December 12, 2024: "Irish Poetry," Christmas Trees, Concert

It was a very busy day, and that's good.  It keeps my mind occupied, unable to sit and reflect on dark things, which is my penchant at the moment.  It feels as if the soul of Flannery O'Connor has possessed in my body, mind, and spirit.  Where others see light, I see an escaped serial killer pointing a gun at my chest, saying, "You would of been a good person if it had been somebody there to shoot you every minute of your life."

Billy Collins is possessed by Seamus Heaney  . . . 

Irish Poetry

by: Billy Collins

That morning under a pale hood of sky
I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling
against the side of our wickered, penitential house.

The day mirled and clabbered
in the thick, stony light,
and the rooks’ feathered narling
astounded the salt waves, the plush arm of coast.

I carried my bucket past the forked
coercion of a tree, up toward
the pious and nictitating preeminence of a school,
hunkered there in its gully of learning.

But only later, as I stood before a wash stand,
and gaunt, phosphorescent heifers
swam purposely beyond these windows,
did the whorled and sparky gib of the indefinite
manage to whorl me into knowledge.

Then, I heard the ghost-clink of milk bottle
on the rough threshold
and understood the meadow-bells
that trembled over a nimbus of ragwort—
the whole afternoon lambent, corrugated, puddle-mad.

This poems, for me, is a brilliant parody/homage to great Irish poets, like Heaney and William Butler Yeats and Eavan Boland.  (If you don't know Boland, look her up.  She's fantastic.)  In some ways, I think Collins wants us to laugh at his cleverness (which is abundant), but he also wants us to appreciate words and language like these great writers from the Emerald Isle.  Those words that roll around on the tongue like candy.

As I said, busyness defined my day.  I had meetings and appointments and deadlines and events.  The main event, The Winter Wonderland Walk Celebration.  At the library where I work, community members and businesses  and schools and organizations are invited to set up and decorate Christmas trees in the main art gallery.  It takes a LOT of wrangling of a LOT of people.  The results are always beautiful, but the effort, at times, can be a little soul-crushing.

Thank goodness, I received a great deal of help this year, from my officemate and friend.  She pretty much handled tree placement, communication, and troubleshooting.  In past years, most of that work has fallen on my shoulders, and my holiday spirit quickly fizzled during the weeks after Thanksgiving. 

My officemate is very aware of my blueness this year.  Because we share a work space, we know each other pretty well.  We share our triumphs and failures, our joys and our sorrows.  She's seen me at my best and worst, and she still cares about me.  That is the definition of friendship.

In addition to the forest of Christmas trees, the library also hosted a holiday concert by two of my favorite musicians in the area.  I played keyboard in a church praise band with them at one time, and they've backed me up at many poetry readings and programs over the 20-some years of our friendship.  They are two of the best people I know who have also seen me at some of the lowest moments of my life.  (They  played and sang at the funerals of both my sisters and my parents.)

There is no way I can thank all the people who've blessed my life with their love and caring over the years.  Words aren't enough--and that's coming from a person who venerates words like holy relics.  Flannery O'Connor once wrote, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."  My inner tribe knows my truth, in all its shining darkness, and they still love me.  That is a miracle.

The Irish have a particular term--anam cara--which translates as "soul friend" in Gaelic.  The famous Irish philosopher John O'Donohue wrote this, "With the anam cara, you could share your innermost self, your mind and your heart. You are joined in an ancient and eternal way. This belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship. You are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of acquaintance fall away. You can be as you really are.”

Saint Marty was surrounded by anam cara tonight.

August 19: "Absence," Chunky Monkey, "Strawberry Picking"

It has been a strangely emotional couple days for me.

I woke on Sunday feeling a little . . . sad.  I guess that's the best word I can come up with.  I'm not saying that I'm sitting on the couch crying with a quart of Chunky Monkey and a spoon.  No, nothing quite so dramatic.  Just a general malaise.  A weight sitting on my shoulders.

Today, I did what I usually do when I feel a blue mood descending on me.  I kept myself busy.  I worked on my October events for the library.  Put together my syllabi for the fall semester at the university, which begins next Monday.  Helped move some things around the library (we're in the middle of a little reorganization).  In the evening, I hosted a great concert by one of my favorite local bands (two of its members are the sons of one of my best friends).

All of that kept my mind and heart busy.  Now, sitting at home, everyone else asleep, I know the blue mood is sitting on the couch beside me as I type these words.  It's like a presence and absence at the same time.

Billy Collins on being present and absent . . . 

