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"Darius" aka Paul

Bright Silent Night

A few of you have seen this; I posted it last December on another blog. But I think most of you haven’t, so thought I’d post it as seasonally appropriate. Won’t be able to check back for a while what with work to do around getting the new blog up and running hopefully in the first quarter of 2007.

It was Sunday, but there would be no school tomorrow. Winter break. It was pretty late. It had snowed all afternoon.

“Hey Mom – can we take the sled to the Pines?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mom said. I was thirteen, Lynne five. Even though I called her “Punko Kid” and “Scrubby Head” around the house, I was pretty responsible for her everyplace else.

We dressed in what you needed: long underwear, big mittens over gloves, layers of shirts, knit sweaters, hats, and heavy coats with hoods. We made our way to the door, closing it hard behind us.

I stepped inside the big old barn that was our garage and flicked on the single light bulb that threw its dim yellow light into the large interior. It felt even colder in there than outdoors, like the air had tried to go inside to warm up but didn’t realize there wasn’t any heat in the garage. Lynne waited near the light switch and I went back for the sled – the good new long one.

We pulled it down the driveway and up to the top of the hill. Under the streetlight, I noticed that the whole road was covered with snow.

“Wanna ride over?” I asked, looking from Lynne back down to the sled.

“Okay!” Lynne tottered stiffly in her snowsuit toward the edge and sort of fell backward. I guess it was really the only position she could have assumed.

I tugged hard once on the rope, and the nose lurched to point forward, then edged gently into the street-snow, packed but frosted over with the fine granular grit of the latest layering, as we left the familiar green glow of the street lamp behind us on top of Mt. Vernon to enter the dark tunnel of Grand Street. All the huddled houses had stopped chatting with each other from across the street like normal, while our metal runners whisked through the snow in fresh impressions that I could just make out when I spun around, still pulling, to find Lynne silently staring upward.

And the running runners started to whisper, This is the only time forever that you will be here together to hear this sound, so low that neither of us could make it out, only the whispery sound of it. But I could see that Lynne was going eye to eye with the stars back there, and that they were taking each other in, because she wasn’t moving at all or even talking. And because every once in a while I’d glance up and the stars would try and catch my eyes too, peeping between the tree branches whenever I looked ahead.

The wind blew. Little storms of ice-flakes rattled against my hood and collar. The deep shadows were standing steep and tall at the next dimly lit intersection ahead, looking cold enough to fall over and break. But they held up all right, their black shafts blending back into the dark tree trunks and limbs that reached up for the forever-dark that was glittering.


Always. Always and forever. Only the trees were speaking now, but not to each other, in a chorus of the same long note that no one could hear except us as I paused at the intersection with Noble to listen for cars before crossing, and there wasn’t a single one. And I pulled Lynne, who was still busy forgetting everything and remembering all, into the heavier playground snow that was never ploughed, and on down the first slope, which was gentle. I could still see ahead from the last outreach of the green streetlight at the final intersection behind us as I pulled ahead toward the all-black where I knew the hill was.

“Ya ready?” Lynne woke up from not sleeping and sat up behind me. “Yup!”

Whoosh… I shoved us off down the steep hillside leading toward the ball field that we couldn’t see but knew it was there, the snow steadily flowering in soft explosions that slowed us down to a short stop at the bottom. We sat there under a broad encirclement of trees that intimated forever, between the short breaths that were ours to hear for only a few more seconds.

“Wanna do it again?”

“Yes!” And we trudged back up for one more short ride down. And seeing that the snow was too soft and thick for much of a sled ride, I said, “We should have taken the toboggan.”

“Yeah,” Lynne said.

So we went home again, passing back the same way through the intersection of Grand with Infinity.



“How was it?” Mom asked, as we shook the last snow off our boots and set them in the tray.

“We should have brought the toboggan,” I replied.

“Pretty good!” Lynne added brightly.


Copyright © 2005 Paul Martin

To All from Paul (aka Darius aka PBS)

I really appreciate people checking in from time to time and look forward to returning to blogging. It could be as much as a few or even several more months.

Just to clarify, I haven’t suspended blogging because of a downturn in health – that’s been going downhill for over a decade. I’ve been housebound and semi bedridden for years now - flat on my back on the order of eighteen or nineteen hours a day.

So without putting the blogging aside for a while, I’ll never finish a project I need to wrap up.

