March 15: Weeping, Driving Home from Work, Thankful for Tears

He went for a nap after lunch.  He was under doctor's orders to take a nap every day.  The doctor hoped that this would relieve a complaint that Billy had:  Every so often, for no apparent reason, Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping.  Nobody ever caught Billy doing it.  Only the doctor knew.  It was an extremely quiet thing Billy did, and not very moist.

Strange.  I just read this little passage from Slaughterhouse, and it struck home.  Hard.  In the last few weeks, I've found myself similarly weepy, like Billy.  I've tried to figure out the reason for this "complaint," as Vonnegut terms it.  I haven't been sleeping well, so that could be the reason.  It's crunch time in the semester, and I'm a little overwhelmed with school work (grading and such).  I'm still trying to get my footing as Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  Another possibility:  I work with my best friend, and she recently took another job.  So she's leaving.  Finally, I've been thinking a whole lot about my sister who died.  A lot.

On Monday night, as I was driving home from work after teaching my night class, I passed the cemetery where my sister is buried.  Out of the blue, I started weeping, thinking how proud she would have been of my recent accomplishments--promotion at the university, Poet Laureate.  That little crying jag lasted about twenty minutes, until I pulled into my driveway.  It wasn't a quiet thing, like Billy Pilgrim.  It was ugly.

Perhaps I should take the advice of Billy's doctor and nap every day.  I don't know when I would do that.  My life during the week doesn't really allow for breaks, let alone naps.  Frankly, even if I got to bed at 8 p.m., I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference when it comes to this problem.

I don't think that I'll be able to figure out the root cause of my bouts of tears.  It could be a combination of all the things I listed above.  Or it could be none of them.  All I know is that a nap sounds really good to me right now.

Saint Marty is thankful for having things to cry about.  It means that he's alive.

November 10: Phenomenal Poet, Maya Angelou, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

This week's poet is the great Maya Angelou.

I have loved Angelou since she read her poem at Bill Clinton's first Inauguration.  I can still see her standing at the podium on that cold January morning, her breath fogging in the air.  All the faces upturned to the sunlight of her words.  Some people were weeping.  Others were smiling and nodding.

Maya Angelou knew how to stir people's souls.

Saint Marty bows before a phenomenal poet.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by:  Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The caged bird keeps singing...

September 1: Poetry Headaches, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

I have been working all day on my new poem.  I've made some progress, but I'm still not ready to send it out into the world yet.  Sorry, folks.

However, I do have a Classic Saint Marty to share today.  This episode first aired on May 8, 2011.  It was Mother's Day, and I wrote a poem that I read at a church service.  I won't give anything away.

Let's just say it wasn't one of Saint Marty's proudest moments.

May 8:  Mother's Day, Poem, Weeping

It is Mother's Day in the United States.  Aside from Christmas, more people got to church on this day than on any other Sunday in the calendar year.  I guess kids feel obligated to make their moms happy, even if it means having to rise early, dress up, and attend a worship service.  Anything for mom.  I also imagine this day is the biggest for people going to Sunday brunch at restaurants, as well.  One or two days out of the year, we all fulfill our sonly or daughterly obligations.  Tomorrow we can all go back to being our normal, self-centered selves.

At church today, I read my new poem.  I wrote it last night because I wasn't happy with one of my old poems I was going to use.  It didn't seem quite right to me.  So, after Lawrence Welk was over last night, I sat down and wrote the poem at the end of this post.  It took me about an hour-and-a-half.  Of course, I'd been thinking about the poem most of the day.  I had it pretty much all planned out.  That's why it didn't take me too long.

When I read my poem this morning, my one goal was not to cry when I read it.  I practiced it five or six times without getting too emotional.  I thought I was free and clear.  Then the pastor decided to play a video that got the entire congregation and the choir weeping.  I could feel the tears sitting in my throat like a fist afterward.  I knew I was sunk.  I got to the last three lines of the poem, and I choked up, started to cry.  After about 15 or 20 seconds, I was able to finish.  Then I had to sit down and play Schubert's "Ave Maria."  Holy crap, I think every Kleenex box in the place was empty.  My friend who was singing the song lost composure about half-way through.  Everybody was sobbing.

I guess talking, thinking, singing, writing about mothers does this to people.  I think it has something to do with mothers' selfless love.  It's a love that goes on and on, through childhood, through adulthood, and beyond.  It's the kind of love I think God has for each and every one of us.  That's what Mother's Day is really about.

Saint Marty wishes all mothers a blessed, peaceful day.

For Mother's Day at Mitchell U.M.C.

I was 18 the first time I saw
My mother cry.  Arthritis invaded
Her spine, stiffened her vertebrae
Until, on that morning, she couldn't
Cough or lift a coffee cup without
Feeling whipped, scourged.
She'd given birth to nine children,
Her youngest daughter with Down's,
A baby the doctors told her to forget,
Put in an institution, walk away,
Erase, like a hurricane after waters recede.
But Mother brought my sister
Home, began the hard work of mothering.
Feeding,  Diapers.  Teaching.  Colors.
Letters.  Numbers.  Watched my sister
Laugh, walk, speak, do all the things
Doctors said she would never do.
My sister flourished like an orchid
In the hothouse of my mother's love,
Became exotic and beautiful, healthy.
If my mother cried when the doctors
Used the words "mongoloid," "retarded,"
She never said.  If she cried
When my sister took her first impossible
Step, she never said.  If she cried
When my sister first called her "mommy,"
She never said.  The day I saw my mother
Cry, she felt helpless, old, reduced.
Like Mary, she realized she couldn't
Carry every cross for her baby. 
Ave, Mother, Ave.

