July 8: A Little Melancholy, Classic Saint Marty, "Word Made Flesh"

I have spent most of this day working on a new Bigfoot poem.  About eight or nine hours now.  I have reached the point where I'm ready to let my close readers see it.  I'm not saying it's done.  However, it is in a form that I don't find embarrassing.  I've gone through about five or six drafts so far.

Now, I find myself a little melancholy.  Sundays often put me in this kind of mood.  No particular reason.  So far, I've held off the Sunday blues by concentrating on my writing.  Now, I don't have that distraction.

Three years ago, I wasn't writing poems.  I was preoccupied with something else that was making me feel blue . . .

July 8, 2015:  Glorious Life, Smartest Person, Matthea Harvey, "Michelin Man Possessed by William Shakespeare"

Glorious life ending.  There must have been a moment when his son had gasped for air, the last time, as Jesus must have.  But as Jesus had risen, he wanted his son to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact, and everything to be as it had been not so long ago.

Ives has this thought not long after his son is murdered.  Robert's death was so sudden and unexpected.  One moment, he was a happy high school senior, planning on entering the seminary.  The next moment, he was a statistic of crime and poverty.  Ives longs to return to his happier life, wants his son to emerge from his bedroom and say "Hey, pop, what's up?" like old times.

I understand Ives' thinking here.  When life changes drastically in a short period of time, nostalgia is a natural reaction.  Yes, I'm going to talk about my sister who's ill again.  Forgive me.  She's on my mind a lot.  I get updates daily on her condition at the University of Michigan.  I also spend much time thinking how different things were a year ago.

My sister is the smartest person I've ever known, and I've known a lot of smart people.  Poets and mathematicians and doctors.  My sister could read the manuals for complex pieces of medical equipment and have them memorized.  Literally.  She knew medical laws and regulations better than any risk manager.  People respected her opinions.  Trusted her.

For the last four or five days, my sister hasn't been able to talk.  Today, she spoke a little.  She said part of a prayer with my other sister.  The Hail Mary.  The words weren't completely clear, but she was obviously responding.

She is never going to be the person she once was.  Next week, she is going to have a brain biopsy.  Terrifying.  The goal of the doctors at the moment is to get her stable enough to come home, I think.  Nobody is talking about prognosis right now.

I miss my sister.  I miss seeing her at work, sitting in her office, telling people what to do.  It's almost as if some other creature is fighting to control her.  Like she's possessed by this thing that doesn't want her to eat or drink or talk or think.

Like Ives, Saint Marty wants his sister to rise up, organs and spirit and mind intact.

Michelin Man Possessed
by William Shakespeare

by:  Matthea Harvey

I've taken many forms over the years,
but this may be the strangest one.  I see
through his eyes but cannot shed a tear.
I can feel his feet, but am not free
to leave this spot by the garage.  I think
he feels a kind of love for the balloon
who bobs nearby.  Each day he sees her sink
an inch.  Though I want to tell him of the moon
and slippered feet in marble halls, these tires
at our waist are a mischief.  I make believe
they are couplets of rubber, but barbed wire
would be more apt.  It's very hard to breathe.
Make us a man, or make us a machine--
but do not leave us trapped here in-between.

And I have a little poem of my own for this warm Sunday evening, from a manuscript I've been working on for a few years . . .

Word Made Flesh

by:  Martin Achatz

Lord, make my poem stretch, yawn.

Descend like the Blue Fairy, take

My words, mutter a blessing

Over them, give them muscle, tendon,

Make them pirouette, arabesque

Into a body on the brink of puberty.

Let my words sprout hair in secret

Places, girl chest bloom into orchids

Or boy sapling swell with resin

To fill buckets at Spring’s first blush.

I want my poem to kiss my mouth,

Head out into the world, tote books,

Lunch pail, ready to redeem humankind

Stanza by stanza, line by line,

Syllable by syllable, flesh by flesh.

Lord, did You sit at Your desk,

Scribble Jesus on a scrap of paper,

Then fold it, crease it, origami it

Into legs, arms, head, beard,

Let it walk away from Your pen

Into a world of critics, just waiting

To judge Your line breaks, imagery,

Your turn of phrase, your metaphor?

How much did it hurt when the reviews

Came in, when they took Your poem,

Tore it up, lined their bird cages with it?

Did You think of writing something else?

A sonnet that could bound like an elk,

A villanelle that sang like a loon,

A sestina that wallowed like a bison?

My friend, Lydia, makes paper cranes.

Perhaps You could write some haiku,

Give them to her.  She would take them,

Make neck and beak, body and tail.

She could give them wings, let them fly,

Hear them brush the air like jazz:

Praise, praise, praise, praise.

April 28: Daughter, National Honor Society, Out of a Job

A quick post at the end of a long day.

Tonight, I attended the induction ceremony of my daughter into the National Honor Society.  It was incredibly emotional.  I sat in the auditorium, watching this beautiful young woman grow up right before my eyes.  I don't think she really knows how proud I am of her.  How, every day, I'm astounded that I had something to do with bringing such a strong and smart person into the world.

It's pretty difficult for me to think of my daughter as a junior in high school.  That in a little over a year, she will have a graduation cap and gown up in her room.  She will be legally an adult.  And I will sort of feel as if I'm out of a job that I've had since a snowy morning in December over eighteen years before. 

