May 29, 2025: "I Cannot Forget the Woman in the Mirror," Quiet, "Poem for an Ordinary Day on which I Wasn't Exposed to Measles and Lilacs Are Beginning to Bloom"

Some days are just . . . quiet.  

Nothing special happens.  No catastrophes or Nobel Prizes.  You just get up, go about your normal, daily business, have dinner, maybe watch a little television, and then go to bed.

Most people don't realize that quiet days like today are gifts.  Blessings.  Full of common, everyday miracles.

Sharon Olds writes about living her true life . . . 

I Cannot Forget the Woman in the Mirror

by: Sharon Olds

Backwards and upside down in the twilight, that
woman on all fours, her head
dangling, and suffused, her lean
haunches, the area of darkness, the flanks and
ass narrow and pale as a deer's and those
breasts hanging down toward the center of the earth like 

               plummets, when I
swayed from side to side they swayed, it was
so near night I couldn’t tell if they were yellow or
violet or rose. I cannot get over her
moving toward him upside down in the mirror like a
fly on the ceiling, her head hanging down and her
tongue long and purple as an anteater's
going toward his body, she was so clearly a human
animal, she was an Iroquois scout creeping
naked and noiseless, and when I looked at her
she looked at me so directly, her eyes all
pupil, her stare said to me I
belong here, this is mine, I am living out my
true life on this earth.

Olds isn't describing anything earthshattering in this poem.  It's simply a sexual encounter in front of a mirror, her watching her mirror self "living out" her "true life on this earth."  

Most of people aren't really cognizant of their true lives.  They go through their daily routines with blinders on, moving from one mundane thing to another.  That pretty much describes almost every one of my days.  I never really stop to smell the lilacs.  Instead, I rush everywhere, trying to milk as much productivity as I can out of each second that passes.

I literally have to remind myself to pause, look around, and give thanks for all the quotidian miracles around me.  Staples.  A good fountain pen.  Sunlight.  A bad joke.  A good joke.  A nickel in my pocket.  Trillium blossoming in the backyard.  Because I'm a poet, I do this kind of thing all the time.  If you look for moments of grace, you'll find they.  Or they will find you.

Now, not all grace is beautiful or transcendent.  The writer Flannery O'Connor said this about grace:  "All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful . . . The reader wants his grace warm and binding, not dark and disruptive."  Ultimately, all grace is good, even if it causes discomfort or pain.  

Yes, it's difficult to see grace in all situations.  Yet, if you look around right now, I'd bet you could list at least five things for which you're grateful.  Gratitude is an acknowledgement of grace.

Saint Marty wrote a poem about grace tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

On this day in 1903, comedian Bob Hope was born.  Bob Hope was known for his own rendition of the song "Thanks For The Memories."  Write a poem where you give thanks, but make sure it includes humor as well as gratitude.

Poem for an Ordinary Day

     on which I Wasn't Exposed to Measles

     and Lilacs Are Beginning to Bloom

by: Martin Achatz

Nothing happened today.

The sun rose.  I ate breakfast.

My son went to school.  I went

to work, as did my wife.

Had a spinach salad for lunch,

topped with chicken breast and flax seeds.

Ate two Hershey bars for dessert.

Read about a measles case reported

in my county.  Immediately checked

my body for welts and rubeola.

Two birds shit on my freshly washed

car.  Found a joint in the backseat.

Probably my son's.  Smoked it.

Ate a hotdog for dinner, then took

my dog for a walk.  Ended up at a local

ice cream shop.  Ordered a vanilla malt.

Stood in my backyard for 20 minutes

surrounded by lungs of lilacs

inhaling, exhaling the dusky light.

Jesus, I wish every day could be like this.

August 11: Albert Garcia, "August Morning," Green Contentment

August Morning

by:  Albert Garcia

It’s ripe, the melon

by our sink. Yellow,

bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes

the house too sweetly.

At five I wake, the air

mournful in its quiet.

My wife’s eyes swim calmly

under their lids, her mouth and jaw

relaxed, different.

What is happening in the silence

of this house? Curtains

hang heavily from their rods.

Ficus leaves tremble

at my footsteps. Yet

the colors outside are perfect--

orange geranium, blue lobelia.

I wander from room to room

like a man in a museum:

wife, children, books, flowers,

melon. Such still air. Soon

the mid-morning breeze will float in

like tepid water, then hot.

How do I start this day,

I who am unsure

of how my life has happened

or how to proceed

amid this warm and steady sweetness?

_________________________

It is 11:20 in the morning.  I haven't really accomplished anything, and I'm not really upset about it.

I woke up early this morning and listened to the sounds of my family in our hotel room.  There was a TV playing downstairs.  My sister is an early riser.  My son farted in his bed.  Every once in a while, I heard my wife shift, her sheets rasp.  No sounds from my daughter's room.