Confessions of Saint Marty

May 7: Started to Cry, Saint Arsenius, the Gift of Tears

Then, all of a sudden, I started to cry.  I couldn't help it.  I did it so nobody could hear me, but I did it.  It scared hell out of old Phoebe when I started doing it, and she came over and tried to make me stop, but once you get started, you can't just stop on a goddam dime.  I was still sitting on the edge of the bed when I did it, and she put her old arm around my neck, and I put my arm around her, too, but I still couldn't stop for a long time...

I've written about this passage in Catcher before.  It's Holden at his most vulnerable, when all of his sarcastic defenses are down.  Phoebe has just given him her Christmas money ($8.65), and Holden is overwhelmed.  Of course, it's a young child who causes him to finally release some of his pent-up grief.  He's safe with Phoebe.  He knows Phoebe loves him unconditionally.
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When I was reading through the Lives of the Saints this morning, I came across the following passage about Saint Arsenius, whose feast day is May 8:  "He also had the gift of tears to a surprising degree."  The little biography of Arsenius provides no details about these tears, or why they are considered a gift.  The detail intrigued me, so I did a little research on the Internet, and I came across this description from Pope Shenouda III:

Saint Arsenius is one of the saints who became very famous for his weeping.  It is said that his eyelashes fell due to the intensity of his weeping, and that two cavities formed on his cheeks because of his weeping.  During summer, he would wet the palm leaves with his tears, and he placed a piece of cloth on his knees for his tears to fall on.  At the time of his death he wept intensely and his disciples said to him, "Truly, Father, are you also afraid?"  "Indeed," he answered them, "the fear which is mine at this hour has been with me ever since I became a monk."

Arsenius wept out of sadness and fear, Shenouda goes on to say.  He wept because he knew how much he failed in life, and how much those failures grieved God's loving heart.  Arsenius didn't cry for forgiveness.  He knew he was forgiven already.  Arsenius cried because he had failed to live up to God's unconditional love.

I think that's why Holden sits on Phoebe's bed weeping, as well.  He knows Phoebe loves him, no matter what he does.  She loves him so much that she's willing to give him all of her savings.  It's that sacrifice that drives Holden to the gift of tears.  When faced with that kind of love, tears are a natural response, I think.

I'm lucky enough to have a wife and daughter and son who love me unconditionally.  I know that, if I go home tonight and yell at my daughter because she hasn't practiced her flute, or get angry with my wife because she hasn't made the beds or done the dishes in the kitchen sink, or lose patience with my son because he left a pile of toys in the bathtub, they will all still love me in the morning.  When I think about how much love I have in my life, it drives a fist of tears into my throat.

Tears are usually associated with loss and grief and sorrow.  However, it is through tears that loss and grief and sorrow are transformed into something healing.  Memory.  Laughter.  Hope.  Love.

Saint Marty thinks Holden and Saint Arsenius are onto something.

Tears--the gift that keeps on giving

May 8: Mother's Day, Poem, Weeping

Mother's Love

It is Mother's Day in the United States.  Aside from Christmas, more people got to church on this day than on any other Sunday in the calendar year.  I guess kids feel obligated to make their moms happy, even if it means having to rise early, dress up, and attend a worship service.  Anything for mom.  I also imagine this day is the biggest for people going to Sunday brunch at restaurants, as well.  One or two days out of the year, we all fulfill our sonly or daughterly obligations.  Tomorrow we can all go back to being our normal, self-centered selves.

At church today, I read my new poem.  I wrote it last night because I wasn't happy with one of my old poems I was going to use.  It didn't seem quite right to me.  So, after Lawrence Welk was over last night, I sat down and wrote the poem at the end of this post.  It took me about an hour-and-a-half.  Of course, I'd been thinking about the poem most of the day.  I had it pretty much all planned out.  That's why it didn't take me too long.

When I read my poem this morning, my one goal was not to cry when I read it.  I practiced it five or six times without getting too emotional.  I thought I was free and clear.  Then the pastor decided to play a video that got the entire congregation and the choir weeping.  I could feel the tears sitting in my throat like a fist afterward.  I knew I was sunk.  I got to the last three lines of the poem, and I choked up, started to cry.  After about 15 or 20 seconds, I was able to finish.  Then I had to sit down and play Schubert's "Ave Maria."  Holy crap, I think every Kleenex box in the place was empty.  My friend who was singing the song lost composure about half-way through.  Everybody was sobbing.

I guess talking, thinking, singing, writing about mothers does this to people.  I think it has something to do with mothers' selfless love.  It's a love that goes on and on, through childhood, through adulthood, and beyond.  It's the kind of love I think God has for each and every one of us.  That's what Mother's Day is really about.

Saint Marty wishes all mothers a blessed, peaceful day.

For Mother's Day at Mitchell U.M.C.

I was 18 the first time I saw
My mother cry.  Arthritis invaded
Her spine, stiffened her vertebrae
Until, on that morning, she couldn't
Cough or lift a coffee cup without
Feeling whipped, scourged.
She'd given birth to nine children,
Her youngest daughter with Down's,
A baby the doctors told her to forget,
Put in an institution, walk away,
Erase, like a hurricane after waters recede.
But Mother brought my sister
Home, began the hard work of mothering.
Feeding,  Diapers.  Teaching.  Colors.
Letters.  Numbers.  Watched my sister
Laugh, walk, speak, do all the things
Doctors said she would never do.
My sister flourished like an orchid
In the hothouse of my mother's love,
Became exotic and beautiful, healthy.
If my mother cried when the doctors
Used the words "mongoloid," "retarded,"
She never said.  If she cried
When my sister took her first impossible
Step, she never said.  If she cried
When my sister first called her "mommy,"
She never said.  The day I saw my mother
Cry, she felt helpless, old, reduced.
Like Mary, she realized she couldn't
Carry every cross for her baby. 
Ave, Mother, Ave.