February 23: Rose Slowly and Steadily, Snowstorm, Possibility

Santiago finally sees the fish . . .

If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought. But it will loosen up.

Then, with his right hand he felt the difference in the pull of the line before he saw the slant change in the water. Then, as he leaned against the line and slapped his left hand hard and fast against his thigh he saw the line slanting slowly upward.

"He's coming up," he said. "Come on hand. Please come on."

The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.

When something happens that you've been waiting for, it's an amazing moment.  Santiago finally sees the fish.  You receive your first romantic kiss.  Experience sex.  Publish your first poem.  Release your first book.  These are moments that mark a change.  The second before, you are one person.  The second after, you are completely different.  Or feel completely different.

The three-day snowstorm finally ended today.  Over fifteen fresh inches of snow this morning.  This is not the first three-day winter storm I've ever experienced.  And it won't be the last, if I continue to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I am sore tonight from pushing snow.  Not a first, either.  The banks around my house almost as tall as the house itself now.  Again, not a first.  

In fact, nothing about today was new to me.  I don't feel any different tonight than I felt yesterday.  Therefore, the point of this post is simply to say that I survived the storm.  I'm sore as hell.  Tired of winter.  As a Yooper, I am allowed to say this without guilt.  As I said a couple posts ago, only Yoopers are allowed to complain about the weather in the U. P.

Tomorrow, I will get up.  Go to work.  Sit in my library office and dream up programs and events.  Drive home and probably collapse on my sofa for a while.  Maybe take a nap.  Then, I will attend a poetry workshop.  Maybe I will write something that I never dreamed of writing before.  Maybe not.

Here's the thing:  if you treat every day like a gift, then you will be a different person every second of that day.  If you treat every day like a sequel to the prior one, then you will remain frozen in place.  Buried under 15 inches of fresh monotony every morning.

Therefore, tomorrow I will rise.  Unwrap the morning like a Christmas present.  Perhaps, the day will turn out to be a pair of socks.  Or, a new watch.  Underwear.  Who knows?  That's what gifts are all about.  Possibility.

Saint Marty likes the idea of living in possibility.  Even if it comes with over thirty inches of snow.

December 30: Vogon Poetry, Three Wise Guys, Irving Berlin Kind of Night

Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe.  The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria . . . The very worst poetry of all perished with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.

This is Douglas Adams' take on intergalactic poetry culture.  It ain't a pretty picture.

Greetings, loyal disciples!

I am home, in the midst of a New Year's Eve eve snowstorm.  It blew in this morning and is supposed to last until the wee hours of tomorrow morning.  Predicted accumulations range anywhere from eight inches to 15 inches.  I'll be honest--I was hoping for 2019 going out quietly, like melting snow.  Instead, it's putting up quite a fight.  I should have expected that.  This year has been anything but friendly and cooperative.  It's like that person who shows up early for a party you're throwing and then just stays and stays and stays, making racist jokes and inappropriate comments about your daughter until every other guest leaves is disgust or embarrassment.

This evening, I'm supposed to be doing a poetry reading at my home church.  A little something I cooked up at the beginning of Advent because I love Christmas and have never read at an event for my parish family.  Despite the snowstorm, the show will go on.  There will be food and different wines to sample.  Plus, some good friends of mine who just happen to be fabulous musicians and singers are going to perform, as well.  Out of all the things I've done this Christmas season, I think I've been looking forward to this night the most.  (I like to think my poetry wouldn't make Douglas Adams' list of the worst poetry in the Universe.  After a few glasses of wine, I may even sound pretty good.)

Now, some of you out there may think that Christmas is over at the stroke of midnight on December 25.  Not so.  In Christian denominations, Christmas ain't over until the three wise guys show up.  So, if Larry, Moe, and Curly aren't at the manger, then crank up a little Bing Crosby "White Christmas" on the tunebox and suck down some more eggnog.  'Cuz the Nativity narrative isn't quite done yet.

I am about to whip up some queso dip for tonight's poetry shindig at the rectory.  I have a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge.  It's going to be a good night, whether four people or forty people show up.  Poetry, good music, and lots of Christmas cheer.  The snow just adds to the ambiance.  Now if I could only get Santa Claus to make an appearance.