That is what August summer mornings should be.  Quiet.  Filled with a green contentment.

Saint Marty could stay on vacation for the next twelve months of his life.

December 16: Alone Time, Alice Fulton, "Where Are the Stars Pristine"

Yes, it's creeping closer and closer to the holy night and day of church and presents and family and food.  I am trying not to get caught up in the normal Christmas crush, trying to enjoy some quiet moments.  It's not really working for me at the moment.

I will eventually find that space in my mind.  Not today.

Saint Marty is thankful today for a few minutes of quiet, alone time.  In the bathroom.

Where Are the Stars Pristine

by:  Alice Fulton

Everyone's spending Christmas Eve adrift

in the corporal skirmish, mixing

up the darks with the lights, fending

with elbows and dirty

looks. Wet wool and down

crowd the air. Where are the stars, pristine

as great ideas? Behind clouds

the heavens saturate

with luminous dust, shuttles wearing halos

of earthdirt, light pollution

from jets fired to keep things

on course. Boys rickrack a ball off

floor and ceiling past the table

tree bubbling with giveaway

ornaments from Burger King and lights

that manage an occasional

lackadaisical flash. Showstoppers: everyone

looks every time and keeps looking

to make sure it happened.

The double frontloaders are going

like abstract TVs. And the program is important:

all about the boggling sullied

lives we'd like to hide.

But this is no place

to do so, where known

and unknown perverts come

to pirate underpants and the innocent

clutch their Cheer and Shout.

The rules are posted: only the toughest

habiliments, the superego

of raiment can take such agitation.

And only the poor are invited to endure

the sneezy powders and clean resentment.

Imagine a museum installation—

200 hypnotic washers stuffed with somersaulting

cloth. Critics could rise to the challenge,

their statements settling like coats

of gold and silver

chain mail over each machine:

"These Speed Queen pieces thrust ahead of art-

for-art's sake to confront us

with a realism of socio-political

magnitude. The vortex-like movement

of pattern, color, and texture infuses

these works with an abundance of unconscious

bliss. The soft forms

circulate with vigor

across the screens. The viewer

is not privy

to the cause of dirt

though one is witness to the dirt's

ablutions. The point is

we are not impeccable."

Everyone would be happy

to know that! And so we're forced to

scoop and pour

a fine white empathy over

the hairy flannels, snaggy nylons,

the glass front that gives

forth this light

industry, the silly tree

and jingles about blue and white

Christmases, chestnuts, sleighbells,

just as snow settles

on every unsequestered thing:

from blistered gum -

ball machines, clumsy bumpers,

crepuscular theaters with sticky floors,

to ramshackle mansions

choked with smiling

china animals where light shakes itself out

from TVs and old women

frail as walking sticks

sweep their stoops at eight a.m.

Just as snow makes the less than impeccable

classical, stroking the merely

drab or passing, quickly or slowly,

so we can count only on its

leaving, teaching

liquidity

to what seems solid.

July 13: Blessed Sunday, Quiet, Classic Saint Marty

After the chaos of yesterday, today is quiet, sunny, and cool.  A perfect Sunday afternoon.  I am thankful for this time of leisure.  I'm sure, if I thought hard enough, I could come up with some job I need to finish.  However, I don't feel like thinking hard.

I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the blessings of the day.  I may even go out on the back porch of my parents' house and take a nap.  Or I may nap on the couch, which looks a lot more comfortable.

I have a Classic Saint Marty from three years ago, and it contains a poem that, when I first wrote it, I didn't really like.  This afternoon, when I reread it, I found it much improved.

You be the judge.

July 13, 2011:  Stuart Dybek, New Poem, Work

Well, I postponed the Spiritual Autobiography Workshop until the fall.  I spoke with the remaining participants, and they all agreed with the decision.  It was a little disappointing to me.  I really believe in writing as a spiritual discipline, and I really want to start a spiritual writing ministry at church.  However, most people think of writing as something frivolous and useless.  Even with great writing sessions, when I pour everything I have into leading a writing group, the workshops I've taught have only managed to attract, at most, five or six people at a time.  I don't know how to change people's perceptions.

Today, I've been thinking about something writer Stuart Dybek once said in a fiction workshop I took from him.  He said that not enough people write about work.  He was a big believer in stories about the workplace.  For some reason, out of everything he said in that class, that observation has stuck with me the most.  I have to say, I love reading poems and stories about work and labor.  There's built-in tension and conflict at work.  Work has its own vocabulary.  It lends itself to writing.

Stuart Dybek--a great writer

The poem I wrote today is inspired by my job in a medical office.  I love the terms and language involved in medicine.  The words have a definite beauty.  So, when I sat down and started to write today, that's what I focused on.  My work.  The result was a language poem, focusing more on sound and music.  It has a little narrative to follow.  Not much.  Above all, it's about the words.  How they feel in your mouth, on your tongue.

