December 6, 2024: "Lines Written at Flying Point Beach," the Soo, Ace

A good portion of today, I was traveling for Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to do a poetry workshop and reading at Bayliss Library.  I didn't have to drive at all.  One of my best poet friends drove the entire way there and back.  He co-led the workshop and co-read with me.

I'm not particularly fond of long car rides, especially during the winter in the Upper Peninsula.  In the past couple weeks, the "Soo," as Yoopers affectionally call Sault Ste. Marie, got over three feet of snow.  That might seem like a lot to non-Yoopers, but a lot of snow doesn't slow us down for very long.

Billy Collins writes about a favorite place . . . 

Lines Written at Flying Point Beach

by: Martin Achatz

or at least in the general vicinity
of Flying Point Beach,
certainly closer than I normally am

to that beach where the ocean
crests the dunes at high tide
spilling tons of new salt water into Mecox Bay,

and probably closer to Flying Point Beach
than you are right now
or I happen to be as you are reading this.

but how close do I really need to be
to Flying Point Beach
or to any beach in order to write these lines?

Oh, Flying Point Beach,
I love all three words in your name,
not to mention the deep, white sand

and the shorebirds on their thin legs
facing into the wind
along that low stretch between the ocean and the bay.

How satisfying it is to be
even within bicycling distance of you,
though it's dangerous to ride at the edge of these roads.

Thoreau had a cabin near his pond.
Virginia Woolf stood on the shore of the River Ouse,
and here I am writing all this down

not very far at all--maybe 20 minutes by taxi
if the driver ever manages to find this place--
from the many natural wonders of Flying Point Beach.

The Soo is a beautiful town, even when it's buried under 36+ inches of white stuff.  When I visited close to ten years ago, I remember watching ships pass through the locks on the St. Mary's River.  I can't say it's one of my favorite places, but Yoopers are a hardy lot, but, to be honest, I wasn't sure if poetry was enough to lure people to brave the elements.  My gut told me that we were going to have a very small audience.  But you know that old saying from the Bible, where two or three are gathered, there shall be poetry.  (Okay, I made that last bit up.)

For our reading, I was convinced nobody was going to show up.  (Ronnie and I led a poetry workshop earlier, and only one person attended--and he worked for the library.)  Two people came to the reading:  a young woman and her third-grade son whose name was Ace.  Neither were very interested in poetry.  They came to get a selfie with Bigfoot.

Ace was an amazing little guy.  Full of energy and kindness, he got his picture with Bigfoot, but he also sat and listened to me read poems and Ronnie sing songs.  After I read one particular poem, Ace said to me, "That was the best poem I've ever heard.  And I'm not just saying that."  You don't often encounter that kind of emotional intelligence in a young person.

Speaking with Ace's mother, I learned of his struggles in a schoolroom with inattentive teachers and bullies.  He hasn't had an easy time of things, and his story reminded me so much of my own son's issues in elementary and middle school.  At the end of the reading, I told Ace how awesome he was, and I encouraged him to continue to be kind and curious.

On the drive home from the Soo, Ronnie said to me, "Ace made this whole trip worth it."

Ace gave Saint Marty hope for the future today.

June 13: "Fay," Breath and Fury, ""Hail Mary Storm"

Billy Collins on meteorology . . . 

Fay

by: Billy Collins

never amounted

to a hurricane,

just a lot of rain

with a girl's name.

There's a joke told by Yoopers (people who grew up and/or live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan):  if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes and it'll change.

Weather is very unreliable at my longitude and latitude.  I have seen forecasts go from snow flurries to blizzard warnings in the space of a few hours.  I call it the Lake Superior effect.  The big lake just has a mind of its own when it comes to atmosphere and temperament.

This afternoon, I was sitting in my office at the library (which is less than half a mile from the shores of Superior), engrossed in editing a podcast and finishing up a report.  Even though my desk is right by a window, I hadn't looked outside for a few hours.

Then I heard a sound like a semi-truck landing on the roof, and I looked up.  I could barely see across the street through the hail and rain.  The sky had gone ashy black, and the wind was tearing away at the trees.

I sat watching the storm until it lost its breath and fury.  Confession:  I love watching bad weather.  Lightning.  Gale-force winds.  Waves the size of freight cars.  Thunder snow.  Yoopers love this shit.  It's in our DNA.  Prick us, and we bleed winter.

Saint Marty still hasn't put his snow shovels away at home.  You never know.

Hail Marty Storm

by: Martin Achatz

Did Gabriel's greeting

sound like a million

bullets of ice shredding

the air with God's need

for her young body?

February 23: Rose Slowly and Steadily, Snowstorm, Possibility

Santiago finally sees the fish . . .

If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought. But it will loosen up.