Saint Marty is having an Irving Berlin kind of night.

December 29: Utter Blackness, New Year's Eve Party, Snowstorm

Out of the utter blackness stabbed a sudden point of blinding light.  It crept up by slight degrees and spread sideways in a thin crescent blade, and within seconds two suns were visible, furnaces of light, searing the black edge of the horizon with white fire.  Fierce shafts of color streaked through the thin atmosphere beneath them.

Douglas Adams is describing the twin sunrises on the planet of Magrathea.  It's all about light piercing through the darkness, burning away night.  It's an image that is quite moving, especially for a book that, for the most part, is all farce.  Something is on the horizon.  Something bright and clear.

I have spent most of today preparing for the coming new year, which is on the horizon in about two days.

Every December 31st, since I was in sixth grade, I have organized a New Year's Eve party at my parents' house.  I started the tradition because, as a child,  I was jealous of my mother and father and older siblings going out for New Year's Eve, returning home in the wee morning hours, slightly inebriated and sporting party hats and noisemakers.  I started collecting their party favors until, one year, I had enough supplies to throw my own Auld Lang Syne get-together.  Eventually, all of my family decided that my party, with its games and food and prizes, was better than the drunken debauches of the outside world.  Thus, the annual Saint Marty Family New Year's Eve Bash was born.

We've had balloon drops at midnight, featuring about three hundred balloons.  One year, we had a pina colada bar.  (Just one year.  I got so drunk that year that I still can't smell coconut with getting nauseated.)  The guest list has grown and shrunk, expanded and contracted.  Family members have died and married and moved away.  Boyfriends have come and gone.  Close friends have migrated to places like Florida and New Zealand.  Yet, the party goes on, every year.

I am excited to be out of 2019, which has not been kind to me, as most of you know.  There are no guarantees that 2020 will be any better, but there is the possibility of more joy than heartache.  Possibly even a happily ever after.   Who knows?

In the mean time, tomorrow, December 30, my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is bracing for a winter storm.  If the National Weather Service predictions are accurate, by tomorrow night at this time, there may be an additional ten to twelve inches of snow on the ground.  I am praying that is not the case.  In my old(er) age, I have grown to dislike most winter weather events, unless they involve warming trends and lots of melting.

And tomorrow evening, I'm doing a poetry reading at my home church, if the weather cooperates.  I think it's going to be wonderful.  Lots of food and wine.  Music provided by some friends of mine.  And Christmas poems and a Christmas essay.  As the song goes, these are a few of my favorite things, minus the impending snowstorm.  Any day that involves poetry is a good day.

In these waning days of 2019, Saint Marty has been pretty blessed.

January 23: Useful Thing, Taking a Nap, Cold Temperatures

A little information from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.  Partly it has a practical value.  You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy River Moth; set it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you--daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

You'll have to forgive me if I stop there with the towel passage.  There's more to come tomorrow.  However, I find myself quite tired tonight.  I just got back from a liturgy-planning meeting at church.  It was important stuff, but, after working and teaching and coming home to clean the bathroom, I did not have attention to spare.  The only thing that kept me going at the meeting were the snacks and wine.  That's right.  There was alcohol.  (Well, it was a Catholic gathering.)  So, I sat eating cheese and crackers and Chex mix and drinking red wine.

That passage from Hitchhiker's is all about the uses of the towel, focusing on its versatility.  I, on the other hand, do not feel very useful at the moment.  In fact, I'm barely awake right now.  All I can think about is taking a nap.  My wife and son and daughter aren't home, so the house is completely silent.  I could do it.

. . .

I'm back.  Took about a 45-minute snooze.  And now it's almost 10 p.m.  Just checked my weather app.  There's a huge storm blowing in.  And then, for the next week or so, temperatures that aren't going to climb much above a single degree.  In fact, some days the high temps aren't going to get above -6.  I have a feeling my kids are going to have a few days off school next week.

