February 8: Empty Web, New Poem, "Confession," New Cartoon

...Every day Wilbur would stand and look at the torn, empty web, and a lump would come to his throat.  No one had ever had such a friend--so affectionate, so loyal, and so skillful.

Wilbur spends a good portion of the last chapter of Charlotte's Web mourning the loss of his friend.  The end of this book is melancholy.  There's no way getting around it.  Yet, it's also a celebration of friendship.  That's why I love this book so much.


I think the best writing has elements of joy and sorrow in it.  My favorite poems.  My favorite novels.  It's something I strive to put in everything I write.  I don't always succeed, but I try.

I've got a new poem for you guys tonight.  It's something I've been working on for almost four or five weeks.  I read it to my wife, and she said, "It's awfully short."  Well, it is.  I have to admit that.  I'm not sure if it's done, but it's done enough for me to share.

This is Saint Marty's first poem of 2014.

Confession

In the dark, I taste again my love's body that first time.  Unmarried.  Young.  Neither of us thought of the future.  No.  It was all lip and shoulder, the press of body against body under a Lake Superior moon.  All hunger, want.  We fell into each other, kept falling.  Surrendered to gravity, the way a blue whale breaches the Pacific, scrapes heaven, then crashes downward into foam, wave, salt, mist.  No guilt or regret.  No reason to bless me, father.  I'll hold this moment on my tongue until you ask for it.  But I won't beg forgiveness.  Won't accept it.  I'll simply open my mouth, speak.  Let you know how I came to be this unrepentant sinner.

Confessions of Saint Marty