Absence

by: Billy Collins

This morning as low clouds
skidded over the spires of the city

I found next to a bench
in the park an ivory chess piece –

the white knight as it turned out –
and in the pigeon-ruffling wind

I wondered where all the others were,
lined up somewhere

on their red and black squares,
many of them feeling uneasy

about the saltshaker
that was taking his place,

and all of them secretly longing
for the moment

when the white horse
would reappear out of nowhere

and advance toward the board
with his distinctive motion,

stepping forward, then sideways
before advancing again –

the same move I was making him do
over and over in the sunny field of my palm.

I realized about midway through today that it was the anniversary of my sister's death.  Nine years ago.  I also realized that in another day it will also be the anniversary of my friend Helen's death.  Two years ago.  It's strange how the body and heart realize things like this before the brain catches up.  Basically, I'm carrying around two chess pieces in my hand, the black and white queens.  They're both here and not here.

Don't worry.  I'm fine.  I got to spend a few hours with my friend, Jody, at the concert.  Some other good friends were there, as well.  The music was loud and joyful.  People were laughing and clapping and bobbing their heads, moving their hips.  

I think, when you are keenly aware of absence in your life, it makes you appreciate presence even more.  That was me tonight, giving thanks for all the people who were with me--important pieces on the chess board of my life.  My wife.  My son.  My friend Jody.  My friend Ronnie and his son.  And so many more.  

Life is short, folks.  If I'm lucky, I'm not going to find myself in checkmate for a very long time.  But it's important for me to remember those who I've lost.  Those chess pieces that are missing, who can't simply be replaced by salt shakers.

Marty is a lucky, lucky saint.

A poem for my sister . . . 

Strawberry Picking

by: Martin Achatz

for Sally

You took me strawberry picking
once, drove out to a farm
where we paid to squat in green
beds laced with tongues of red.
I could feel my ears and neck
tighten under the punishing
sun as we filled Morning Glory
ice cream buckets with our
harvest, each berry looking to me
like some vital body part,
an organ or muscle necessary
for life. You sat on your haunches,
fingers staining red, as if you
were some battlefield surgeon
patching up the fallen with only
your hands. Every now and then,
you would lift a berry to your lips,
eat it in a hummingbird moment,
smiling the smile of the freshly
healed at Lourdes, where miracles
are common as empty wheelchairs
or dandelions in a July field.

The days since you’ve been gone,
I see strawberries everywhere,
in a welt of blood on my lip
after shaving, a stop sign,
a friend’s dyed hair,
my son’s sunburned shoulders,
oxygen in the gills of a perch.
Last night, I stood outside, under
ribbons of borealis, watched
them glide between the stars
like garter snakes in a midnight
Eden. The Bible says that, in the cool
of the day, Adam and Eve heard
God taking a stroll through
the garden. There were probably
peacocks nesting in the pines,
a stream talking with moss and stone,
the scurry of mole and spider
in the ferns.

That’s what I believe you heard
in your last moments of breath.
You heard peafowl screams,
brook trout leaps. Grasshopper wing
and corn silk. And you heard
his divine toes in the grass, walking
along. When he came to you,
he couldn’t resist. He reached down,
plucked you from the stem. You were
ripe. Sweet. Ready. He put you
in his Morning Glory bucket, continued
on into the dew and sunlight

July 10: "Eastern Standard Time," Concert, Poetry and Art and Music

Billy Collins meditates on time . . . 

Eastern Standard Time

by: Billy Collins

Poetry speaks to all people, it is said,

but here I would like to address

only those in my own time zone,

this proper slice of longitude

that runs from pole to snowy pole

down the globe through Montreal to Bogota.

Oh, fellow inhabitants of this singular band,

sitting up in your many beds this morning--

the sun falling through the windows

and casting a shadow on the sundial--

consider those in other zones who cannot hear these words.

They are not slipping into a bathrobe as were are,

or following the smell of coffee in a timely fashion.

Rather, they are at work already,

leaning on copy machines,

hammering nails into a house frame.

They are not swallowing a vitamin like us,

rather they are smoking a cigarette under a half moon,

even jumping around on a dance floor,

or just now sliding under the covers,

pulling down the little chains on their bed lamps.

But we are not like these others,

for at this very moment on the face of the earth,

we are standing under a hot shower,

or we are eating our breakfast, 

considered by people of all zones

to be the most important meal of the day.

Later, when the time is right,

we might sit down with the boss,

wash the car, or linger at a candle-lit table,

but now is the hour for pouring the juice

and flipping the eggs with one eye on the toaster.

