February 29: "Random," Leap Day, Control Freak

Billy Collins plays darts . . . 

Random

by:  Billy Collins

Tossing a dart

at an open encyclopedia,

I happen to hit a flying squirrel.

Their kind, the entry explains,

as I close in,

are seldom seen

due to their nocturnal habits

and high dwelling places.

So much there to admire!

It isn't easy to find something interesting to write about on a daily basis.  It often feels like throwing darts at an open encyclopedia, as Collins does in this poem.  He ends up writing about flying squirrels.  Tonight, my dart has landed on leap day.  

In my time on this planet, I have lived through 14 leap days.  (Yes, you can now figure out how old I am, which is right between "ouch" and "boing!")  I know some people who take this gift of extra time very seriously.  They make a point of leaping every February 29th--doing something they have never done before.  Sky diving.  Oil painting.  Cake decorating.  Distance running.  Poetry writing.  

I've never really taken a leap of faith like that, and I'm not about to start today.  I'm a creature of habit and routine.  Purposely upsetting the applecart of my life is not a practice I enjoy.  Perhaps its a matter of control.  Translation:  I'm a control freak.  I eat the same breakfast every day.  (I'm also an insulin-dependent diabetic, so that helps me control my blood sugars.)  I watch the same movie for weeks on end.  Read the same poems over and over and over.  Know what I'm having for dinner tomorrow night and the night after that.

About the only leap I will make today is into my pajamas.  I've reached the age where a good night is sitting on my couch in my PJs, eating a bowl of Special K, and watching Netflix.  I'm still a night owl.  Have been most of my life.  Falling asleep before 1 a.m.--now that would be a leap for me.

I have friends who do crazy shit all the time--ski jumping, ultramarathoning, voting for Donald Trump.  Perhaps those same friends think that writing poetry is crazy shit.  Maybe it's all relative--one person's leap is another person's everyday.

Saint Marty hopes the next time he throws his dart at an encyclopedia it lands on "nap."

February 28: "Seashore," Best Foot, Driver's Training

Billy Collins watches a bird . . . 

Seashore

by:  Billy Collins

A banded

Piping Plover

puts its best foot forward

then the other.

Piping Plovers are amazing to watch on a beach, running toward the sea, running away from the sea, like kids playing tag on a school playground.  They're feathered puffs of confidence and fear, stepping forward, then retreating.

Like Collins' Piping Plover, I always try to put my best foot forward.  My mantra for most of my life has been "Go big or go home."  If I'm going to succeed, I'm going to succeed spectacularly.  If I'm going to fail, I will do so spectacularly, as well.  Either way, people are going to take notice.

I've had my share of successes, and I've fallen on my face a lot, too.  Of course, that describes most people's lives.  Humans can do amazing things like discover penicillin.  Humans can also fuck things up majorly, as well.  Ask the next polar bear you see swimming from ice floe to ice floe.  Landing on the moon.  Success.  Chernobyl.  Disaster.  You get the idea.

My son started his driver's training class at school a few days ago.  We went to the orientation session for parents and students.  We listened to all of the steps involved in obtaining a Michigan driver's license.  It's not like the good old days when I learned to drive.  For me, I sat in a classroom after school for about a week, took a multiple choice test, drove for a week with an instructor and two other wannabe drivers, and then went to the local Secretary of State office and got my license.  Bada boom bada bing, and I was driving a car.  And all of that was free.

My son's path to driving is much more complicated and much more expensive.  I could tell, watching him at the meeting, that he was really nervous, although he was trying to play it cool.  He didn't know any of the other student drivers, and he was in an unfamiliar school setting.  Plus, he's going to be getting homework.  A lot of it.  Watching him was sort of like watching a banded Piping Plover chasing and fleeing from waves on a seashore.  He was equally confident and terrified.  

I know my son will succeed.  He's smart and funny.  Plus, he knows how much money I paid for him to take this class.  But, he's also very young and unsure of himself.  Basically, a typical teenager, facing a world that's both comfortably familiar and wildly strange.  My job right now is to teach him how to navigate the choppy waters toward adulthood.  

