.
A little stubborn, our dog Jack,
shy we thought,
until the morning my daughter jumped on my bed
and Jack sprang at her growling,
and the next morning when he rushed towards her growling
and bit her skirt and tore it, and bit her and broke her skin,
and when I went to collar him, bit me, snarling and bit and bit.
That’s when I was pretty sure he was my history professor.
The vet said this happens more often than you’d imagine.
He must always be tethered, she said, until he can be trusted.
He must learn that you and your daughter come first.
And no more couch and no more sleeping in the bed with you Mama,
not ever.
I finally left him so late at night it was nearly dawn—
picking up my boots by the door,
stepping down the two flights, then running towards the car.
What can I say? Jack may be my American History professor come back.
After all these years to make amends,
or Jack may be actually himself—a dog.
It’s a funny poem, but it sort of touches upon the same question that I started this post with: from where do talents, gifts, and personalities come? Howe attributes Jack’s aggression to her former American History professor. Jack has the same stubbornness, same hunger for food and attention.
I don’t think I carry the spiritual or artistic DNA of Flannery O’Connor or Walt Whitman. I will never reach the elevated status of Robert Frost or William Butler Years. Most readers of this blog will agree that those writers were head and shoulders above. They had gifts that the world will never see again.
I think all artists stand on the shoulders of the greats, from poets to painters to composers to actors. I know I do. If I get stuck when I’m writing a poem, I immediately turn to writers who inspire me. When I go anywhere, I always carry books by favorite poets. Currently, in my shoulder bag, I have collections by Jonathan Johnson and Ross Gay (plus Marie Howe, of course). Before I started writing this little reflection, I sat and read some poems from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. Doing that cleared my head, emptied it of noise, and I was able to start writing.
Each time I scribble in my journal or tap away on my laptop, I always feel like I’m a conduit. I can even tell when it happens—the world suddenly fades away, and I’m can feel someone/something else take over. Images and words and language flow easily, and, when I’m done, I’ve got a new poem or essay or blog post. I guess you could call it inspiration, but who knows the true origins of inspiration? It might God or luck. Or it might be Flannery O’Connor’s ghost.
I have learned it’s not wise to question the divine spark when it appears. You just simply accept it and say “thanks.”
Saint Marty wrote a poem for today, inspired by the ghost of William Butler Yeats . . .
In Response to a Stanza from ‘A Prayer for Old Age’ by William Butler Yeats
by: Martin Achatz
Grant me, God, snow on my tongue
Impossible to ignore;
They who winter the air with words
Cool the July of war.
