December 14: Season of Light, Christmas Poems, "Solstice"

I will try to post some of my previous year's Christmas poems in the next few days, just to get myself, and hopefully you, in the spirit of this season of light. 

This poem was written in 2011, at a time when Saint Marty was preoccupied by a few darker things.

Solstice

by:  Martin Achatz

I watch my daughter for signs of madness,

For her limbs to wind so tight

She rattles like a window pane

In a blizzard.  For her brain to leap, spit,

The way grease does in a hot skillet,

From algebra and pirouette, from glacier

To comet, white fire in a black sky.

On this December 21, I address Christmas

Cards, slip photos of my daughter

Into the envelopes.  She looks so much

Like her mother in the picture,

I can almost see my wife’s blood

Pulsing beneath my daughter’s milk skin,

Helix of family twisting, climbing

Through bone and nail, spine and nerve,

To the place in her body where joy and grief

Live.  I think of my wife’s arms,

Mapped with hieroglyphs of scar.

I sometimes trace these delicate,

Pink sepals with my fingers, listen

To their story of mountain, canyon, wild sea.

Think of an old woman at church

Who sits with her blind son.

The son sways, groans in the pew,

As if he bears some Atlas weight

On his back.  The old woman places

Her hand on her child’s shoulder,

Tries to calm the storm of his body,

The way, I’m sure, Mary comforted

Her child on his climb to Golgotha.

The old woman’s son tilts his head

To the apse of the sanctuary,

His marbled eyes wide, staring

Upwards, at something unseen,

A long dead star, perhaps, guiding

Him, me, my wife, my daughter

Across rock and sand,

Long desert night,

Toward the promise of spring,

Of light.

June 9: Summer Has Arrived, Kazim Ali, "Ramadan"

The solstice is approaching quickly.  The days are getting longer and longer.  There's still light in the sky at ten o'clock at night.  That makes me feel very content.  Finally, it feels like summer has arrived in the Upper Peninsula.

Another sign of summer is the weekend of the end-of-year dance recital for my kids.  It has been a long week of rehearsals already.  Tomorrow, I will spend the entire day in a darkened theater, watching rehearsal and then the performance in the evening.  Life is very good.


Currently, it is the month of Ramadan. It will end shortly after the solstice this year.

Saint Marty is really thankful for everything summer.

Ramadan

by:  Kazim Ali

You wanted to be so hungry, you would break into branches,
and have to choose between the starving month's
nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-third evenings.
The liturgy begins to echo itself and why does it matter?
If the ground-water is too scarce one can stretch nets
into the air and harvest the fog.
Hunger opens you to illiteracy,
thirst makes clear the starving pattern,
the thick night is so quiet, the spinning spider pauses,
the angel stops whispering for a moment—
The secret night could already be over,
you will have to listen very carefully—
You are never going to know which night's mouth is sacredly reciting
and which night's recitation is secretly mere wind—

January 14: The Truth is Out There, Tracy K. Smith, "Solstice"

The new media will be greatly preoccupied this week with the impending presidential inauguration in the United States.  (I just typed "Untied States," which seems quite appropriate.)  Since the November election, I have tried to pay less attention to the daily news, although it's almost impossible to be completely oblivious.

Truth has become a very arbitrary thing in these last few months.  People glean their facts from Twitter and Facebook.  Believe it with all their hearts, too.  I find this trend very alarming.  No matter what is real, a good meme can change a person's mind.

We have become immune to the truth, even though the truth is out there.

Saint Marty may go on news blackout until next week.

Solstice

by:  Tracy K. Smith

They're gassing geese outside of JFK.
Tehran will likely fill up soon with blood.
The Times is getting smaller day by day.

We've learned to back away from all we say
And, more or less, agree with what we should.
Whole flocks are being gassed near JFK.

So much of what we're asked is to obey--
A reflex we'd abandon if we could.
The Times reported 19 dead today.

They're going to make the opposition pay.
(If you're sympathetic, knock on wood.)
The geese were terrorizing JFK.

Remember how they taught you once to pray?
Eyes closed, on your knees, to any god?
Sometimes, small minds seem to take the day.

Election fraud.  A migratory plague. 
Less and less surprises us as odd.
We dislike what they did at JFK.
Our time is brief.  We dwindle by the day.

December 21: Turning Point, Christmas and Hannukah, "Solstice"

I always find winter solstice strange.  It's a turning point, my part of the world tipping from darkness to light.  Yet, the darkness is what usually pervades my thoughts.  As night takes over--as it now has--my thoughts turn darker.  Mortality.  Mental illness.  Homelessness.  Hunger.  These are winter musings, for some reason.  Perhaps because the cold and snow make them more acute.

Christmas and Hanukkah are seasons of light.  They reflect the coming of hope.  I think that's why I've always enjoyed this time of year.  In the midst of all of the holiday frenzy--at its very heart--lies the possibility for renewal.  Spring, if you will.

So, on this December 21st, I wish everybody a little light.  A candle of possibility.

Solstice

by:  Martin Achatz

I watch my daughter for signs of madness,

For her limbs to wind so tight

She rattles like a window pane

In a blizzard.  For her brain to leap, spit,

The way grease does in a hot skillet,

From algebra and pirouette, from glacier

To comet, white fire in a black sky.

On this December 21, I address Christmas

Cards, slip photos of my daughter

Into the envelopes.  She looks so much

Like her mother in the picture,

I can almost see my wife’s blood

Pulsing beneath my daughter’s milk skin,

Helix of family twisting, climbing

Through bone and nail, spine and nerve,

To the place in her body where joy and grief

Live.  I think of my wife’s arms,

Mapped with hieroglyphs of scar.

I sometimes trace these delicate,

Pink sepals with my fingers, listen

To their story of mountain, canyon, wild sea.

Think of an old woman at church

Who sits with her blind son.

The son sways, groans in the pew,

As if he bears some Atlas weight

On his back.  The old woman places

Her hand on her child’s shoulder,

Tries to calm the storm of his body,

The way, I’m sure, Mary comforted

Her child on his climb to Golgotha.

The old woman’s son tilts his head

To the apse of the sanctuary,

His marbled eyes wide, staring

Upwards, at something unseen,

A long dead star, perhaps, guiding

Him, me, my wife, my daughter

Across rock and sand,

Long desert night,

Toward the promise of spring,

Of light.

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