So let us slice a banana and uncap the jam, 

lift our brimming spoons of milk,

and leave it to the others to lower a flag

or spin absurdly in a barber's chair--

those antipodal oddballs, always early or late.

Let us praise Sir Stanford Fleming,

the Canadian genius who first scored

with these lines the length of the spinning earth.

Let us move together through the rest of this day

passing in unison from light to shadow,

coasting over the crest of noon,

into the valley of evening

and then, holding hands, slip into the deeper valley of night.

Time is precious.  That could be the title of this post.  

Here is a quick list of how I spent my time today:

1. Got an oil change for my car.
2. Wrote with a poet friend in her garden.
3. Worked on programs and publicity at the library.
4. Visited with a poet friend from Ohio.
5. Recorded a podcast episode.
6. Revised some poems.
7. Hosted a concert.

Three items from the above list filled up my soul tank (which has been running on empty for the last couple weeks).

Writing with my poet friend always restores me.  Writing with her in her flower garden, even more so.  As I sat on her swing, scribbling in my journal, white petals from her mock orange tree kept snowing down on me.  I could hear ducks quacking, dogs barking, and cars passing.  A blessing.

Visiting with my poet friend from Ohio was an unexpected treat.  I didn't realize she was in town, and we had a wonderful conversation, catching up on each others' lives.  We both have a weakness for the British TV shows Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year, and we spent quite a bit of time discussing our love of art and painting.  A surprise blessing.

Music also restores my faith in the world, and the concert I hosted at the library tonight was by three of the most gifted, wonderful musicians/artists I know.  Brian, one of the band members, sang a song he wrote for his grandmother who recently passed.  Most of you know that I had a sister who died of lymphoma of the brain almost nine years ago now (hard to believe it's been that long--slippery time); in exactly one week, my sister would have turned 63 years old.  So, Brian's song really hit home this evening.  Another blessing.

Poetry and art and music.  Couldn't ask for better medicine.

Saint Marty is a very lucky person.

August 2: "Flare," Whelm, a Little Unhinged

Mary Oliver visits her great-grandfather's farm . . .

Flare

by:  Mary Oliver

1.

Welcome to the silly, comforting poem.

It is not the sunrise,

which is a red rinse,

which is flaring all over the eastern sky;

it is not the rain falling out of the purse of God;

it is not the blue helmet of the sky afterward,

or the trees, or the beetle burrowing into the earth;

it is not the mockingbird who, in his own cadence,

will go on sizzling and clapping

from the branches of the catalpa that are thick with blossoms,

     that are billowing and shining,

          that are shaking in the wind.

2.

     You still recall, sometimes, the old barn on your great-grandfather's farm, a place you visited once, and went into, all alone, while the grownups sat and talked in the house.

It was empty, or almost.  Wisps of hay covered the floor, and some wasps sang at the windows, and maybe there was a strange fluttering bird high above, disturbed, hoo-ing a little and staring down from a messy ledge with wild, binocular eyes.

Mostly, though, it smelled of milk, and the patience of animals, the give-offs of the body were still in the air, a vague ammonia, not unpleasant.

Mostly, though, it was restful and secret, the roof high up and arched, the boards unpainted and plain.

You could have stayed there forever, a small child in a corner, on the last raft of hay, dazzled by so much space that seemed empty, but wasn't.

Then--you still remember--you felt the rap of hunger--it was noon--and you turned from that twilight dream and hurried back to the house, where the table was set, where an uncle patted you on the shoulder for welcome, and there was your place at the table.

3.

Nothing lasts.

There is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is,

now.

I stood there once, on the green grass, scattering flowers.

4.

Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wings

of the green moth

against the lantern

against the heat

against the beak of the crow

in the early morning.

Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a drop

     of self-pity.

Not in this world.

5.

My mother

was the blue wisteria,

my mother

was the mossy stream out behind the house,

my mother, alas, alas,

did not always love her life,

heavier than iron it was

as she carried it in her arms, from room to room,

oh, unforgettable!

I bury her

in a box

in the earth

and turn away.

My father

was a demon of frustrated dreams,

was a breaker of trust,

was a poor, thin boy with bad luck.

He followed God, there being no one else

he could talk to,

he swaggered before God, there being on one else

who would listen.

Listen,

this was his life. 

I bury it in the earth.

I sweep the closets.

I leave the house.

6.

I mention them now

I will not mention them again.

It is not lack of love

nor lack of sorrow.

but the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.

I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy,

     of sweet thanks,

of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.

May they sleep well.  May they soften.

But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.

I will not give them the responsibility for my life.

7.