Writing is important.  At work.  At home.  At church.  In your relationships with spouses and children and siblings and parents.  And God.  Writing really is life.

Saint Marty shares a little bit of life with you today.

Poetry in a Medical Office

A cavern echo in chest, lung,

Pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza,

A roar, deep in a salt mine,

Full of subterranean stream, pool, lake.

Arthritic survey, scan of every joint,

Vertebrae to shoulder to phalanges,

Search for calcifications, densities,

Thinning and thickening of bone.

Masses, suspicious shadows

In the hump of breast tissue,

Mother, grandmother in the balance

Between health and prognosis,

Lunch and needle biopsy.

Swollen belly under green shirt,

Umbilicus, a knuckle, a snail

On the dune of childbirth,

A slow crawl from conception

To gravida para, that day

When the blur of black and white

Opens its mouth, sucks oxygen

The first time, howls placental blood.

In this place, hope digitizes,

Transmits, becomes talisman, prophecy,

Sacrifice, pieces of goat and ram,

Heifer, a dove as white as sugar,

Killed, carved, spread

On an altar to be read, interpreted,

Like dreams of famine, fertility.

Fat cows or hungry wolves.

Not my medical office, but close enough

March 20: Quiet Before the Storm

All morning, all afternoon.  Quiet.  No phones ringing off the hook.  Faxes have been trickling in by electronic Snail Express.  I've had time to think and reflect today.  I worked with people who don't drive me insane, and one of them even bought me a dessert from a bake sale downstairs.  By all this evidence, you may say that I've had a good day.

And I have.

However, when my morning and afternoon is so blissfully non-hectic, I expect the night to go straight to hell.  There's always a quiet before the storm.  I might come down with the stomach flu.  I'll go out to my car after work, and one of my tires will be flat.  My son will crap his pants.  My daughter will fall in dance class and break every toe on her left foot.  Something's going to happen.  Bliss can't exist without payment.

That may sound incredibly pessimistic, but it's a rule I live my life by.  Enjoy the goodness now, because, in a short while, the conductor of the Bliss Express is going to be coming through to collect the tickets.  If you don't have a ticket, he's going to throw you off the train as it's rumbling across a trestle over a deep ravine.

Perhaps today will be different.  Perhaps I will have a completely happy day.  No drama.  No catastrophe.  No phone calls from bill collectors.  Just blue sky and melting snow and a thick, gooey brownie at the end of the day.  And...

A fax just came in.  The phone's ringing.  My e-mail is flashing "You've got mail!"

It's time for Saint Marty to pay up.  Bliss ain't cheap.

Storms a' comin'

July 20: Cold Roast, Sir Roger de Coverly, Quiet

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.  But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, where the fiddler (an artful dog, mind!  The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverly."  Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig.  Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

I have no idea what "negus" is.  Cold Roast doesn't sound too bad, but Cold Boiled sounds a little disgusting.  I've never heard the tune "Sir Roger de Coverly," and I dislike beer, preferring a good Tanqueray and tonic instead.  But I love this description of Fezziwig's Christmas party.  I love the Victorian food details, even if they do foster thoughts of salmonella (Cold Boiled meat--I don't think so!).  I love knowing the title of Victorian dance music.  I kind of picture "Sir Roger de Coverly" as being the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" or "Macarena" of Scrooge's generation.

I like a good time as much as the next person.  I certainly enjoy good parties (and Fezziwig seems to know to to throw a good party).  However, this weekend, I'm just happy that I don't have anything to do.  No parades to watch.  No concerts to play in.  No fireworks to attend.  Just a normal weekend.  Maybe I'll get some reading done.  I'll probably go running a couple of times.  I have a couple church services to play at.  But, no huge event that involves crowds of people (unless I decide to go see The Dark Knight Rises, which I don't really have the money for).  Nope, I don't plan to do anything.  Fezziwig would be sorely disappointed in me.

Then again, my favorite time at Christmas is not when the kids are running around in fits of yuletide greed.  It's not sitting in a crowded church, singing Christmas hymns.  It's not even playing with any new toy I may receive as a gift.  No, I prefer the quiet times, the "in-between" times.  I prefer the times when the gifts are wrapped and the cookies are baked.  Before I have to head off to the relatives or get dressed up for worship services.  I like to just sit down and take a deep breath.  Stare at the Christmas tree.  Listen to some quiet Christmas music.  Peace and solitude in the middle of all the craziness.

We have reached the silent time of summer.  After July 4, things slow way down.  The days get longer, and the nights get calmer.  This is the time of summer I enjoy the most.  Nothing is pressing in my schedule.  I don't have any big plans until school resumes at the end of August.  It's an "in-between" time, and I plan to take full advantage of it. 

Don't expect to see Saint Marty dancing to "Sir Roger de Coverly" on his lawn in the next few weeks.

Anyone want a swig of negus?