September 4: "Surprise," First Day of School, New Routine

I don't like surprises.  Never have.

I always go into a classroom with a lesson plan; start my days prioritizing tasks; type up itineraries for trips; create lists and lists in my planner so nothing is overlooked or forgotten.

If I'm ever taken by surprise, I've failed in some way.

But Billy Collins has a few surprises up his sleeve . . .

Surprise

by: Billy Collins

This--
according to the voice on the radio,
the host of a classical music program no less--
this is the birthday of Vivaldi.

He would be 325 years old today--

quite bent over, I would imagine,
and not able to see much through his watery eyes.

Surely, he would be deaf by now,
the clothes flaking off him,
hair pitiably sparse.

But we would throw a party for him anyway,
a surprise party where everyone
would hide behind the furniture to listen

for the tap of his cane on the pavement
and the sound of his dry, persistent cough.

There were no surprises for me today.  My son was feeling much better and went to school.  The only thing that caught me off guard was how easy it was to get him to pose for a first-day-of-school photo.  It helped that he was holding his puppy.

When I picked my son up this afternoon, he was fully back into school mode.  Laughing and joking with his friends.  Jumping in the car and grunting at me when I asked how his first day was.  You know, normal, 15-year-old teenage boy behavior.

I'm also trying to settle into my new routine of school and work.  I really should be used to this shift.  I've been doing it for over 30 years now.  Every three or so months, everything changes--summer into autumn into winter into spring.  

But, no surprises today, aside from the fact that I'm coming down with a really nasty cold.

Saint Marty has a dry, persistent cough right now.

March 5: A Pact, Ted, Matthew Gavin Frank, "Antebellum"

The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to.  It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound.  The terms are clear:  if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man.  The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death.  The world came into being with the signing of the contract.  A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  A poet says, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower / Drives my green age."  This is what we know.  The rest is gravy.

The world is a tough place.  As Dillard says, this little piece of rock we live on signed a deal with the devil.  From the day we are born, we are dying.  Freedom.  Time.  Death.  These are our constant companions.  And in the time we have on this planet, we must struggle, relax, mourn, rejoice.  That's what our green age is all about.

I have a friend right now who is in the struggle phase of his green age.  "Ted" has recently admitted to his physician that he has an addiction to prescription narcotics.  As expected, Ted's doctor will not prescribe Ted any more painkillers, and Ted is hurting, psychologically (mainly) and physically.  He's convinced himself that the only thing that will relieve his condition is a narcotic.

I know that Ted is hurting.  Addiction is a terrible thing.  It's debilitating, affecting work and family and health.  It's something that literally controls every waking moment of every day.  I feel terrible for Ted.  Yet, Ted has taken the first step to recovery:  admitting that he has a problem.  Now, he needs to follow through.  Get the help he needs.

I wish that life wasn't full of struggle.  I wish that Ted didn't have any pain.  That his back didn't hurt.  That he didn't have family problems and finance problems and work problems.  Aside from the back problems, I could be Ted.  We all could be Ted.  That's Dillard's point, I think.  The world is all about entropy, the gradual decline into disorder.  That's Ted's story right now.  That's all our story.

When you read this post, think about Ted.  About yourself.  About the world.  We've all signed on the dotted line.  I like to think, however, that the contract is with God instead of the devil.  There is the blind man, Freedom or Time, and his faithful dog, Death.  But God sends us other companions, as well.  Joy.  Relaxation.  Surprise.  Love.

Saint Marty and Ted need to party with those dudes a little more, and maybe have a steak dinner every once in a while with Matt Gavin Frank . . .

Antebellum

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

The tornado inside Adromeda laid seeds
of clover in the sky.  We took the stubble
and dissolved it in the red wine, went into
the basement of the Genome Biology Building
for asylum.

Helene had gone to a funeral that Sunday--
the body of her first lover covered
in tobacco.  She said
that in burial
the screws of the corpse meet a pressure
of any blood not cleaned out,
they shoot into dirt like seeds.  The arms
quickly flare like a chicken's,
and in the downdraft of soil
the teeth clench as if to keep
the earth out.  He was finally rhetorical, she said.

Ernie spat on the floor, unwrapped the stolen corn
from the napkin, saying, "You saw
no such thing, Helene.,"  When I was small,
Helene said, I stood with my father
at Mount Hope Cemetery.  He was fresh
with mind and antebellum.  The crops
were rotting because of the windy season,
we pricked out fingers and let them drip
onto newspaper.  Alice, in a complicated

white dress, with the tornado dropping,
feigned a seizure and wiped
her cheek through the blood.
The rows of clay idols watched

and started to tip in the wind.  Over us,
these shuddering memorials:
A rooster smothering a swallow
and behind us, two dogs

tugging-of-war with a chrysalis,
and an angel cradling a squirrel
between her breasts.  She watched
the rooster tie the swallow in a knot
and in the quake, began
to step over the wind like a plot.

Because I could not stop for Death . . .