If you can't tell, Saint Marty is feeling a little melancholy right now.  Proud and sad at the same time.

April 28: Imbecility, Morning Post, Marching and Marching

In the chill of the next morning they are deadly still; when they rouse themselves, however, they resume what Fabre calls their "imbecility."  They slog along all day, head to tail. . . . 

Dillard is writing about a group of moth caterpillars, who form themselves into a circular procession around the rim of a vase.  The caterpillars keep marching in the circle, and they keep marching and marching.  And marching.  And marching.  That is what Fabre terms their "imbecility."  After a night of dormancy, they just pick up their circular parade again.

Good morning.  I have not been abducted by a drug cartel, suffered some brain episode, or abandoned this blog.  I was correcting papers and final exams for two days.  While I have not completed all of my end-of-semester work, I have a little time to breathe right now.  A few days to finish things up.  But I do sort of feel like one of those caterpillars--marching all day, going dormant for a little while, then waking up and doing it all over again.  Day after day.

I know that I haven't posted in the morning for quite some time, but I wanted to let my two Constant Readers know that I am still here.  In a few minutes, I will pack up my messenger bag (yes, I carry a man purse, as my daughter calls it) and head off to work at the medical office.  On my way, I will stop to buy a Diet Mountain Dew.  A big one.  I'm a little tired right now.

Yesterday evening, I taught my last evening class of the semester.  It was with a group of students who have been with me for a full year.  They took first semester composition with me in the fall, and then they signed up for second semester composition with me this winter.  They have been a great group of kids to work with.  Always funny, forgiving, and supportive.  I'm actually going to miss them quite a bit.

So, I am a little melancholy this a.m.  The end of a school year always depresses me a little bit.  But, everything ends.  Semesters.  Books.  Jobs.  That's the way things are.  Unless you're a caterpillar.

Saint Marty needs to start his daily march now.  He'll keep marching and marching and marching . . . .

I'm a monarch . . .

March 3: Son's Timeline, Rita Dove, "Fifth Grade Autobiography"

My son is in first grade, and we have to help him create a timeline of his life, replete with milestones and pictures of said milestones.  Things like first birthday, first Halloween costume, first tooth, first time he punched somebody on the playground and got detention.  We did the same assignment with my daughter when she was in second grade, I believe.

I remember my daughter's timeline making me a little melancholy.  Just looking back, thinking of how much she'd already grown.  Time goes by so fast.  It seems like yesterday that we brought my son home from the hospital, had that first of many sleepless nights with him.

Rita Dove has a poem that sort of captures this nostalgic sorrow.  Most poets do.  It goes with the territory.

Saint Marty can attest to that.

Fifth Grade Autobiography

by:  Rita Dove

I was four in this photograph fishing
with my grandparents at a lake in Michigan.
My brother squats in poison ivy.
His Davy Crockett cap
sits squared on his head so the raccoon tail
flounces down the back of his sailor suit.

My grandfather sits to the far right
in a folding chair,
and I know his left hand is on
the tobacco in his pants pocket
because I used to wrap it for him
every Christmas.  Grandmother's hips
bulge from the brush, she's leaning
into the ice chest, sun through the trees
printing her dress with soft
luminous paws.

I am staring jealously at my brother;
the day before he rode his first horse, alone.
I was strapped in a basket
behind my grandfather.
He smelled of lemons.  He's died--

but I remember his hands.

Yup, I remember that

May 6: A Wink, Saying Goodbye, Last Three Days

...Wilbur had already decided how he would carry the egg sac--there was only one way possible.  He carefully took the little bundle in his mouth and held it there on top of his tongue.  He remembered what Charlotte had told him--that the sac was waterproof and strong.  It felt funny on his tongue and made him drool a bit.  And of course he couldn't say anything.  But as he was being shoved into the crate, he looked up at Charlotte and gave her a wink.  She knew he was saying good-bye in the only way he could.  And she knew her children were safe.

Wilbur is leaving his best friend forever in this paragraph.  He knows she is dying, and he also knows he must leave her to perish alone.  It is an incredibly sad moment, coming directly after one of the happiest moments--Wilbur's triumph at the Fair.  He has no choice.  Charlotte is doomed, and he must go back to his home in Zuckerman's barn.

I usually avoid asking for prayers for myself.  I am very lucky, for the most part.  I have a job.  I have a healthy family and a roof over my head.  I'm better off than a majority of the population of this planet.  However, I am having trouble this week.  I must say goodbye to my current job and group of friends.  I have no choice.  I must leave.  And that is very difficult for me.

I really love the people with whom I work.  I love helping the patients.  Above all, I love the fact that, even when I'm at my job, I'm home in a way.  For 17 years, I've worked at this place, with most of these people.  One of my best friends is my coworker.  And I have to say goodbye to all of this.

I'm already a little melancholy.  By the end of the week, I'm probably going to be utterly despondent for at least a few days.  Of course, I'm nervous about starting a new occupation, meeting new people, forging a new life.  All that sort of terrifies me.  That's why I need help.

Please, say a prayer for Saint Marty this week.  He's going to need a lot of help returning to the barn by himself, without his friends.

New job, here I come