Did you know that the ant has a tongue

with which to gather in all that it can

of sweetness?

Did you know that?

8.

The poem is not the world.

It isn't even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.

It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,

like the door of a little temple,

so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,

and less yourself than part of everything.

9.

The voice of the child crying out of the mouth of the

     grown woman

is a misery and a disappointment.

The voice of the child howling out of the tall, bearded,

     muscular man

is a misery, and a terror.

10.

Therefore, tell me:

what will engage you?

What will open the dark fields of your mind,

     like a lover

          at first touching?

11.

Anyway,

there was no barn.

No child in the barn.

No uncle no table no kitchen.

Only a long lovely field of bobolinks.

12.

When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider

the orderliness of the world.  Notice

something you have never noticed before,

like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket

whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.

Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,

shaking the water-sparks from its wings

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.

Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,

     like the diligent leaves.

A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of the world

and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.

Be good and untidy in your exuberance.

In the glare of your mind, be modest.

And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.

Like with the beetle, and the wind.

This is the dark bread of the poem.

This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.

Welcome to this silly, comforting blog post.

It was a really long day for me, full of ennui and a little despair.  I worked all day in my library office, answering emails, stomping out fires, and trying not to succumb to a whelm of free-floating hopelessness.

Nothing prompted this state of mind/spirit.  It just showed up without knocking.  I'm hoping it's not the return of the depression that I've been struggling with for the past year or so.  In her poem, Oliver advises that, when "loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider / the orderliness of the world.  Notice / something you have never noticed before . . ."  Not a bad idea.  I'm not sure if going into the fields to escape loneliness isn't simply avoidance, which my therapist would probably discourage as a coping technique.

However, after sitting at my desk, weeping for a good portion of the day, I really needed to go into the fields, as Oliver suggests.  I needed distraction, and I found it in an outdoor concert I hosted at the library.  The Charlie Millard band.  The music didn't completely chase away the loneliness, as I became a little unhinged during a couple songs.  For the most part, though, I held it together.

And it was a blessing.  Grace.

That is the dark bread of this blog post.

The dark and nourishing bread of Saint Marty's blog post.  .

May 15: Chuck E. Cheese's, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Another Sonnet

It is almost midnight, and I'm waiting for my phone to ring.  My daughter is on her way back from Great America with her class.  When she gets to Chuck E. Cheese's in Green Bay, someone is supposed to call me to let me know.

It's been a long day.  I was up at 3:45 this morning to drive my daughter to school.  I went to work.  Went to a concert by a chorale group.  Now, I'm watching Jimmy Fallon and staring at my phone, willing it to ring.  I have a feeling that bus is going to be pulling into the school parking lot around 3 a.m.

Saint Marty needs a little poetry to stay awake.

from Ellen Bryant Voigt's Kyrie

I always thought she ought to have an angel.
There's one I saw a picture of, smooth white,
the wings like bolts of silk, breasts like a girl's--
like hers--eyebrows. all of it.  For years
I put away a little every year,
but her family was shamed by the bare grave,
and hadn't they blamed me for everything,
so now she has a cross.  Crude, rigid, nothing
human on it, flat dead tree on the hill,
it's what you see for miles, it's all I see.
Symbol of hope, the priest said, clearing his throat,
and the rain came down and washed the formal flowers.
I guess he thinks that dusk is just like dawn.
I guess he had forgot about the nails.

Ring, damn you!  Ring!

November 29: Misery's Every Refuge, His Precepts, Toys for Tots Concert

In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

The Ghost of the Present teaches Scrooge about the precepts of Christmas.  He teaches Scrooge about compassion and laughter.  About misery and hope.  About family and friendship.  And about generosity and charity.  The Present is full of examples of people at their very best.

On this Blessing Thursday, I am going to do a commercial.  Tonight, I am participating in a Toys for Tots Benefit Concert at Mitchell United Methodist Church in Negaunee, Michigan.  There's quite the collection of musicians at this event.  Rock bands, pianists, Blues singers, church choirs, and violinists.  One thing connects each of us:  we want to help kids have a good holiday.  We are trying to do the work of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

It really doesn't take a whole lot to be a part of the blessings of Christmas.  Drop a few coins in a Salvation Army bucket.  Bring some canned corn or pumpkin to a local food pantry.  Visit an elderly neighbor.  All of these things contribute to the general air of yuletide kindness.  It's not really about money or presents or cookies.  It's about seeing a need and filling it.

Come join Saint Marty tonight at 7 p.m. in Negaunee.  The price of admission is one unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots.  See the need.  Fill it.

All aboard this train!