This weekend, in the midst of this arctic freeze, I head west to Calumet for a couple days.  I don't think I'll be packing any towels, just a couple sweaters and a bathing suit.  I'll be performing in a radio show on Saturday evening.  Lots of rehearsal time on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.  I simply hope that my voice will hold out, and that I won't have a coughing fit during the recording.

That's what's on my mind tonight.  Towels.  Naps.  Cold temperatures.  Coughing.  I know it's not exciting.

Tomorrow night, it's poetry.  A workshop that I'm conducting, come high water or snowstorm.  Poetry doesn't take a day off.

And neither does Saint Marty.

November 10: Whiteness, Snowstorm, Spiritual Writing

. . . Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!

Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous- why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues- every stately or lovely emblazoning- the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge- pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

A little section from Chapter 42 ("The Whiteness of the Whale") of Moby-Dick.  For those of you who were hoping not to hear anymore from Melville's book, I'm obligated to remind you that this is the year of Moby-Dick.  Ahab and company aren't going away until January 1, 2019.  So, for the next month-and-a-half, I will be cherry picking from sections of the novel to suit my needs.  Hence, the focus on white today.

The first big snow storm of the season hit the Upper Peninsula of Michigan last night.  When I went to bed, there was simply a dusting of snow on the ground.  This morning, when I went outside to start my car, there was a two-foot wall of white surrounding our cars.  It took about two hours to dig them out.  Winter is upon us.

Of course, as a Yooper (that's a term for a lifelong resident of the Upper Peninsula), I am allowed to complain about snow.  Thus, if you had been anywhere near my house this morning, you would have heard me saying colorful things like "Why do we live here?!: and "It's too goddamn early for this shit!"  My back is sore.  My socks are wet and cold.  And my life for the next six of seven months is going to be a series of snow storms punctuated with brief respites of subzero temperatures.  Over half-a-year of white.

Today, I have a writing project on which to work.  A little essay about water.  It's something that I was sort of commissioned to write by a friend of mine.  It's part of a series of spiritual essays about water published in a local monthly paper.  I've always sort of struggled with the concept of spiritual writing.  It's a very slippery term.  I can't really provide a clear definition of what a piece of spiritual writing is.  However, when I read something that is spiritual, I know it immediately.
v
Those are my dilemmas today.  Whiteness.  Water.  Spiritual writing.  Somehow, they're all swimming together in my head, coalescing.  Perhaps they'll all related in some way.  I guess I'll find out.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for muscles that work, whiteness that purifies, and writing that reaches toward something bigger.

February 7: Unstuck in Time, Snowstorm, Hallucinating

Billy Pilgrim had stopped in the forest,  He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed.  His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring.  He was like a poet in the Parthenon.

This was when Billy first came unstuck in time.  His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light.  There wasn't anybody else there, or any thing.  There was just violet light--and a hum.

And then Billy swung into life again, going backwards until he was in pre-birth, which was red light and bubbling sounds.  And then he swung into life again and stopped.  He was a little boy taking a shower with his hairy father at Ilium Y.M.C.A.  He smelled chlorine from the swimming pool next door, heard the springboard boom.

Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim.  His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim.

It was like an execution.  Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool.  His eyes were closed.  When he opened his eyes, he was on the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere.  He lost consciousness, but the music went on.  He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him.  Billy resented that.

Billy is walking through a forest behind enemy lines when he first comes unstuck in time.  I just spent a couple hours digging out from a snowstorm.  By about the hour-and-a-half mark, I think I became unstuck in time.  At the very least I was hallucinating.

I was suddenly back at the first apartment my wife and I shared after we got married.  I had an empty ice cream gallon bucket, and I was scooping snow off my front porch, because I didn't have a shovel.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It was four o'clock in the morning, and I was pushing snow when the city plows blew by, burying my car once again.  I stood there, swearing and shaking my head.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It was the night my daughter was born, and I was sweeping off my car.  The snow slammed into my face.  I was going home to check on our cocker spaniel.  My wife was in labor, but my daughter was in no hurry to appear.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  Christmas lights blinked up and down the block.  The snowdrifts glowed green and red and blue.  It was December 24.  My sister was babysitting our newborn son.  It was six years from the time she would get sick.  Seven years from the time she would die.  And the snow just kept on coming.