Without wanting to discourage good intentions, but…

Without wanting to discourage anybody’s good intentions, when it comes to the health problem, if you name it, I’ve tried it – along with a large number of things you’ve never heard of. I have a serious, severely disabling disease that we spent over ten years trying to resolve. We became semi pros at medical research; I traveled extensively, including Johns Hopkins and NIH. I saw world famous doctors.

And it turns out that there are a very small number of folks who have conditions that go beyond rare – they’re never diagnosed. That’s my status. We never gave up hope; it’s just that we tried everything, including every mainstream and alternative medicine people will want to suggest and some it’s unlikely any of you have ever heard of like myotherapy, spray and stretch, the Baldry technique, and even (frankly just to get my well meaning aunt to stop trying to sell me on it!) this deal where I sent my Polaroid photo to a guy in Canada who dipped it in his secret formula and then projected special energy rays at me for a couple hundred bucks.

Some of the boring details you may want to skip but since it sort of sounds like some people are wondering…

Though undiagnosed it’s nothing vague. No good days and bad days. Relentless progression for over twelve years. And while no vital organs are affected, pretty much everything that holds them together is. Findings include severe osteoporosis of the low back and left hip (despite normal hormone levels, which are normally off in men with osteo); skin lesions – only several of them, that developed over a period of years, but highly unusual: “consistent with Sarcoidosis” even though I don’t have Sarcoidosis; wasting away of soft tissue and connective tissue, including the padding on the soles of my feet (try Googling “loss of foot pad” – it’s unheard of); and permanent muscle spasms/taut bands throughout my back, shoulders, neck, and lower legs.

If you can name a relevant disease, I’ve been tested for it. And any disease you come across won’t be a good match for the findings I’ve just cited. The closest thing we found to a fairly good match was Mastocytosis – this was years after the doctors had pretty much given up and my sister and I were going all out on our own looking into rare diseases, what contaminants existed in the EPA clean up site in the hometown where we grew up… every angle you can think of. But I don’t have Mastocytosis. It was a simple blood test. And because one of the many things we learned over the years is that labs screw up tests once in a while, I had the test performed once the next year and once the year after that. Negative.

That’s it!

Thanks to everybody who keeps checking in, but I’ll be back… and with a new blog.

See you soon...

I'll be back in a month or two and will check in with people when I return. Thanks for all your comments -


No Lie

For Jade and Darren, in memory of Devon

Child, don’t cry. So much
Can make us feel so sad.
Just keep your eyes on the prize
Wide as they can be, making your heart
Soft as strong can be, a steel feeling firmly
How it will not/cannot break. We shall overcome.

It takes some time child,
That I will admit for sure. Sometimes it even feels
God made some big mistakes,
As though he made us just to be
Forsaken. Child! Keep your eyes on the prize.
It’s only you and I sometimes
That stand mistaken, when our eyes
Are filled with pain that seems to rain
On everything we care about,
Blinding us with strain. It’s then that we begin
To turn our eyes beyond ourselves, outside that pain,
Sharing in the grace of greater eyes
And so many lives beyond our isolation.

This much is true, though it can be so hard to know:
We have to grow a while, feeling that small blue of being
No more than ourselves alone
Before we see into the wider blue
Of all that we are up to --
Not clearly yet, but with the powerful sincerity
Of meaning it, roaring with a seeking
Louder, deeper, than our self-deceit.
Cry only for that little while because you must
All of my God’s children, and then see:
It isn’t that God doesn’t care. He oversees us
Each and all, but God is very tall and sees things
Broadly – as you and I may even live to see.
Over our own shoulders, he is seeing every one of us,
And that can make us feel alone sometimes,
But God’s on everybody’s side, eyes already on the prize
So wide he sees it all. God knows already: you and I
My child, are only playing catch-up ball.

Yet each of us can see through those same eyes
That are not quite our own
But each of us may borrow for awhile.
Eyes on the prize, we shall overcome ourselves
The way an ocean’s fingertip briefly
Touches just the furthest reach
Of a shore that everybody seeks
And for a moment warms and brightens underneath the sun
Before it melts and fades within
The sea’s embrace again. And yet
This is a tide that has been rising
Since before the dawn of time.