Then, with his right hand he felt the difference in the pull of the line before he saw the slant change in the water. Then, as he leaned against the line and slapped his left hand hard and fast against his thigh he saw the line slanting slowly upward.

"He's coming up," he said. "Come on hand. Please come on."

The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.

When something happens that you've been waiting for, it's an amazing moment.  Santiago finally sees the fish.  You receive your first romantic kiss.  Experience sex.  Publish your first poem.  Release your first book.  These are moments that mark a change.  The second before, you are one person.  The second after, you are completely different.  Or feel completely different.

The three-day snowstorm finally ended today.  Over fifteen fresh inches of snow this morning.  This is not the first three-day winter storm I've ever experienced.  And it won't be the last, if I continue to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I am sore tonight from pushing snow.  Not a first, either.  The banks around my house almost as tall as the house itself now.  Again, not a first.  

In fact, nothing about today was new to me.  I don't feel any different tonight than I felt yesterday.  Therefore, the point of this post is simply to say that I survived the storm.  I'm sore as hell.  Tired of winter.  As a Yooper, I am allowed to say this without guilt.  As I said a couple posts ago, only Yoopers are allowed to complain about the weather in the U. P.

Tomorrow, I will get up.  Go to work.  Sit in my library office and dream up programs and events.  Drive home and probably collapse on my sofa for a while.  Maybe take a nap.  Then, I will attend a poetry workshop.  Maybe I will write something that I never dreamed of writing before.  Maybe not.

Here's the thing:  if you treat every day like a gift, then you will be a different person every second of that day.  If you treat every day like a sequel to the prior one, then you will remain frozen in place.  Buried under 15 inches of fresh monotony every morning.

Therefore, tomorrow I will rise.  Unwrap the morning like a Christmas present.  Perhaps, the day will turn out to be a pair of socks.  Or, a new watch.  Underwear.  Who knows?  That's what gifts are all about.  Possibility.

Saint Marty likes the idea of living in possibility.  Even if it comes with over thirty inches of snow.

February 21: No Hurricane Coming Now, Still Snowing, Yoopers

Santiago reflects on weather . . .

He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now. But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.

He thought of how some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boat and knew they were right in the months of sudden bad weather. But now they were in hurricane months and, when there are no hurricanes, the weather of hurricane months is the best of all the year.

If there is a hurricane you always see the signs of it in the sky for days ahead, if you are at sea. They do not see it ashore because they do not know what to look for, he thought. The land must make a difference too, in the shape of the clouds. But we have no hurricane coming now.

He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.

Santiago's livelihood depends on the weather.  He must know what the sea and clouds hold for him every day.  If he can't look at the sky and predict what it has in store for him, he might very well die.  Or lose a good day of fishing.  The watch of Santiago's life is set to the second hand of weather.

Today, it snowed.  A lot.  At least six or seven inches.  It's still snowing.  By the time I wake up tomorrow morning, there will probably be another foot of snow on the ground.  And it will still be snowing.  There's a line in Thornton Wilder's Our Town that goes like this:  "If it ain't rain, it's a three-day blow."  That's pretty much what we have right now.  The snow and wind aren't supposed to stop until Wednesday morning.

I've lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for most of my life, except for a short stint in a PhD program at a university downstate.  I know winter and snow and wind.  We Yoopers take pride in our ability to endure this kind of weather.  Six inches of fresh snow won't even slow a Yooper down.  We will still go to school and work and church and movies.  We are a hardy group.  

If you haven't lived here for more than 20 years, don't complain aloud about all the snow in the U. P.  You will get stink-eyed from Yoopers, and the thought you will see scrolling across our faces will be something like, "Stupid troll" (the term we use for anyone who lives anywhere but  above the Mackinac Bridge).  Yoopers are allowed to complain about snow and wind.  We have earned that right through the tens of thousands of inches of white precipitation we have shoveled and moved in our lifespans.  

Being one of those lifelong U. P. residents, I can say, without any Yooper shame, that I am tired of snow today.  I'm running out of places to push it on my property.  My puppy wakes up every morning, goes outside for her constitutional, and finds a fresh new landscape, her familiar scents and holes buried again.  

Yet, tomorrow morning, my alarm clock will be set for 5 a.m.  My wife needs to be at work by 7 a.m.  We will roll out of bed, bleary and exhausted.  I will prod myself awake with toothpaste and shaving cream, do my normal ablutions.  And then, I will pull on my boots, put on my coat-hat-gloves, grab a shovel, and head into the snow to shovel out my car.

This is the life of a Yooper, from about October to May (sometimes June).  A series of snowstorms interrupted by sleep.

Saint Marty has this to say, "If it ain't sun, it's a three-day snow."

February 12: Done With Winter, Yoopers, "Spring Snow Storm"

I just looked outside at my neighbor's house, buried in snow.  It just keeps coming and coming.  When my wife got home from work this afternoon, she climbed out of her car and said, "I'm just about done with winter."