I closed my eyes and opened them again.  It's the present.  I can hear the plow guy outside my parents' house, pushing the snow into the field.  It sounds like a roaring lion.  And the snow just keeps on coming.

My life seems like a series of snowstorms, interrupted by short reprieves of spring, summer, and fall.

Saint Marty is thankful for snow shovels tonight.

January 10: Flying Saucer, Doctor's Appointment, In a Zoo

When Billy finally got home to Ilium after the airplane crash, he was quiet for a while.  He had a terrible scar across the top of his skull.  He didn't resume practice.  He had a housekeeper.  His daughter came over almost every day.

And then, without any warning, Billy went to New York City, and got on an all-night radio program devoted to talk.  He told about having come unstuck in time.  He said, too, that he had been kidnapped by a flying saucer in 1967.  The saucer was from the planet Tralfamadore, he said.  He was taken to Tralfamadore, where he was displayed naked in a zoo, he said.  He was mated there with a former Earthling movie star named Montana Wildhack.

To paraphrase Han Solo, here's where the fun begins in Slaughterhouse Five.  Billy time jumping.  Billy abducted by aliens and kept in a zoo with the beautiful Montana Wildhack.  Suddenly, Vonnegut's Dresden book morphs into a 1950s porno science fiction flick.  Billy becomes a prophet and a patient.  You're not quiet sure if he's telling the truth or belongs in a mental institution.

I had a doctor's appointment today.  Saw a liver and digestive disease specialist.  As I was sitting in the exam room, waiting for the doctor to appear, I stared out of the windows.  There's a snowstorm blowing through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan right now, so the scene below looked almost like a Christmas card.  Cars mounded with snow.  The air a frenzy of white.

Waiting for a doctor to show up is a humbling experience.  I wasn't quite sure what he was going to say, what course of treatment he was going to recommend.  I was sort of at the mercy of a man that I had never even met.  I sort of felt like Billy Pilgrim in the zoo on Tralfamadore.  A specimen to observe and probe.

Thank goodness, the doctor was nice.  A little too serious, but that's okay.  When you're talking about family histories of bleeding ulcers and stomach cancer, you probably want a guy who's earnest and concerned.  (Please don't worry.  I do not have a bleeding ulcer or stomach cancer.  Those were just a couple of the questions the doctor asked.)

I left the hospital with an appointment for an upper endoscopy.  I walked out into a world of cold and white.  There's always a strange stillness that descends in a snowstorm.  I felt like I was stepping into an Edward Hopper painting, the world all muffled and lonely.  Like I was entering the deserted Automat.  So it goes.

That was Saint Marty's afternoon.  In a zoo on Tralfmadore. Waiting for the alien probe.

March 17: His Host, Prolonged Absence, Relief, Go To Bed

I think that the dying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door...

Don't ask me why I chose this passage.  Perhaps it's because I'm dead tired.  Perhaps I'm trying to be thankful for my crazy, hectic, exhausting life.  Or perhaps I just opened up Pilgrim at Tinker Creek to a random page, and that's where my eyes came to rest. 

I have been absent for a couple of days from this blog.  I have been sick.  The bug which has been slowly claiming victims in my house finally claimed me.  I will not go into all the ugly details, but I did miss some work yesterday, and I almost canceled my classes.  Almost.

Today I was feeling about 70 percent better, despite having to get up at 5 a.m. to dig myself out from a St. Patrick's Day snowstorm.  My kids got the day off from school.  My wife got to stay home from work because my kids had a snow day.  And I slogged through the slush and wind in order be a model employee.

And then, tonight, I spent four hours working on assignments for my online class on teaching online classes.  I am getting a little frustrated with my life at the moment.  I'm sick.  I'm tired.  And I see very little relief in sight.

Saint Marty just wants to go to bed and sleep until his life is simpler.

