February 5: Difficult in the Dark, Sister's Funeral, "Ascension"

In the middle of the night, Santiago does a difficult thing . . . 

So he did it. It was difficult in the dark and once the fish made a surge that pulled him down on his face and made a cut below his eye. The blood ran down his cheek a little way. But it coagulated and dried before it reached his chin and he worked his way back to the bow and rested against the wood. He adjusted the sack and carefully worked the line so that it came across a new part of his shoulders and, holding it anchored with his shoulders, he carefully felt the pull of the fish and then felt with his hand the progress of the skiff through the water.

Today was my sister's funeral.  A difficult thing.  Most of my remaining siblings were there.  Some of my best friends were there.  Two of those best friends sang songs to honor my sister, and, in the process, reduced me to a puddle.  My son read a poem he wrote, again reducing me to a puddle.  I read a poem the I wrote for my sister and ended up being reduced to a puddle by the last line.  I barely choked it out of my mouth.

I've been thinking about/working on the poem for over two weeks.  I spent six hours working on it last night.  Got up this morning at 5:30, worked on it for another three hours.  My favorite poems by my favorite poets all seem so . . . effortless.  I'm not sure if the poem I wrote and read at my sister's funeral this afternoon seemed effortless.  Because it was actually really . . . difficult.  One of the most difficult poems I've ever written.

So, on one of the most difficult days of my life, I read one of the most difficult poems I've ever written.  

And then Saint Marty went home, ate some pizza, played some games with his family, and took a nap.  None of that was difficult.

The difficult poem.  Hoping it seems effortless . . .

Ascension

by:  Martin Achatz

for Rose, February 5, 2022

I wonder what Jesus did as he ascended
on that elevator of cloud. Did he wave
to the disciples as he rose and rose
like some kite broken free of its string,
becoming smaller, smaller until he
was swallowed by the great blue
throat of heaven? And did the disciples
keep their eyes trained on him,
unblinking, until tears transformed
that mountaintop into the Sea of Galilee?
After he was gone, did the disciples stand
there, look at each other dumbly, try
to recall his last word? Was it
earth or dirt or air or mother?
They didn’t have phones to take
pictures or videos. Weren’t able to
scroll through their albums
to remind themselves how dark
his skin and eyes were or how
laughing made him blaze
like Pentecost. Instead, they gospelled
each other, tried to recall with letters
God’s whiskered face.
          Today, we gather
in this church for you, dear sister, two
weeks after the metronome of your lungs
ceased and you ascended on that cold
morning. I stood by your bed, held
your hand, mapped its pulse
with my fingertips. I don’t remember
the last word you spoke to me,
or even second to last. It may
have been my name or mother
or ham or simply yes. Like the disciples
now, I’m greedy for every
last scrap of you, your crooked
smile, how you cackled even
when you didn’t get the joke. I
spent my entire life knowing
you, but not really knowing.
Until the end, when you were
rising and rising away from me,
getting smaller, smaller. I
watched until you vanished
from sight, taken back
to that place you came
from, that infinity between zero
and one. Only then did I realize
how lucky I’d been. To have
you with me every day, drinking
Diet Cokes, listening to ABBA
songs, begging me to wrap
my arms around your
shoulders. I could spend the rest
of my days writing gospels and gospels
about how much you loved me.

February 1: Saddest Thing, Mythology, Why

Santiago remembers a sad moment . . . 

He remembered the time he had hooked one of a pair of marlin. The male fish always let the female fish feed first and the hooked fish, the female, made a wild, panic-stricken, despairing fight that soon exhausted her, and all the time the male had stayed with her, crossing the line and circling with her on the surface. He had stayed so close that the old man was afraid he would cut the line with his tail which was sharp as a scythe and almost of that size and shape. When the old man had gaffed her and clubbed her, holding the rapier bill with its sandpaper edge and clubbing her across the top of her head until her colour turned to a colour almost like the backing of mirrors, and then, with the boy's aid, hoisted her aboard, the male fish had stayed by the side of the boat. Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.

That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought. The boy was sad too and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly.

The story of this pair of marlins is sad.  No getting around it.  In some ways, it's a love story, the male refusing to leave the female's side, even as she is dying.  Then, after the old man and boy haul her into the boat, that one final leap of the male, high above the waves, into the sky, as he tries to see what has happened to his mate.  

This passage lends itself to reflecting on grief and loss.  I returned to work today after my train wreck of a weekend.  I can honestly say that I wasn't sure I would last the entire day.  My body is sore, and I still feel a kind of exhaustion in my bones that, if I were a Russian consumptive, only three weeks of sleep and trip to a health spa in Badenweiler, Germany, would help.  However, I did last.  I count that as a victory.

There is something healing about doing mental or physical labor that takes your mind off what's troubling you.  For several hours today, I focused on library programming, a letter of recommendation for a student, more library programming, an afternoon meeting, and, at the end of the day, a virtual astronomy event.  Yesterday, I taught two classes, went home, and slept for several hours.  Today, it was good being around other people, not focusing on low blood sugars, car accidents, or my sister's death.  It was a day of planning.  Looking forward instead of back.

At the beginning of every semester when I teach mythology, I tell my students--especially the most jaded, cynical ones--that mythology/religion aren't antonyms.  They just attempt to answer different questions.  For scientists, the question they seek to answer is "how."  How did the universe form?  How do cancer cells work?  How long does it take for a meteor to circle the galaxy and return to our solar system?  

Mythology asks the question "why."  Why does suffering exist in the world?  Why are we here?  Why do fools fall in love?  Different mindset and approach.