No surprise, the prize is not specific. Nothing
You can buy, though many try and only waste
Their precious little time, eyes on the lie.
The prize is big. Infinitely greater than Atlantic
Or Pacific. There isn’t any package. If you ask,
You may even think there’s nothing to it
But everything is there, not yet aware
My lovely child, learning to stand tall.
Don’t you be another one lost stalling
When the only One is calling to us all.
Think big thoughts. Love large and wide.
For all of us one day will turn the tide,
And it will be there: waters clear and still,
And you and I will even walk on them: one continent
Where all of us will make a common stand
To find contentment in a Promised Land
Where God will laugh out loud and tell us all how odd
He thought it was we didn’t even know
That each of us is chosen.


Paul Martin © 2005

A Possible Topic??

“Percy”…

OK, I haven’t really been on blogging vacation. I have this other blog that’s totally wacky. Percy Bysshe Shelley was a leading Romantic era English poet. I love nineteenth century lit, and can even sort of write that way a little.

So I invented this character named Percy Bysshe Silly. It was just to poke fun about a few things concerning writing, romance, and the sexes – for example, the way that poetry, especially if it isn’t “gritty” or “hard edged,” is equated with effeminacy in the minds of many Americans. Percy ends up being this overly pugnacious, flirtatious, and yet loquacious character, all at the same time.

A Big Mistake?

Lately I’ve been running here and there into quite a lot of anti-Islam, anti-Muslim blogging. I made what may have been the big mistake of trying to discuss the topic of bigotry with people who appear to have bigoted attitudes toward Muslims.

A number of things have bothered me about this:

1. A lot of the anti-Muslim sentiment is coming from Christians.

2. Trying to converse with people who are anti-Muslim is difficult. What seems to happen in discussion threads is that I reply to them point by point. They usually respond by ignoring most or all of my responses; and just give more “evidence” for how rotten they think Muslims are.

3. When they do respond to my points, it’s often by misrepresenting them.

4. The responses are often laced with personal attack.

5. With one person, the response has been pure hate. I’ve become included in the apparently quite expansive category of people that this particular individual loves to hate. As a “Muslim sympathizer,” I suppose.

Please Post Here, There, or Bothwheres...

I’ve just done one more post on bigotry on my formerly fun blog:

Romantic

What do you think? Is it useless, or even counterproductive to discuss bigotry with someone who has bigoted attitudes? Despite its irrationality, is it impossible for someone to reason their way out of prejudice?

If that’s the case, is there any way that non-Muslims can constructively take a stand against anti-Islamic bigotry?

1. To leave a “meta-comment” – a comment about the usefulness or uselessness of trying to discuss the subject of bigotry – please leave your comment here on this blog.

2. To become embroiled in actual discussion of the topic, please post to the "Romantic" link above.

Still going with the lazy summer flow...

We continue to interrupt regular possiblegospel programming while lots of bloggers remain on vacation with stuff like:


Timepiece

Slow-gathering and known
By gravity alone,
A replete drop plops once.
One terse slap, then boundlessly unsounded,
Precisely bookmarked by the universe.

By Popular Demand

You might want to read the previous post and thread if you expect what follows to make any sense at all. You might also want to skip both.

WARNING: Intended for immature audiences.


The Interlude
A Classical Scene of Arboreal Scandal and Intrigue

“Too sexy for my leaves” –
Thus will sing the nubile trees
At summer’s end (this is a prophecy)
In gusty breezes to perform
That burlesque autumn ritual
Of old: baring branches and revealing
Shapely, stately forms. Beneath one such,
Our Crystal sings a holy Catholic hymn,
And yet with Rachel, who stands near,
Wears nothing but strategic
Low-cut maple leaves,
Some holly in her hair; and leers.
Doug, the pastor, is aghast,
And looks up at the sky real fast
Attempting to see less of leaf and limb.
A simple, private man, and unbeknownst
To most of those who love him, he too
Has thoughts of “goofy sex with trees;”
And yet, like every person of the cloth,
Has taken secret, sober vows
Against such earthly liberties.

The branches shake. From high above
It’s Aidan dropping down upon the ground.
He looks upon the growing crowd
Then sings, with that familiar Beatles sound:
“Why don’t we do it in the trees?”
Gautami and GP are clapping overheatedly,
While Matthew, adding to this sweetly surreal
Scene of floral sensuality,
Holds forth clinically on arboreal sex
In a manner mostly detached,
Somewhat debauched,
Yet somehow scholarly; when ThursdayNext
Sidles alongside, a spy with pinecones
To inquire in a dangerous insinuating way:
“Mon cher Monsieur Matthew –
Parlez vous francais?”