October 31: A Monk, Halloween, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven," Confessions of Saint Marty

Yet while a lot of the street kids wanted to be Superman or like the Paladin character on Have Gun Will Travel on television, his son's mind always drifted in a certain direction.  In those days, anything regarding the church seemed to fascinate him.  He remembered how one of the old Puerto Rican ladies who lived in the building would say, "Su hijo es un angel?"  How the boy had memorized his Baltimore catechism, memorized all the altar-boy Latin for the Mass in the good old days before it was changed by the reforms of the Ecumenical Council, how he had actually dressed up as a monk on Halloween one year.

Ives' son, Robert, is a different boy.  While his friends are into superheroes and cowboys, Robert meditates God and life after death.  There's a depth to his thinking, as if, in some way, he knows his destiny.  He loves going to church.  Loves the prayers and incense.  Even when he goes trick-or-treating at Halloween, Robert walks a different path--eschewing the "normal" for the sacred and holy.

My children are not dressing up as nuns or monks or saints today.  When they hit the neighborhood to gather their sugared and chocolate-covered booty, they will both be dressed as ninjas.  It's cold and rainy this Halloween morning.  The rain is supposed to last all day, into the night.  Last year, we had a snowstorm, so a little rain doesn't bother me.

Once the sun starts to go down, we will visit the neighbors' houses, and they will say stuff like, "I can't believe how big your kids are getting!"  My son will walk for a while and then start complaining that his feet are sore or that he's too cold.  My daughter will grow impatient with her brother and start sighing and snapping at him.  We will hop in my car and visit the houses of friends and aunts.  And, at the end of the night, I will carry the pumpkins into the front porch.  They will smell of wax and burned squash.  Perhaps I will hop in the shower to warm up.  Then, I will flop on the couch, turn on the TV, and try to find an old horror movie.

That will be my Halloween, barring any unforeseen circumstances, like torn costumes or sudden illness or a blood battle between my kids.

Saint Marty loves Halloween.

The Raven

by:  Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
''Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
''Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-
This it is, and nothing more.'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
'Sir,' said I, 'or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you'- here I opened wide the door;-
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 'Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 'Lenore!'-
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
'Surely,' said I, 'surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;-
'Tis the wind and nothing more.'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and
flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed
he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door-
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, 'art sure no
craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as 'Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered-
Till I scarcely more than muttered, 'other friends have flown
before-
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, 'Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
'Doubtless,' said I, 'what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore-
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never- nevermore'.'

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and
door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he
hath sent thee
Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

'Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,' I shrieked,
upstarting-
'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the
floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore!

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 19: Gratitude Forty-Six, Quiet Morning, Billy Collins, "Today," New Cartoon

Then came a quiet morning when Mr. Zuckerman opened a door on the north side.  A warm draft of rising air blew softly through the barn cellar.  The air smelled of the damp earth, of the spruce woods, of the sweet springtime.

On this day of the Easter vigil, I've been thinking about spring.  A lot.  I'm ready for a warm draft of rising air and the smell of damp earth.  Two days after our last big snowstorm, the world is melting once more.  The banks in my front yard have dwindled.  The snowman my kids made on Thursday is nothing but a pile of slush and sticks.

Tonight, I will be going to church at nine o'clock for the Easter mass.  A beautiful service of candles and incense and music.  It will last a couple of hours.  By the time it's over, it will almost be midnight.  Easter.

I have a poem about spring for you guys today.  It's by former U. S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins.

And it pretty much sums up what Saint Marty feels grateful for today.  Enjoy.


Today

by:  Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 16: Gratitude Forty-Three

I'm having a hard time with gratitude tonight.

There's a snowstorm bearing down on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the moment.  Another snowstorm.  If you're keeping count, that would be the second one this week.  Last week, I had convinced myself that spring had finally arrived.  This evening, I have convinced myself that the world is coming to an end.

So, on this wintry eve, I am grateful for a warm blanket and bed, which is where I'm headed in a few minutes.

Tomorrow, Saint Marty hopes to be grateful for a snowstorm that completely blows past us.  Yes, he's in denial.  It's a beautiful place with palms trees and a pink sunset on a Hawaiian beach.  Aloha!

Care to join me?

April 11: Snow and Poetry

Tonight is a night for snow and poetry.

