March 11: Melancholy, Chase Twichell, "Sad Song"

Sad Song 

by:  Chase Twichell

It's ridiculous, at my age,
to have to pull the car onto the shoulder

because Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash
are singing "Girl from the North Country,"

taking turns remembering not one girl,
but each of their girls, one and then the other,

a duet that forces tears from my eyes
so that I have to pull of the road and weep.

Ridiculous!  My sadness is fifty years old!

It travels into sorrow and gets lost there.

Not because it calls up first love, though it does,
or first loss of love, though both
are shawls it wears to hide its wound,

a wound to the girl of which
all men sing, the girl split open,

the sluice through which all of childhood pours,

carrying her out of one country
into another, in which she grows up
wearing a necklace of stones,

one for each girl not her,

though they all live together here
in the North Country, where the winds

hit heavy on the borderline.

_____________________

Sitting at home in my living room after a weekend of incredible activity.

I'm feeling drained.  There's not a whole lot left in my tank tonight.  I recognize this feeling.  When I used to do a lot of theater, I always experienced this moment after I was done with a show.  Sort of let down and a little sad.

That's why Saint Marty chose this poem.  It touches upon that melancholy.

December 27: End of 2017, Joy Harjo, "Remember"

We are almost at the end of 2017.  For me, it's been a pretty good year, personally.  I wish I could say the same for the rest of the world.

When people think back on this year, they will probably remember it as the year of Trump.  That makes me a little sad.

Saint Marty will remember the last 365 days a little differently.  They were full of poetry and happiness and celebration.

Remember

by:  Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

September 6: All Her Strength, Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Carrion Comfort," New Cartoon

"Good-bye!" she whispered.  Then she summoned all her strength and waved one of her front legs at him.

Charlotte's last words in the book.  It's an incredibly sad moment.  It depressed me so much as a child I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for a half hour.  It felt like I had lost my best friend.  Of course, it's natural.  Spiders do not have long life spans, and E. B. White is being accurate in his account of Charlotte's end.  Charlotte must die.


You'll forgive me if I'm in a sort of darksome mood this evening.  I don't know why this pall has settled upon me.  Perhaps it's my week-long illness.  Perhaps I'm too tired.  Perhaps it's the sound of my neighbor's lawnmower, a dull, lonely drone.  Or perhaps it's the silence of my house.  My kids are spending the night at grandma's house.  My wife is working.

Whatever the reason, I'm a little sad this evening.  Rereading the end of Charlotte's Web only emphasizes my state of mind.  I'm feeling a little stuck maybe.  At the beginning of the summer, I had this grand idea that I was on the verge of obtaining a full-time teaching position at the university.  That I would be able to support my family doing exactly what I love doing:  teaching and writing.  Yet, here I sit, at the beginning of September, facing another year of part-time happiness.  Stuck.

I will not prolong this meander into self pity.  It's tedious, I know.  Forgive me.  I will be on to happier subjects tomorrow.  Good poetry.  Good books.  Good movies.  Good family.  Good life.  Tonight, however, I give you a really good, dark poem from Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Saint Marty is summoning all his strength to wave at you and say, "Good night."

Carrion Comfort

by:  Gerard Manley Hopkins

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist--slack they may be--these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more.  I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me?
     scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee
     and flee?
     Why?  That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh,
     cheer.
Cheer whom though?  the hero whose heaven-handling flung me,
     foot trod
Me?  or me that fought him?  O which one?  is it each one?  That
     night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!)
     my God.

Confessions of Saint Marty