I have been focusing a whole lot on "why" these last couple weeks.  Searching for meaning in seemingly meaningless situations.  Of course, I'm not really receiving many adequate answers.  And then anger and frustration and sadness and self-pity step in.

I'm a little like that male marlin in the passage above.  Jumping out of the ocean, scraping heaven, trying to find answers to my unanswerable questions.  I don't know what the rest of this week has in store for me.  Saturday morning, I will be sitting in church, honoring the life of my sister.  We will say a rosary, greet friends and relatives, sing songs, and celebrate a Mass.  In between now and then, I'm just going to take it slowly, moment by moment.

That's the best Saint Marty can do.

December 29: Death, Debbie Reynolds, "Strawberry Picking"

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I know death is a natural part of life, but I'm getting a little tired of it.  I was actually thinking that I might make to January 1st without any close member of our family dying.  I was wrong. 

Granted, my wife's grandmother was almost a century old.  She had a long, mostly good life.  But that doesn't make the loss any easier.  And, of course, 2016 has claimed a good many famous people, as well.  Yesterday, Debbie Reynolds died, one day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher, passed.  The Grim Reaper is having a good year.

August of 2015, I wrote the following poem for my sister's funeral:

Strawberry Picking

by:  Martin Achatz

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.


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August 30: Sister's Funeral, Eulogy, New Poem, "Strawberry Picking"

My sister's funeral was this afternoon.  It was not without its share of family drama.  In the end, no blood was shed, and everybody was well-fed and happy at the end.  You will forgive me if I am not witty or profound this afternoon.  I was up until about 2 a.m. finishing my eulogy and poem.  It is now after 7 p.m., and I am practically comatose.  The only blessing is that I don't have to work tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or the next.  For the next five days, all I have to do is create lesson plans and teach.  Basically, I'll be living the life of a tenured full-timer.  No jumping jobs in the middle of the day.  No late nights at the medical office.  Basically, I will have a normal existence for the next week.

The funeral was beautiful.  My sister's best friend, Lydia, gave a moving eulogy with a Nightingale tribute.  My sister was a nurse for 32 years. And then I gave my eulogy and recited my poem.  My friends sang the "Pie Jesu" by Andrew Lloyd Webber and "I Have a Dream" by ABBA.  At the end of the Mass, I turned to Lydia and said, "I think Sal would have been happy."  Lydia hugged me and said, "Sal is happy."

So, I am exhausted.  When I got to the church, I cried.  When Lydia showed up, I cried.  When I gave my eulogy, I cried.  When my friends sang, I cried.  When I ate my stuffed shells, I cried (they were really hot).  When I got home and saw the rum my wife's cousin dropped off for me, I cried.

Saint Marty misses his sister a lot.  Or he's pregnant.

Strawberry Picking

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.

August 13: Michael David Madonick, "Iris," King Kong, Terrible Darkness, Adventures of Stickman

Iris

by:  Michael David Madonick

About the lip
there is an edge.  More
to the point, an edginess,
not so nervous as to be
construed as shy, but an
inclination, nevertheless,
toward the ascetic.  The clam
belly's undulant scallop, or
Jessica Lange that instant before
Kong came raging
through the wood.  Tied up
in beauty and in rope, it never
wants to give what it seems
to show.  And he, however
soft his hairy hand, is bound
by her music, to fall
asleep, then
dead.

Yes, I'm changing things up a little bit.  I wanted to start with Mike Madonick's poem, simply because it sort of captures the kind of day I've had.  The poem is about being on the edge.  The trees of the jungle trembling, hiding the giant ape about to burst through.  The lip of the flower hiding something pink and beautiful.  Or deadly.

Tonight, I went to the funeral home to make some preliminary arrangements for my sister's funeral.  It wasn't half as difficult as I anticipated.  The two sisters who accompanied me actually stuck to the plan we decided upon last night.  There wasn't bickering, raised voices, or name calling.  It took about 45 minutes.

Back at my parents' house, our parish priest came.  Father Larry brought a stole used by Frederic Baraga, first bishop of Marquette, who died in 1868.  Bishop Baraga is on the road to sainthood.  Currently, he has been given the title "Venerable," which is the first step toward canonization.

Father Larry wrapped Bishop Baraga's stole around my sister's head and chest.  We prayed over her.  Every person in the room (12 in all) laid hands on her.  Then Father Larry anointed her with chrism.  Finally, we recited a rosary. When I looked over at my dad, he was weeping.  It broke my heart to see him.

It was strange to go from planning my sister's funeral to praying for her recovery.  Like in Mike Madonick's poem, I feel like something's approaching.  Something huge.  But I can't see it in the trees.  It might be a miracle--my sister sitting up in her bed and saying that she's hungry.  Or it might be death--a phone ringing in the middle of the night in a dark room.

Ives and Annie experience something similar the night that their son dies:

As they happily walked to the subway, they were looking forward to spending a lot of time together at home during the holiday, in the company of family and friends.  Ives and Annie had stopped to peer into a window display of French linen when, just like that, a terrible darkness entered them, and they could not move and stood looking at one another stupidly, on the crowded and busy sidewalk.

Ives and Annie have no idea what the darkness means.  One minute, they're doing a little Christmas window shopping.  The next, they're filled with inexplicable dread.  Something big is approaching, and the trees are shaking.

Saint Marty is praying for a miracle, but he's preparing for something darker.  Heavier. 
King Kong-sized.

Adventures of STICKMAN