August 18: "Aimless Love," Ordinary Things, Falling in Love

Today was a quiet day of quiet loves.

Not much going on.  I played a church service this morning,  I played one of my favorite hymns--"I Am the Bread of Life."  It was rainy and misty most of the morning and afternoon.  A good day to stay inside and watch TV or read a book.  I did both.  Netflix and Garrison Keillor, mixed with a little Wendell Berry.  I even squeezed in a little nap.  Then, when my wife got off work, we did some grocery shopping.

Like I said, nothing huge and important happened  Just small, ordinary things.  Easy to overlook.

Billy Collins falls in love over and over . . . 

Aimless Love

by: Billy Collins

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

I know that I'm guilty of going through my days wearing blinders.  Not really noticing the tiny blessings that come my way.  It's easy to do nowadays, especially with the current political situation in the United States.  Instead of saying grace for the cold pizza I had for lunch or the people who showed up for the poetry workshop I led tonight, I get myself wound up over what moronic thing Donald Trump uttered today.

So, for this post, I'm trying to hold dear all my loves (large and small) from this weekend:  my daughter holding a baby lamb at the U. P. State Fair; an all-night rainstorm; playing pipe organ for church; friends writing poetry with me; a long walk with my puppy; my son helping carry in bags of groceries from the car; the poems of Wendell Berry; some really good sandwich cookies from Walmart; a soft pillow and warm blanket; the sound of my wife's sleeping breaths in the dark.

I could go on.  And on.  And on.  Each day provides new opportunities to fall in love, if I keep my eyes open and take note.

Saint Marty is going to fall in love with the movie On Golden Pond now.

June 14: "Young Webster," Love Stories, "Friday Night Lights Near Summer Solstice"

Billy Collins tells a love story . . .

Young Webster

by: Billy Collins

After he spied her

in a garden

holding a parasol,

he defined love as

"something of

or pertaining to me."

Some love stories have happy endings, and some don't.

Love is not easy.  Oh, sure, falling in love may be simple.  You glimpse a person who makes your heart flutter and knees turn to jelly.  After that, the hard work begins.

I've been married almost 29 years, and I can emphatically say that I still love my wife deeply.  But the last three decades have not all been one long honeymoon.  There have been major struggles.

True love is messy.  Ugly even at times.  I'm sitting on my couch right now, listening to my wife sleep.  Reflecting on how much shit we've gone through together and put each other through--times of tremendous joy and tremendous despair.

Yet, our love has endured and grown stronger.  We have two great kids as proof.  And a really cute puppy.

Saint Marty is feeling blessed this June evening, a little less than a week before summer solstice.

Friday Night Lights Before Summer Solstice

by: Martin Achatz

The moon and stars still

haven't shone up for the game.

August 10: From "West Wind," Actual Love, Sharp Spear

Mary Oliver on love and re-incarnation . . . 

From "West Wind"

by:  Mary Oliver

1.

If there is life after the earth-life, will you come with me?  Even then?  Since we're bound to be something, why not together.  Imagine!  Two little stones, two fleas under the wing of a gull, flying along through the fog!  Or, ten blades of grass.  Ten loops of honeysuckle, all flung against each other, at the edge of Race Road!  Beach plums!  Snowflakes, coasting into the winter woods, making a very small sound, like this

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

as they marry the dusty bodies of the pitch-pines.  Or, rain--that gray light running over the sea, pocking it, lacquering it, coming, all morning and afternoon, from the west wind's youth and abundance and jollity--pinging and jangling down upon the roofs of Provincetown.

9.

And what did you think love would be like?  A summer day?  The brambles in their places, and the long stretches of mud?  Flowers in every field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and their pastel shoulders?  On one street after another, the little ticks in the gutter.  In one room after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry out.  One or two leap from windows.  Most simply lean, exhausted, their thin arms on the sill.  They have done all that they could.  The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear.

For the most part, Mary Oliver's poems are usually one or two pages long, focused on a single experience or image.  So, writing this blog post on two sections of a longer Oliver poem is a little strange and difficult.

But I like strange and difficult.  Plus, these two sections are all about love.  Idealized love versus actual love.  Oliver doesn't buy into the "love is like a red red rose" kind of love.  No, her love is two little fleas under the wings of a gull.  Her lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry out, jump out of windows.  Love that's a thousand tiny feathers on the head of a golden eagle, each one a sharp spear.

I know what Oliver is talking about.  In my experience, love is not all moonlit strolls along a beach, hand-in-hand with your lover.  Love is messy.  Cutting.  Painful.  Suicidal (sometimes).  The hard work of love happens after the steam of first sex, after the wedding gifts are opened and the honeymoon is over.  When the kitchen sink is piled with dirty dishes and there's three baskets of laundry to fold, that's when love is put to the test.

As most long-time disciples of this blog know, my wife and I have had our marital struggles.  Mental illness and addiction almost ended our union on more than one occasion.  So, I'm kind of an expert on navigating the tidal waves of love.  For a while, I even rated our struggles like hurricanes.  Category 1:  I forgot to make the bed this morning.  Category 5:  we're living in separate homes in distant cities.  Yet, in two years' time, we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  Our daughter will be going to medical school soon, and our son will be a high school sophomore.  

It certainly hasn't been an easy three decades at times.  I share these details not because I want you to feel sorry for me or to think I'm some kind of hero (or idiot).  I gave up worrying over other peoples' opinions about my marriage and family a long time ago.  I'm not sharing these details because I'm jaded and bitter.  I'm not.  My goal isn't to discourage people from falling in love.  Just the opposite, as a matter of fact.

I believe in love.  I believe that love is reincarnated, over and over, in relationships.  I'm not the same person I was 35 years ago when I proposed to my wife.  My wife isn't the same person who accepted my proposal.  I'm not the person who stood in front of crowded church and said "I do."  Ditto, my wife.  We've grown and changed and struggled and become different people over the last three decades.  Our marriage has followed suit.  We may have started as a summer day, but, sometimes, we've been fleas and stones and snow and rain, as well.

But we still have our summer days, where the garden is full of blooms--peonies and roses and black-eyed Susans.  In fact, I would say that more and more of our days are filled with the soft, pink petals of tulips.  Come winter, we may be two fangs of ice hanging from the roof.  Yet, we have been together, are still together, defying the winds and droughts and blizzards.

For that, Saint Marty sends up a golden eagle "Hallelujah!"  Watch as it dips and wheels and soars in the setting sun.