July 16: George Burns, Jericho Brown, "The Burning Bush"

I wish that God sort of worked the way He did in Biblical times.  (Okay, not like in Sodom and Gomorrah, burn everything to the ground.  More like, an angel shows up at your door for supper every once in a while.)  Life would be so much easier if God made His will a little more apparent.

Now, I know that we have the Bible.  Everything we need to know is contained in its pages.  But wouldn't it be cool if God made an appearance every once in a while, like he did for Moses on top of Mount Horeb?  Heck, I'd even be happy if He showed up like George Burns every once in a while, smoking a stogie and making bad jokes, like in Oh, God!  I want God to come right out and tell me the purpose of my life. 

It doesn't have to be anything as showy as a burning bush.  It could be a simple Tweet, with a hashtag like "#IAM."  I know things weren't simple or easy in ancient Israel.  There are way too many crucifixions for me to believe that.  But God used to make a few more personal appearances than He does nowadays. 

I'm not complaining, because I don't want to be struck by lightning or leprosy.  I simply want a map, telling me what my next move is.  Should I look for a full-time job at another university?  Or should I concentrate on writing a new book?  If Donald Trump gets elected as President of the United States, should I move to Canada?

Those are Saint Marty's burning questions.  Now, where's the burning bush?

The Burning Bush

by:  Jericho Brown

Lizard’s shade turned torch, what thorns I bore
Nomadic shepherds clipped. Still,
I’ve stood, a soldier listening for the word,
Attack, a prophet praying any ember be spoken
Through me in this desert full of fugitives.
Now, I have a voice. Entered, I am lit. 
Remember me for this sprouting fire,
For the lash of flaming tongues that lick
But do not swallow my leaves, my flimsy
Branches. No ash behind, I burn to bloom. 
I am not consumed. I am not consumed.

Hello, God.  It's me, Saint Marty.

July 16: Goldfish Bowl, Augustus, a Confession

Something else is happening in the goldfish bowl.  There on the kitchen table, nourished by the simple plank of complex light, the plankton is blooming.  The water yellows and clouds; a transparent slime coats the leaves of the water plant, elodea; a blue-green film of single-celled algae clings to the glass.  And I have to clean the doggone bowl.  I'll spare you the details:  it's the plant I'm interested in.  While Ellery [Dillard's goldfish] swims in the stoppered sink, I rinse the algae down the drain of another sink, wash the gravel, and rub the elodea's many ferny leaves under running water until they feel clean.

Dillard buys a goldfish.  She puts it in a bowl on her kitchen table.  If anyone would know how to take proper care of a goldfish, it's Dillard, who makes a habit of examining the complexities of the universe, from dwarf planets to red blood cells.  Ellery is in good hands.

Let me tell you a little story about my attempt at raising goldfish.  I was quite young at the time (let's say eight years old).  One day, my older brother brought me to the local Woolworth's store and bought me a goldfish.  It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, if I remember correctly.  I carried the fishbowl into my bedroom and put it on my dresser.  I don't remember if I ever named the fish, but let's call him Augustus.

Augustus was a good fish.  When I sprinkled food on the top of his water, he rose and munched, drifted back down to watch the show outside of his bowl for a while, and then rose again for another bite.  Sort of like sitting in front the the television, eating pizza.  The first week of Augustus' life was great.

Then, the novelty of owning a fish wore off.  I was eight years old and had a busy life.  I still fed him, at night, just before bed.  But something started happening in his bowl.  The glass got a little slimy, and the water started giving off a slightly funky aroma.  My bedroom started to smell a little like dead worms.  One day, my mother told me, "You need to clean that fishbowl."

Well, never in my eight-year-old mind did I contemplate the possibility that owning a goldfish would require that kind of care.  I thought it would simply be a matter of sprinkling a few flakes of food into the bowl every day, and that was it.  Augustus would clean his own room, just like me.

So, I cleaned the fishbowl.  A week later, the dead worm smell returned.  My mother made me clean it again.  Another week, more dead worm smell.  I was done.  I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea.  Now, please remember that I was eight-years-old and had no concept of the biology of living things.  After I cleaned Augustus' fishbowl and filled it with fresh water, I added some dish soap to keep it cleaner for a little longer.

I put Augustus back in his bowl, quite pleased with myself, and went off to fight Captain Hook or Darth Vader.  That night, as I was getting ready for bed, I looked over at Augustus.

There he was, doing the back float at the surface of the water.  At first, I thought he was simply practicing a fishy version of the backstroke.  But, after tapping his belly a few times with my finger and seeing him bob up and down like a piece of cork, I realized that my goldfish had gone to the Big Lake in the Sky.

