May 21: "The Other Kingdoms," Memory, Letting Go

Mary Oliver contemplates the kingdoms of the world . . . 

The Other Kingdoms

by:  Mary Oliver

Consider the other kingdoms.  The

trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding

titles:  oak, aspen, willow.

Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north

have dozens of words to describe its

different arrivals.  Or the creatures, with their

thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze.  Their

infallible sense of what their lives

are meant to be.  Thus the world

grows rich, grows wild, and you too,

grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be.

Somehow, Mary Oliver seems to be a part of all the kingdoms in this poem:  trees and snow and creatures.  In her poems, at least, she has an "infallible sense" of what her life is meant to be.  She is an observer.  Grace seeker.  Nature lover.  In short, she's part of the poetry kingdom, as am I.

I spent most of the day planning for a poetry workshop that I led this evening.  The theme I chose was "memory," since next weekend is Memorial Day.  People will visit the graves of lost loved ones; place flowers by headstones; and attend parades and programs to honor members of the armed services who sacrificed their lives in battle.

As most of you know, I've been struggling with sadness and grief for some time now.  In the last eight years, I've lost three siblings and both of my parents, plus one of my best friends.  Those are my dead.  They are with me all the time, and I try to honor their memories in everything I do.

I just took my puppy out for one last stroll before bed.  As I stood in my backyard, letting her do her business, I listened to the chorus of spring peepers filling the night.  I've been hearing them for a week or so now, a sure sign that the winter of 2023 is slipping into memory.  (As a Yooper, I make this statement hesitantly, because I have seen huge snowstorms blow in at the end of May.)

The world outside my window is growing rich and wild.  Pretty soon, my lilac bushes will be heavy with purple.  Kids will be graduating from area high schools in a couple weeks.  It is a time of transitions.  White to green.  Spring to summer.  Childhood to adulthood.  It's all about letting go.  And being a little haunted.

Saint Marty wrote these haunting little poems tonight.  Think of them as snapshots from the kingdom of poetry.

Five Spring Haiku

by:  Martin Achatz

Trilliums in my backyard

unfold their white bodies

like teenagers on Spring Break.

I tiptoe through backyard grass

until my sneaker discovers 

the scent of my dog.

Beneath my feet and hands

the pipe organ moans,

A lovesick whale in the Pacific.

Orange sun boiled

in a kettle of clouds.

Leftover pizza for dinner,

bite marks on the crust

from the hungry night.

August 30: Ahab and the Carpenter, a Little Haunted, Game Plan

The Deck - First Night Watch

(Carpenter standing before vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work.)

Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and shin bones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)- why it's (sneezes)- yes it's (sneezes)- bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky now (sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone- why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain.

AHAB (advancing) (During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times)
Well, manmaker!

Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. Let me measure, sir.

Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it! There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.

Oh, sir, it will break bones- beware, beware!

No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?- the blacksmith, I mean- what's he about?

He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.

Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a fierce red flame there!

Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for his kind of fine work.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.

Sir?

Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me see- shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.

Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like know? Shall I keep standing here? (aside.)

'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No, no, no; I must have a lantern.

Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.

What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.

Carpenter? why that's- but no;- a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;- or would'st thou rather work in clay?

Sir?- Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.

The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about?

Bone is rather dusty, sir.

Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people's noses.

Sir?- oh! ah!- I guess so;- yes- dear!

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.- How long before the leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life. Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (resuming work).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer- queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time- queer- sir- queer, queer, very queer. And here's his leg. Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bed-fellow! has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all three places standing in one hell- how was that? Oh! I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep water with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg! long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!

Here I sit at the end of the day, reflecting on another chapter of Moby-Dick.  This one features a new character--the carpenter of the Pequod, who has been tasked by Ahab to carve a new leg for him out of whale bone.  This chapter reads like a scene from a play.  Two roles--Carpenter and Ahab.  One man is comic relief; the other, wrestling with phantoms from the past.  He feels them, like dead nerve endings still sparking in his skin.

I think we all are a little haunted in our lives.  By people.  By experience.  By loss.  By love.  We go through our days, hearing those ghosts in our ears, whispering.  Today, I went to a doctor's appointment, mostly to discuss my continuing problems with being dizzy and lightheaded.  It has been a continuing problem since my bout with vertigo in July.

My medical provider is a kind, compassionate person.  She started asking me questions, and I started talking about all kinds of phantoms--vertigo, depression, and fears.  Before I knew it, I had laid bare myself.  I felt like an open wound.  Totally exposed to a person who was simply there to help me feel better.  A carpenter, if you will, to make a new leg for me.

She smiled and nodded.  After she had listened, asked more questions, we came up with a game plan.  It involves taking blood pressures for a week and then having another appointment.  Right now, it's about finding out what is NOT bothering me.  Ruling out phantoms.  I'm relaxed after this conversation.  Less stressed.

One of the ghosts that has been banging around in my head, rattling chains, is my sister who died of lymphoma of the brain.  Since most of my problems seem to be focused inside my head, I've realized that I've been harboring this fear that I may . . . be . . . Well, I don't think I have to finish that thought.  You get the idea.

Ghosts have a way of showing up in the middle of the night when you're trying to sleep.  They aren't conducive to rest or relaxation.  They shiver their sheets, rattle their voices to remind you that you're mortal.  Poet Marie Howe says, "Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we're going to die."

Saint Marty is stuck in a poem right now, hovering between those two poles.

October 18: Dreamed I Died, Elaine Equi, "Ghosts and Fashion"

Today has been long, and it's going to get longer before it gets shorter.

I find myself yawning a lot this afternoon, trying to keep myself from falling asleep at my desk.  Last night, I dreamed I died.  It was a quiet passing, nothing fiery or catastrophic.  Just a simple letting go, as if I was setting off on a long ocean voyage.

I saw my family going on without me.  My daughter growing up, going to college, getting married.  My son playing football for his high school, tackling and fumbling and ogling cheerleaders.  And I saw my wife, alone, watching our daughter graduate and our son buy his first car.  She looked sad.  All the time.

And I wanted to touch her, hold her, let her know I was there.  But I couldn't.

So I just sat beside her, existed in her air.

Saint Marty is a little haunted this afternoon.

Ghosts and Fashion

by:  Elaine Equi

Although it no longer has a body
to cover out of a sense of decorum,

the ghost must still consider fashion—

must clothe its invisibility in something
if it is to “appear” in public.

Some traditional specters favor
the simple shroud—

a toga of ectoplasm
worn Isadora-Duncan-style
swirling around them.

While others opt for lightweight versions
of once familiar tee shirts and jeans.

Perhaps being thought-forms,
they can change their outfits instantly—

or if they were loved ones,
it is we who clothe them
like dolls from memory.