November 20: "The Unfortunate Traveler," Vacation, Art

This is not going to be an angry post about the Felon in Chief.  Nor is it going to be about MAGA-hat-wearing mouth breathers.  I figure everyone needs a vacation from that circus.  (This statement doesn't mean, however, I will give up voicing my constant shock and disappointment over his idiotic cabinet appointments and outright lies.)

Billy Collins visits France . . . 

The Unfortunate Traveler

by: Billy Collins

Because I was off to France, I packed 

my camera along with my shaving kit, 

some colorful boxer shorts, and a sweater with a zipper, 

but every time I tried to take a picture 

of a bridge, a famous plaza,

or the bronze equestrian statue of a general, 

there was a woman standing in front of me 

taking a picture of the very same thing, 

or the odd pedestrian blocked my view, 

someone or something always getting between me 

and the flying buttress, the river boat, 

a bright café awning, an unexpected pillar. 

So into the little door of the lens 

came not the kiosk or the altarpiece. 

No fresco or baptistry slipped by the quick shutter. 

Instead, my memories of that glorious summer 

of my youth are awakened now, 

like an ember fanned into brightness, 

by a shoulder, the back of a raincoat, 

a wide hat or towering hairdo— 

lost time miraculously recovered 

by the buttons on a gendarme’s coat 

and my favorite, 

the palm of that vigilant guard at the Louvre.

I hosted a concert at the library this evening.  A good musician friend of mine gathered three of his friends and put on a show.  I wasn't sure how many people to expect, since it was the middle of the week and the weather turned cold and rainy after dark.  (By the way, it's now snowing in my neck of the woods.)  

Well, I guess a lot of people needed a vacation from the insanity of the Felon in Chief, too.  Over 90 people attended.  We all sat, listened, sang along, whistled, clapped.  Just what the doctor ordered.

It was good medicine--the kind that may just get us through the next four or so years.  

Because that's what art can do--lift you up, make you feel less alone or scared or angry or sad.  Art brings people together--whether its music or words or painting or acting or telling jokes or juggling cotton balls.  Art doesn't care about what color your skin is, who you love, how you worship, or where you're from.

All that matters is that you're a human being with a beating heart.

Saint Marty was filled with hope this evening.

September 30: "1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary," Ugliness and Beauty, Common Denominators

Mary Oliver takes a walk in the woods . . . 

1945-1985:  Poem for the Anniversary

by:  Mary Oliver

Sometimes, 

walking for hours through the woods,

I don't know what I'm looking for,

maybe for something

shy and beautiful

to come frisking out of the undergrowth.

Once a fawn did just that.

My dog didn't know

what dogs usually do.

And the fawn didn't know.

As for the doe, she was probably

down in Round Pond, swizzling up

the sweet marsh grass and dreaming

that everything was fine.

                         ∞

The way I'd like to go on living in this world

wouldn't hurt anything.  I'd just go on

walking uphill and downhill, looking around,

and so what if half the time I don't know

what for--

so what if it doesn't come 

to a hill of beans--

so what if I vote liberal,

and am Jewish,

or Lutheran--

or a game warden--

or a bingo addict--

and smoke a pipe?

                         ∞

In the film of Dachau and Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen

the dead rise from the earth

and are piled in front of us, the starved

stare across forty years,

and lush, green, musical Germany

shows again its iron claw, which won't

ever be forgotten, which won't

ever be understood, but which did,

slowly, for years, scrape across Europe.

                         ∞

while the rest of the world

did nothing.

                         ∞

Oh, you never saw

such a good leafy place, and

everything was fine, my dog and the fawn

did a little dance,

they didn't get serious.

Then the fawn clambered away through the leaves

and my gentle dog followed me away.

                         ∞

Oh you never saw such a garden!

A hundred kinds of flowers in bloom!

A waterfall, for pleasure and nothing else!

The garden furniture is white,

tables and chairs in the cool shade.

A man sits there, the long afternoon before him.

He is finishing lunch, some kind

of fruit, chicken, and a salad.

A bottle of wine with a thin and beaded neck.

He fills a glass.

You can tell it is real crystal.

He lifts it to his mouth and drinks peacefully.

It is the face of Mengele.

                         ∞

Later,

the doe came wandering back in the twilight.

She stepped through the leaves.  She hesitated,

sniffing the air.

Then she knew everything.

Humanity can be ugly.  History bears this out.  The world itself is full of grace, and Oliver forages for grace daily, hiking through the wilderness until something shy and beautiful appears before her.  And when that happens, it renews her faith in goodness.

But it's so easy to succumb to pessimism and darkness.  Think of all of the terrible things that human beings have done to each other and this planet.  The Holocaust.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Rwandan genocide.  Native American boarding schools.  Climate change.  Species extinctions.  The Crusades.  The list is endless.  As time marches forward, we keep finding new and innovative ways to reinvent cruelty.  

Oliver's poem is a reminder of both ugliness and beauty.  The fawn and her dog frolic together innocently, unaware that they should be enemies.  They have no instinct for fear or hatred.  Instead, they recognize something kindred--a yearning for fun and companionship.  Oliver juxtaposes this scene with images of the Holocaust and Josef Mengele as an old man--humankind at its absolute worst.

There is the impulse to always be on guard--the doe, coming out of the woods to sniff the air and recognize danger.  Living in a constant state of worry, however, isn't really living.  It's simply surviving, without the possibility of joy or grace.

Oliver's poem is an argument against that kind of existence.  She gives us an alternative:  so what?  So what if a dog and fawn aren't supposed to play together?  So what if I'm Jewish and you're Lutheran?  So what if I'm a game warden and you're a bingo addict?  So what if I voted for Joe Biden and you voted for Donald Trump?  (Okay, that one may be a deal breaker.)

Too much energy is spent on what separates us these days, instead of finding our common denominators.

For those of my disciples who aren't into math, let me put it another way:  we are all human.  We all need the same things:  food, water, shelter, clothing, friendship, and love.  Without these essentials, life becomes difficult, if not impossible.  It doesn't matter what color your skin is or what God, if any, you worship.  Or whether you're male or female or somewhere else on the spectrum.  Or who you love.  

Like Mary Oliver, we're all walking through the woods, uphill and downhill, looking for those grace-filled moments when we don't feel quite so alone.  And when those moments occur, it's like the sun burning through a cloudy day.

Saint Marty will choose sun over clouds every time.