September 9: Attention Please, Good News, Prayer of Thanks

Suddenly a voice was heard on the loud speaker.

"Attention, please!" it said.  "Will Mr. Homer Zuckerman bring his famous pig to the judges' booth in front of the grandstand.  A special award will be made there in twenty minutes.  Everyone is invited to attend.  Crate your pig, please, Mr. Zuckerman, and report to the judges' booth promptly!"

The best things in life come as surprises.  Mr. Zuckerman learns that lesson at the end of the book.  Another pig has taken home the blue ribbon at the Fair.  Failure has settled over the Zuckermans and Arables.  And then, the voice on the loud speaker.

I sat down in my office today to do some school work.  As usual, I checked my university e-mail before I started into the tasks at hand.  In my e-mail was a message with the memo line "Your submission to The MacGuffin."  Here we go, I thought.  Another rejection.

It wasn't a rejection.  Two of my poems were accepted by the poetry editor, and the other three are still under consideration for the Fall 2014 issue of the magazine.  I will admit that I read the message.  Then reread it.  Then reread it again.  Then I stood up in the middle of my office and danced a little bit.

It was a surprise.  And it was wonderful.

Tonight, I send out a little prayer of thanksgiving.  I was feeling tired, maybe a little defeated.  I'm still battling my bronchitis.  Yet, I am happy tonight.  Really happy.

For that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

Oh, yeah.  I've got some moves.

March 14: Saint Lazarus, Cat on the Roof, and Psalm 6

I used to fall apart completely when it came to huge life-changes, especially if they took me by surprise.  (Who am I kidding?  I still fall apart.)  I'm a person who needs a long time to adjust to any news.  Let me tell you a little story to illustrate my point.

A man was going on vacation for a couple weeks, and he asked his sister to take care of his pet cat.  After a few days, the man called his sister to see how things were going.

"Well," his sister said, "I hate to tell you this, but your cat ran out into the street and was hit by a car and killed."

The man was shocked.  He said, "You can't just blurt out news like that.  You have to prepare me for it."

"How?" his sister said.

"Well," the man said.  "First, tell me that my cat crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof."

"OK," his sister said.

"Then," the man continued, "tell me that the cat's at the edge of the roof, and it looks like she's going to jump."

"I get it," his sister said.

"Next, tell me that the cat jumped off the roof and is seriously injured, that it doesn't look good."

"Sure," his sister said.

"Then tell me," the man said, "that you took the cat to the vet and the vet worked to save her life for hours, but it was too late.  The cat died."

"That is a better way of doing it," the sister agreed.

"Yes, it is," the man said.  "By the way, how's mom?"

His sister said, "Mom crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof..."

That's a funny joke, but I'm a big believer in its principle.  No surprises.  Just a gradual, slow process of revelation.  Especially if the news is bad.  Of course, anybody who has been reading this blog in its various incarnations for any length of time will know that I consider any change, big or small, bad news.

My wife has been trying to prepare me for the fact that my daughter is reaching puberty.  This is something I don't particularly wish to hear or contemplate.  I prefer to think of her as perpetually six or seven and dependent on me for everything.  I know that is unrealistic and, possibly, psychologically damaging to my daughter, but it really works for me.

In the past, the worst things that have happened in my life have been sudden (finding out about my wife's sexual addiction, for instance).  There was no wife climbing out of the window and onto the roof.  The change was immediate and drastic.

Lazarus, the saint of the day, was an archbishop of Milan in the fifth century.  He didn't have a problem dealing with sudden or drastic change.  During his tenure as archbishop, he had to handle the violent invasion of the Ostrogoths.  Nobody told Lazarus that the Ostrogoths had climbed through the window and were on the roof.  He just dealt with the problem, quickly, efficiently.  With great faith.  He ordered "three days of fast with processions, litanies, and visits to various churches.  It worked, of course.  The Ostrogoths were defeated.

Maybe I can deal with change more positively, like Lazarus.  Prayer.  Fasting.  Maybe my daughter approaching puberty is a good thing...

Nope, that's not working for Saint Marty.  He prefers you start like this:  "Your daughter crawled out of the window and climbed onto the roof..."



The cat's on the roof, developing breasts!

Here's today's psalm, a little happier, a little lighter:

Psalm 6:  As the Deer

As the deer lopes through dark woods

So my soul chases the Lord, over

Birch, fallen and mossy, victim

Of June storms, wind, rain

Shaking its white trunk and limbs

Like God’s voice on the mountain

With Charlton Heston, deep as flood

Water.  Before dawn, the deer leaps

In fog, sure hoofs lifting, reaching

For the true path from tree to tree

To pool to boulder to gully,

Panting, thirsty for running water,

Life-changing water that saves,

Washes leather tongue with the taste

Of God, wild and sweet as raspberry.

The black river rises from forest,

Divides pine and maple in two,

As the heavens from earth, night from day,

Seas from land, beast from man

At the beginning of creation.

The deer bounds into the black river,

Into twin beams, the eyes of Yahweh.

Praise God for car insurance.