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is bracing for a huge snowstorm overnight.  Up to 14 inches where I live in the highlands of Marquette County.  It's supposed to start falling later this evening and last until Saturday morning.  It's the same storm that has pretty much paralyzed Minnesota.  In the U.P., it will simply add five to ten minutes onto the morning commute.  However, I am tired of snow.

The other thing going on tonight is a poetry reading by a good friend of mine at the local library.  He's reading from his newly published book of poems, and I'm planning to attend.  I've even offered my students extra credit for showing up and writing a paper about it.  I'm just hoping that, by the time the reading is over, I'm not going to be driving home in a blizzard.  I've done that quite a few times.  It isn't fun.

That is what's on Saint Marty's agenda.  To quote Wallace Stevens, Saint Marty has "a mind of winter" tonight.

This is what my drive home is going to be like this evening

November 19: Brother, To Play or Not to Play?, New Cartoon

I saw my oldest brother this morning.  He came up from Pennsylvania for rifle deer season.  He and his wife stayed at my dad's camp all week and hunted.  Not my idea of a vacation.  Outhouse and no running water and surrounded by, well, nothing but trees.  Anyway, they were leaving for home this morning, and they stopped by McDonald's where we were having breakfast.

It was really good to see them both.  They haven't been up our way for close to four or five years.  My brother's wife is one of the few in-laws I have who is actually normal.  I wish we'd had more time to visit, but it just didn't work out that way.  They wanted to kill deer, and I was working and trying to survive another week of teaching.  We all have our priorities.

There's supposed to be a huge snowstorm blowing in this afternoon and evening.  Another foot of snow, according to some reports.  My wife and I are supposed to go see a musical tonight at the university--A Year with Frog and Toad.  We have a babysitter lined up and everything.  (That's quite a feat these days for us.)  Now, we're wondering if we should risk the trip.  By the time the show lets out, the storm will be in full swing.  Perhaps we should just stay home in our PJs and watch the Thanksgiving episode of The Lawrence Welk Show.  We called our babysitter, and she said to just give her a call later if we decide not to go.  So the question is, to play or not to play?

I have a new cartoon for you this afternoon.  Yes, I'm getting in the Christmas spirit.  I put up my tree last night and watched the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol.  One of my traditions at the beginning of the holiday season is compiling a huge, unwieldy Christmas list for myself.  That is the inspiration for today's installment of Confessions of Saint Marty.  By the way, once I compile my list, I will be posting it, in case any of my disciples are at a loss for what to get me for Christmas.

Saint Marty needs to go check the weather now.

Confessions of Saint Marty

November 9: Got To Be Kidding, Best Drink, Snowstorm

I just looked at the latest Blog of Note (BON).  It's another artist blog.  Looks like the artist/blogger just finished illustrating some kind of book.  My reaction when I looked at his blog:  you have got to be kidding.  Really, it seems like strong written content doesn't mean a hill of beans to the people of Blogger.  It's about art and food and fashion and baby pictures.  Don't worry about being a good writer.  The thing that bothered me the most about the latest BON was that there was no gushy post from the  said blogger about how excited and surprised he was.  No welcome to all his new followers.  No thanks to the people of Blogger for giving him the honor.  Nothing.  Now, I know that being named a BON isn't exactly like winning an Oscar or a Pulitzer Prize, but I want to see some kind of reaction.  Anyway, I was just a little torqued this morning.

My wife and I went out on a date last night.  We traveled to a local micro-brewery, even though we're not beer drinkers.  I ordered a peppermint patty, which is a hot chocolate spiked with a healthy dose of peppermint schnapps.  Quite good.  We also ordered a heaping plate of every deep-fried appetizer on the menu:  waffle fries, mozzarella cheese sticks, mushrooms, and chicken fingers.  It was delicious, but I was paying for it for the rest of the evening and into the night, gastro-intestinally speaking.

There is a winter storm warning in effect for my little area of the world today.  Depending upon which weather report you believe, we could be in for anywhere from three to eleven inches of thick, white, heavy rain.  I was really hoping this little winter event was going to blow past us, either to the west or east.  No such luck.  I guess I better drag out the old snow boots.

Saint Marty is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weather day.

Not quite ready for this shit!