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Sunday
Two weeks ago I shared a talk on how artists and writers access or harness the spirit in their creations. I looked at how Homer invokes the muse, Milton the Holy Spirit, Percy Shelley the divine force he sees blowing through the universe, Leslie Marmon Silko Thought Woman (a Laguna Pueblo deity). When former Carleton classmate and artist Mike Hazard responded approvingly, I asked him about his own muse.
Mike, a photographer poet located in Minnesota’s twin cities, sent me two photographs (see above and below) that he took 50 years ago in St. Paul. As “Tragedy” and “Comedy,” he says, they sometimes serve as depictions of his muse.
He also sent me the following observations, along with a poem. The latter reminds me of the story of Baucis and Philemon, who open their house (when no one else will) to two strangers, only to discover that they are wandering gods. Jon Hassler, whom Mike mentions, is a Minnesota novelist noted for writing about rural communities.
Here’s Mike:
It occurs that I have never consciously considered who my muse is or if there is such a being.
I think I have simply always felt I have been photographing God (without always using that word).
My companion?
The people I meet in the street?
The tree that invites a picture? The rock that draws my eye?
The work is a conversation with spirit.
Like Jon Hassler, I aim to look up to everyone, to hear everyone.
As a pantheist and animist, everywhere I am I’m in awe, praising unceasingly.
I pray to a universe, but do not really ask for things.
When I am drawn to photograph or write about an animal, vegetable or mineral, I nod in gratitude.
It is an exchange, a conversation, an encounter.
Sometimes I feel like a colonizing collector. Other times, enthralled with, by all, I am ecstatic.
This poem might illumine.
Open the Door
By Mike Hazard
An old man who might be God*, if I believe all the poets I love—
who’ve taught me that everything, everyone is holy—is pushing
a crummy chrome shopping cart across the rainbow bridge.
He’s in mind as I drive to the post office to check my mailbox
and remind myself that we are all holy, and God might really be,
when he wheeled into the post office like Santa Claus with a full sleigh.
I try not to stare, but I see the janitor instantly appears, looking busy.
A pair of blue jeans falls off his mountain of stuff onto the marble floor.
He picks it up. He moves in slow motion, deliberate as a good judge.
I am reading the junk mail which I got in my box at a counter.
I look up to see he is doing the same thing. He smells pretty strong.
Then he squints into his scoping hands to read a sign right in front of him.
He is steady, focused. He has large features, a weathered and leathery face.
He’s Italian maybe, and a bit ruddy. Has he been drinking too much?
Is that his trouble? Is God a wino? He doesn’t see me at all, for all I know.
We start leaving at the same time. I cross in front of his cart, to get ahead
and open the door for him. He thanks me in a deep, resonant, rich voice.
As he pushes away, his voice echoes in my mind. I look up and see
the first pair of nighthawks of spring, on the wing in the sky above us.
I think hard about a poor man whose life is loaded on a silver sleigh,
a mailbox, a beautiful baritone’s voice, and the manners of a saint.
I wonder if we will ever meet again. I wonder if he was we know who.
*Note to self: The word God might also be Friend, Gitchie Manido, Mohammed, Krishna, Allah, Buddha, Jesus, Brahma, Wakantanka, Deos, Jehovah, Thor, Great Mother, Holy Father, Zeus, Saub, Spirit, and/or any one of ten thousand other names.