Yoopers are allowed to complain about snow in the Upper Peninsula.  We've earned that right.  Outsiders (and by outsiders I mean any person who has not lived here for at least ten years) are not allowed to voice frustration with winter weather.  If they do, they will be shot down immediately by "real" Yoopers with stories of the Winter of '78, where the snowbanks were as tall as houses.

Saint Marty has a snow storm poem for you tonight . . . 

Spring Snow Storm

by:  Martin Achatz

The weather guy, in his ugly tie,

Predicts six to twelve inches tonight,

A spring storm out of Alaska, Canada,

Winds as strong as cattle trains.

Tomorrow, I will wake to this creature,

This force of different fronts from ocean,

Mountain, glacier, tundra.  I’ve heard

It said a butterfly’s wings, trembled

On African savannah, causes hurricanes

On the Gulf Coast, another flood

In the Big Easy, wipes out Mardi Gras

For good, an oil slick of jazz

On magnolia, pelican wing, bayou.

I wonder if the collective gasp in Japan

After earthquake and tsunami caused

This early spring snow, set into motion

Winds across the Pacific, bore

That shock and grief through salt,

Through supermoon, mixed it with cries

Of caribou and polar bear, brought

It to me, to my home, snow falling

On roof and car, snow on street, lawn,

Gas station, church steeple, snow

Everywhere, heavy as a thousand souls.

Tonight, when I press my lips to my son’s

Fingers, somewhere on this planet

Rain will start to fall in a desert place,

Filling the land with green life.

December 17: Touch-and-Go Creek World, Snow Storm, Yoopers

All this means is that the physical world as we understand it now is more like the touch-and-go creek world I see than it is like the abiding world of which the mountains seem to speak . . .

Yes, very little in the physical world is abiding.  Mount Everest.  The Pacific Ocean.  Lake Superior.  Enormous things that leave you breathless.  Maybe.  But even those landscape features are not that eternal.  There's erosion, pollution, earthquakes, avalanches, and blizzards.  If there's one thing that permanent about the physical world, it's impermanence. 

I'm looking outside right now, and all I see is snow.  A lot of snow.  I spent two hours this morning shoveling.  By the time I was done, I could have started all over again.  My guess is that, by the time this little weather event is over, I will have to shovel at least four more times.  This will also involve a great deal of profanity and many milligrams of ibuprofen. 

But, that's what winter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is:  snow, wind, and changeable driveways and front yards.  It's a cold, long tunnel to Spring.  Nothing slows Yoopers down, though.  For example, my daughter has a dance lesson in a couple hours in Marquette, about 20 miles away.  We will be there for that lesson.  In fact, we'll probably be a little early.  Because that's the way Yoopers roll.

I do love winter.  Love the whole Currier and Ives vibe.  I better, because it will be an abiding presence in my life for the next five or so months.

Please vote for Saint Marty (Martin Achatz)

Voting for Next Poet Laureate of the U. P.

April 14: Easter Snow, in the Balance, "Web" Dip

I woke this morning to an Easter snowstorm.  Yes, the streets were clogged with white, and the winds were strong enough to shake cars.  Of course, my children got another day off from school, which made them ecstatic.  I, on the other hand, drove through the storm to get to work.  And I have been working ever since.

Very shortly, I will be heading out to teach my film class.  No, the university did not cancel classes.  There are no guarantees how many students will be present today, but I will teach whatever number that does show up.  I actually didn't expect the college to shut down.  The weather was simply not horrible enough.  Lots of thick, fat flakes and gale-force winds, but that's why we Yoopers own boots and snow blowers and Stormy Kromers.

Besides the snow, the other matter that has been occupying my day is teaching.  The English Department Head has offered me classes for the fall semester.  Really good classes.  However, I can't accept the offer until I speak with my new boss; she has to approve my hours.  My new boss hasn't answered the e-mail I sent this morning.  So, here I sit in my office at the university, my future hanging in the balance.  I hate being in this limbo.

My question for the good book of Wilbur this afternoon:

Will my new boss allow me to accept the classes that have been offered to me for the fall semester?

And my finger stops on:

Miles away, at the Arables' house, the men sat around the kitchen table eating a dish of canned peaches and talking over the events of the day.  Upstairs, Avery was already in bed and asleep.  Mr.s Arable was tucking Fern into bed.

"Did you have a good time at the Fair?" she asked as she kissed her daughter.

Fern nodded.  "I had the best time I have ever had anywhere or any time in all of my whole life."

Well, I would have been happy with a simple "yes" from E. B. White.


However, it looks like Saint Marty's going to have the best time he ever had anywhere or any time in all his whole life.

Ain't this the truth?