April 22: Too Old, Furnace, Daughter's Graduation

Santiago refuses to give up . . . 

He was a fish to keep a man all winter, he thought. Don't think of that. Just rest and try to get your hands in shape to defend what is left of him. The blood smell from my hands means nothing now with all that scent in the water. Besides they do not bleed much. There is nothing cut that means anything. The bleeding may keep the left from cramping.

What can I think of now? he thought. Nothing. I must think of nothing and wait for the next ones. I wish it had really been a dream, he thought. But who knows? It might have turned out well.

The next shark that came was a single shovel-nose. He came like a pig to the trough if a pig had a mouth so wide that you could put your head in it. The old man let him hit the fish and then drove the knife on the oar down into his brain. But the shark jerked backwards as he rolled and the knife blade snapped.

The old man settled himself to steer. He did not even watch the big shark sinking slowly in the water, showing first life-size, then small, then tiny. That always fascinated the old man. But he did not even watch it now.

"I have the gaff now," he said. "But it will do no good. I have the two oars and the tiller and the short club."

Now they have beaten me, he thought. I am too old to club sharks to death. But I will try it as long as I have the oars and the short club and the tiller.

Furnace is working again.  Screened a matinee movie for the poetry festival--Moccasins and Microphones again.  Better attendance this time.  

My daughter graduated from the Student Leader Fellowship Program tonight at the university.  I attended the dinner/ceremony, and even got my daughter to pose for a picture.

Saint Marty's koan for tonight:  keep an extra knife in your boat for shark emergencies.

April 16: Hope Returned, Easter Vigil, Haiku Easter Egg Hunt

Santiago thinks about sin . . . 

"Yes there is," he said aloud. "I can lash my knife to the butt of one of the oars."

So he did that with the tiller under his arm and the sheet of the sail under his foot.

"Now," he said. "I am still an old man. But I am not unarmed."

The breeze was fresh now and he sailed on well. He watched only the forward part of the fish and some of his hope returned.

It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin. Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it. I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it. Let them think about it. You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish. San Pedro was a fisherman as was the father of the great DiMaggio.

The Easter Bunny came this morning, because my wife has to work tomorrow (Easter Sunday) morning.  Had an Easter brunch with my family.  Then, I helped out with a haiku Easter egg hunt this afternoon.  No Mass tonight.  Just a quiet Easter Vigil night at home.

Saint Marty's koan for this Easter Eve:  stupid hope is a knife on an oar, a chocolate bunny in an Easter basket.

April 15: Take It When It Comes, Good Friday, Colored Eggs

Santiago stops thinking about the future . . . 

"Don't think, old man," he said aloud. "Sail on this course and take it when it comes."

But I must think, he thought. Because it is all I have left. That and baseball. I wonder how the great DiMaggio would have liked the way I hit him in the brain? It was no great thing, he thought. Any man could do it. But do you think my hands were as great a handicap as the bone spurs? I cannot know. I never had anything wrong with my heel except the time the sting ray stung it when I stepped on him when swimming and paralyzed the lower leg and made the unbearable pain.

"Think about something cheerful, old man," he said. "Every minute now you are closer to home. You sail lighter for the loss of forty pounds."

He knew quite well the pattern of what could happen when he reached the inner part of the current. But there was nothing to be done now.

An easy Good Friday.  I played Mass at 6 p.m. and then colored eggs with my kids.  

Saint Marty's koan for the night:  sometimes getting home means fighting with blood-hungry sharks.

April 10: Tasted Good, Poetry Workshop, 100 Words

Santiago sets sail for home and eats . . . 

He made the fish fast to bow and stern and to the middle thwart. He was so big it was like lashing a much bigger skiff alongside. He cut a piece of line and tied the fish's lower jaw against his bill so his mouth would not open and they would sail as cleanly as possible. Then he stepped the mast and, with the stick that was his gaff and with his boom rigged, the patched sail drew, the boat began to move, and half lying in the stern he sailed south-west.

He did not need a compass to tell him where south-west was. He only needed the feel of the trade wind and the drawing of the sail. I better put a small line out with a spoon on it and try and get something to eat and drink for the moisture. But he could not find a spoon and his sardines were rotten. So he hooked a patch of yellow gulf weed with the gaff as they passed and shook it so that the small shrimps that were in it fell onto the planking of the skiff. There were more than a dozen of them and they jumped and kicked like sand fleas. The old man pinched their heads off with his thumb and forefinger and ate them chewing up the shells and the tails. They were very tiny but he knew they were nourishing and they tasted good.

This evening, I attended a poetry workshop led by a good friend.  He made us write poems less than 100 words long.  A challenge.

Saint Marty's koan for tonight:  the smallest bites make the best meals.

April 6: Silvery and Still, Fish is a Fish, "Letting Go"

Santiago has killed the fish . . . 

The old man felt faint and sick and he could not see well. But he cleared the harpoon line and let it run slowly through his raw hands and, when he could see, he saw the fish was on his back with his silver belly up. The shaft of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish's shoulder and the sea was discolouring with the red of the blood from his heart. First it was dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than a mile deep. Then it spread like a cloud. The fish was silvery and still and floated with the waves.

Saint Marty's koan for tonight:  Sometimes a fish is a fish, and sometimes it's death.

Attended a poetry workshop tonight led by a good friend.  Here is something I wrote:  

Letting Go

by:  Martin Achatz

You remember that book

by Adrienne Rich you bought

in New York, the one Rich

inscribed, "To Lola, who went

diving with me one day"?

Even Lola couldn't hold

onto that gift, let it be

boxed up, donated

to a Methodist rummage

sale to raise funds

for Liberia.  Nothing

is ever really lost.  It's just

becomes loved by someone else.

April 5: Water with a Crash, Reading Tonight, Death

Santiago mortally wounds the fish . . . 

He tried it again and it was the same. So, he thought, and he felt himself going before he started; I will try it once again.

He took all his pain and what was left of his strength and his long gone pride and he put it against the fish's agony and the fish came over onto his side and swam gently on his side, his bill almost touching the planking of the skiff and started to pass the boat, long, deep, wide, silver and barred with purple and interminable in the water.

The old man dropped the line and put his foot on it and lifted the harpoon as high as he could and drove it down with all his strength, and more strength he had just summoned, into the fish's side just behind the great chest fin that rose high in the air to the altitude of the man's chest. He felt the iron go in and he leaned on it and drove it further and then pushed all his weight after it.

Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff.

Gave a reading tonight with all of the former (and the current) U. P. Poet Laureates at the library.  It felt good to share some new--and old--poems.

Saint Marty's koan for tonight:  Death can leave you all wet.

April 2: Righted Himself, Speak to the Mountain, Poetry Events

Santiago doesn't give up . . . 

He felt faint again now but he held on the great fish all the strain that he could. I moved him, he thought. Maybe this time I can get him over. Pull, hands, he thought. Hold up, legs. Last for me, head. Last for me. You never went. This time I'll pull him over.

But when he put all of his effort on, starting it well out before the fish came alongside and pulling with all his strength, the fish pulled part way over and then righted himself and swam away.

"Fish," the old man said. "Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?"

Koan:  If you speak to the mountain, it will not get smaller.

Saint Marty has a month of poetry events ahead of him.