May 9: "Tom Thumb's Thumb," Son's Middle College, ""Luke S."

Billy Collins contemplates . . .

Tom Thumb's Thumb

by:  Billy Collins

was so small

it failed to get the attention

of passing cars and trucks.

And what was he doing

out there anyway,

hitchhiking all by himself?

There's something almost paternal in this poem, Billy Collins worrying about Tom Thumb's fate at the hands of strangers.  Another way of phrasing his question is, "Where the hell were his parents?"

We live in a world where children are exposed to adult situations and problems at younger and younger ages.  My son and daughter know a lot more about this weird world than I did at their ages.  My biggest worry when I was a kid was whether or not I had collected the entire series of bubblegum Star Wars trading cards.  In summer, I could disappear from the house after breakfast and not come back until dusk, and nobody worried about me.

I never really appreciated the breadth of freedom I had when I was younger.  It was only when I started working, bought a house and car, became a husband and father that I developed nostalgia for those long July days filled with the buzz saw of insects.

But that's the truth about any life experience.  It's only in memory that it becomes poignant and wonderful  Childhood (for most people) takes on the gold tint of a daguerreotype.

I've been thinking a lot about my kids today.  (I use the term "kids," even though my daughter is 24 years old and my son is 15.)  Their young childhoods have taken on the patina of nostalgia for me now.  It seems like just yesterday they were staggering around in their diapers.  This afternoon, my son found out that he was accepted into middle college for next year.  That means, by the time he graduates from high school, he will have earned an associate's degree, with all of his expenses (tuition and books) paid for.

My little boy ain't so little any more.

And Saint Marty couldn't be prouder of him.

Luke S.

by:  Martin Achatz

If I was him,

I'd have stayed put,

drank my blue milk,

picked sand out of my ears,

written poems

about twin suns

opening like lizard

eyes on the horizon.

January 20: "Blueberries," Nostalgia, COVID-Positive

Mary Oliver picks blueberries . . . 

Blueberries

by:  Mary Oliver

I'm living in a warm place now, where

you can purchase fresh blueberries all

year long.  Labor free.  From various

countries in South America.  They're

as sweet as any, and compared with the

berries I used to pick in the fields

outside of Provincetown, they're

enormous.  But berries are berries.  They

don't speak any language I can't

understand.  Neither do I find ticks or

small spiders crawling among them.  So,

generally speaking, I'm very satisfied.

There are limits, however.  What they

don't have is the field.  The field they

belonged to and through the years I

began to feel I belonged to.  Well,

there's life and then there's later.

Maybe it's myself that I miss.  The

field, and the sparrow singing at the 

edge of the woods.  And the doe that one

morning came upon me unaware, all

tense and gorgeous.  She stamped her hoof

as you would to any intruder:  Then gave

me a long look, as if to say, Okay, you

stay in your patch, I'll stay in mine.

Which is what we did.  Try packing that

up, South America.

Mary Oliver is dealing with nostalgia here.  The blueberries she buys remind her of the blueberries she used to pick in a field near her home in Provincetown.  But Oliver doesn't stop there.  Because the poem isn't really just about blueberries.  It's about the whole blueberry-picking experience:  the sun on her back, the sparrow in a nearby woods, and a beautifully skittish, diffident doe.  Mary Oliver can't buy any of that at the market where she's shopping.

Nostalgia is a strange thing.  (I know I've written about this subject before, but humor me.)  Nostalgia is the human mind's way of taking any experience and whitewashing away all of the pain and grief and annoyances, leaving only a sepia-tinged daguerreotype of what actually happened.  That's how we can page through our old high school yearbooks and get all moony over pictures of ourselves in calculus class or with the cross country team.  Because our minds have erased all of the struggles--the late night study sessions and bruised bones, heartbreaking crushes and bullies.  Nostalgia is the reason women have more than one baby, because who in their right would reenlist for the pain of childbirth again?  They do it because they remember the first time the held their newborns instead of the effort of pushing a watermelon out of their bodies.

This morning, I tested positive for COVID.  My faithful disciples may remember that, at the beginning of January 2022, I got COVID.  What I recall of that time now is being at home and just watching movie after movie.  Going on walks with my wife, who was also COVID-positive.  And ordering pizza.  In short, I remember it as a pretty good winter vacation.

Of course, what I don't recall clearly from my first bout of COVID is what I'm experiencing right now--headache, runny nose, incessant cough, fever, nausea, and exhaustion.  Real exhaustion.  After I'm done typing this blog post, I'm going to take another nap.  That will be the fourth one today, I believe.  I'm sure I had all those symptoms last time, but it's just a blank wall in my mind.  

So, I'm like Mary Oliver right now, eating blueberries and not remembering the ticks and spiders of the field.

It's time for Saint Marty take a nap.

May 11: Poet of the Week, Ellen Bryant Voigt, "Kyrie"

I had a difficult time choosing a poet to feature this week.  Most weeks, the poet sort of asserts her/himself in my mind, and I know almost immediately.  Sometimes, it's the poet's name.  Sometimes, it's a favorite poem or book.

This evening, after much thought, I have chosen Ellen Bryant Voigt as the Poet of the Week, mostly for her fantastic collection Kyrie.  I saw Voigt read from this collection when it was first released, back in 1995.  I remember being stunned by the poems.

Kyrie is a series of sonnets about the influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that killed over 25 million people worldwide.  The sonnets are untitled, written in the voices of soldiers, children, victims, and survivors.  Simply reading one or two of the poems will not give you a true understanding of the power of this book.  Reading Kyrie is devastating and beautiful at once, like looking at a daguerreotype of your great grandmother as a young girl.

This book makes Saint Marty want to be a better poet.

From Kyrie by Ellen Bryant Voigt:

To be brought from the bright schoolyard into the house:
to stand by her bed like an animal stunned in the pen:
against the grid of the quilt, her hand seems
stitched to the cuff of its sleeve--although he wants
most urgently the hand to stroke his head,
although he thinks he could kneel down
that it would need to travel only inches
to brush like a breath his flushed cheek,
he doesn't stir:  all his resolve,
all his resources go to watching her,
her mouth, her hair a pillow of blackened ferns--
he means to match her stillness bone for bone.
Nearby he hears the younger children cry,
and his aunts, like careless thieves, out in the kitchen.

If you haven't read it, you should