I quickly gave Augustus a burial at sea in the toilet, dumped out and washed the fishbowl, and put all the incriminating evidence away, hoping nobody would notice.  My mother never said a word.  I think she was happily relieved that the great goldfish experiment was over.

I tell you this story as a confession.  I am a goldfish murderer.

It was Saint Marty, in the bedroom, with the Dawn detergent.,

July 15: Being a Dad, Jericho Brown, "Prayer of the Backhanded"

Being a dad is not an easy job.  I always worry that I'm not doing enough.  Not earning enough money to give my family the things they need.  There's still a hole in my kitchen ceiling.  My 15-year-old daughter is still sharing a bedroom with her seven-year-old brother.  My wife needs a new pair of shoes.  The list goes on and on.

I can't afford to take my kids on vacations to Disney World or Harry Potter World.  I would love to take my wife on a trip to Italy, visit Rome, see the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi.  I have not made life choices that make these things possible, and it bothers me sometimes.  I think of it as father guilt.

My dad is a hard guy.  Not very emotionally available.  I've always known that he is proud of my accomplishments, but I've never felt like I could go to him for advice about anything beyond a leaky faucet or backed-up sewer.  That's just the way he's always been.  I can't ask an eighty-something-year-old man to change.  (He never spared the rod, either.  That's the way he was brought up.  His dad, my grandpa, once got mad at a cow on his farm and grabbed its horn, twisting it until it bent sideways.  The cow shuddered and moaned for days.)

Yes, fatherhood is a tough occupation.  (So is motherhood.  I'm in no way trying to diminish mothers with this post.)  Jericho Brown knows a thing or two about tough fathers.

However, Saint Marty is not a tough dad.  He's more of a teenage girl.

Prayer of the Backhanded

by:  Jericho Brown

Not the palm, not the pear tree
Switch, not the broomstick,
Nor the closet extension
Cord, not his braided belt, but God,
Bless the back of my daddy’s hand
Which, holding nothing tightly
Against me and not wrapped
In leather, eliminated the air
Between itself and my cheek.
Make full this dimpled cheek
Unworthy of its unfisted print
And forgive my forgetting
The love of a hand
Hungry for reflex, a hand that took
No thought of its target
Like hail from a blind sky,
Involuntary, fast, but brutal
In its bruising. Father, I bear the bridge
Of what might have been
A broken nose. I lift to you
What was a busted lip. Bless
The boy who believes
His best beatings lack
Intention, the mark of the beast.
Bring back to life the son
Who glories in the sin
Of immediacy, calling it love.
God, save the man whose arm
Like an angel’s invisible wing
May fly backward in fury
Whether or not his son stands near.
Help me hold in place my blazing jaw
As I think to say, excuse me.

July 15: Fullness, Perfection, Alfred Hitchcock

Here in the May valley, fullness is at a peak.  All the plants are fully leafed, but intensive insect damage hasn't begun.  The leaves are fresh, whole, and perfect.  Light in the sky is clear, unfiltered by haze, and the sun hasn't yet withered the grass.

Dillard is describing a perfect scene.  Perfect plants.  Perfect light.  Perfect sky.  Perfect grass.  Of course, she is not a pie-in-the-sky kind of writer.  She knows that, in a little while, the insects are going to show up and eat the leaves.  The sun will transition from May to June and July, and the grass will shrivel up, turn yellow and brittle in the heat.  Perfection is a mirage.  Beautiful and fleeting.

I took my son to see The Secret Life of Pets tonight.  A cute animated feature that he's been talking about for about a month.  I got my buttered popcorn and Diet Mountain Dew, settled in, and listened to my son laugh his ass off for over an hour.  It was, dare I say it, a perfect way to end the work week.

Then I came out of the theater and discovered that a bird had shit all over my new car.  I'm not talking one little spot.  It looked like the entire avian cast of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds had decided to use my vehicle as an outhouse.  There you have it.  Perfection giving way to reality.

Let me give you another example.  After the movie, my son went to play with a neighbor boy.  After a little while, my son came inside, near tears.  It seems his friend, who is a couple of years younger than him, was riding a four wheeler by himself.  "Not a baby one," my son said.  "It was a big one that needs gas."  And just like that, my son's perfect night of movie and play was ruined by the injustice of the situation.  A little kid could ride a four wheeler, but he couldn't.  "And he has his own phone, too," my son said.

As Dillard points out, perfection is illusory.  There are always clouds of insects waiting to swoop in and devour the trees and bushes, brutal days of sun to dry up the green of summer.

Saint Marty is going to try to have a perfect night.  Say his prayers early.  Maybe read a good book.  Of course, he'll probably end up dozing off on the couch and wake up with a severe case of gastrointestinal distress.  Reality's a bitch.