I think most adults forget how difficult being a teenager is.  Sure, young people seem to have more freedom and less responsibility.  Yes, going to school sounds so much easier than punching a time clock and working eight, nine, or ten hours a day.  However, throw into that mix raging hormones and little-to-no impulse control, and you have the recipe for panic attacks and depression.

I love my son.  Like any father, I want him to succeed at everything he does.  However, I know that falling can be just as instructive as running like the wind.  

Win or lose, Saint Marty will always be there for him, whether he's putting his best foot forward or taking three hundred steps back.

February 25: "Thelonious Morning," Beautiful and Sad, Billie Holiday

Billy Collins enjoys some jazz at dawn . . . 

Thelonious Morning

by:  Billy Collins

The breeze was slight

and moved only three

of the six wind chimes, 

which formed a minor chord.

I have Thelonious mornings, when something beautiful and sad exist at the same time.  It could be a crow scraping the air raw with its scream, like Charlie Parker hitting squealing high notes.  Or the sun slowly rhapsodizing clouds from purple to orange to gold at a February daybreak.  Or just the knuckle and bebop of snow under my boots as my dog takes a shit in the backyard.

Jazz is all around, making morning into mourning, evening into elegy.  I'm often awake well into night, open my eyes well before dawn.  So I hear solitary cars gliding down midnight streets and my dog howling softly as she chases the moon in her dreams.  I try to sleep, but my mind doesn't cooperate.  It prefers the company of starlight and skunks and owls.

As I type these words, my house (and everyone in it) is deep breathing its way to tomorrow.  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  I'm tired, but not enough to be exhausted.  Cleaned my house today.  Hosted members of my book club for our monthly conversation.  Spent a few hours grading papers.  Read some.  Scribbled in my journal some.

In these winter doldrums (got that from a good friend who correctly diagnosed my current state of mind), I struggle with motivation and inspiration.  I'm at low tide, and all I can do is sit and stare at a universe of fallen starfish littering the sand.

Don't look for any kind of deep meaning or wisdom from me in this post.  Instead, press the conch shell of night to your ear and listen.

Let Saint Marty know if you hear the sea or Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit."

February 24: "Used Book," Perpetually Tired, Back in the Saddle

Billy Collins reading a . . .

Used Book

by:  Billy Collins

I turn a page

someone dog-eared,

like the bent ear

of a dog who's still lost.

Yes, I have been absent for quite a while.  I know that.  I'd like to say that I've been putting the finishing touches on a novel or collection of poems (I've been doing a little of the latter).  But that's not the reason.  I could claim sickness, but that's not the reason, either.  Teaching?  Nope.  Planning the Great Lakes Poetry Festival for the library where I work?  A little.  Working as an undercover poet for President Biden writing limericks about his predecessor?  Sounds like fun, but no.

The truth of the matter is that I've been tired.  Perpetually tired.  I usually write these blog posts either very early in the morning (when everyone in my house is still asleep) or very late at night (when everyone in my house has gone to bed).  However, my writing impulses have been running on low battery for the last month or so, and all I want to do is . . . sleep.  And once you fall out of a routine, it's hard to pick it up again.

People don't realize the energy it takes to write.  There are constant distractions--laundry to fold, papers to grade, a book to finish, a movie or TV show to watch.  Being able to set all that aside takes willpower and determination.  (Notice I didn't say "inspiration."  If I always waited to be inspired before I pick up a pen to write, I would never write again.)  Writing is plain hard work.

What have I been doing instead or writing?  Well, I've been rereading some of my favorite books and poetry collections.  Books that I've scribbled marginalia in, dog-eared pages of, and memorized passages from.  Old friends.  Collins compares the bent pages of well-loved books to the bent ear of a lost dog.  We're both saying the same thing--the words and pages of used books are comforting in times of chaos and upheaval and exhaustion.

I'm going to try to get back into the writing saddle.  No guarantees what I produce will be profound or funny or even interesting.  The next post I write may simply be my grocery list or a catalogue of Sharon Olds' books on my bookshelf (there are a lot).  But Rome wasn't built in a day, and runners don't start with marathons.  (Apologies for the clichés.  It's the best I can do at the moment.)

So, this lost dog is back home, and hopefully you will be reading a lot more of the Gospel of Saint Marty in the coming days.