Thinking about Ash Wednesday (with two poems)

 To me Ash Wednesday is a day for serious reflection, a day full of memories. Some of those memories are expressed in the poems below. Both poems are based on my own experiences.

Ash Wednesday at St. William’s School

The immaculate

groomed children

play joyfully on the playground--

but odd

anachronism:

scandalous

ashes of death

in the sign

of the cross

on innocent

foreheads

remember

our mortality

the amazing sacrifice.

The marked innocents

forget the strange rite

with wondrous enthusiasm and energy

play like it’s any other day.

The Last Ash Wednesday (February 2003)

After teaching my classes,

I drive over to Kevin’s house

Where Mom now lives after moving from Euclid

Our family home for fifty-one years.

It’s getting harder for her to go out,

So I come to her house,

Burn last year’s palm fronds in the ash tray

And anoint her forehead with the Sign of the Cross.

I find myself unable to utter the ancient words,

“Remember, Woman, from dust thou art,

And unto dust thou shallt return.”

The words are too painful, too real,

The abiding dust

too close.

Then Mom anoints my own forehead,

Again leaving the words unspoken:

No one can ever know . . . .

After the little ceremony,

We both laugh, and Mom says,

“Let’s drink a beer!”

“Not on Ash Wednesday,” I tease.

“The hell with that!” she retorts.

“I’m old enough now to be above the rules!”

We both laugh, and I pop open two beers.

We drink to Mardi Gras and to Lent,

And to the ashes on our foreheads.

                                                             Bob Coughlin

                                                                        February 21, 2007

                                                                        Ash Wednesday

First Bear Near Euclid, Ohio Since 1850s

A Black Bear climbed over a barbed wire fence and entered the property of the Lubrizol Corporation in Wickliffe, Ohio (Lakeland Boulevard at Lloyd Road)--maybe  a half mile from densely populated Euclid, Ohio. This happened about one week ago. Since then, there's been no word about the bear. This bear was seen in Kirtland (on the high school property), in Willoughby, and in Wickliffe. When was the last time a bear was in Euclid or Wickliffe? 150 years ago? Longer?

When I was a kid in Euclid you never even saw a deer. Then one day around 1990 I saw several deer on E. 266 Street, running through yards, leaping over fences, heading toward Lake Erie. Now deer are common in Euclid and all the surrounding communities. You see deer, turkeys, and coyotes. Geez, next we'll see bobcats, grey wolves, and cougars!

Here's a video that was shown on WEWS TV:

Hemingway's Shortest Short Story--in Irish Gaelic!

Bróga na bunóc a dhíol.
Níor bhain úsaid astu.


This is Ernest Hemingway’s short-short story: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.” --Translated by Paul Curran, my friend and Irish language teacher. We have an Irish language study group at the Irish-American Club East Side--in Euclid, Ohio, every Wednesday evening, 7-9 PM. We meet in the basement of the Club.

Paul uses a rather uncommon word for "baby" here. More common might be "leanbh," which is pronounced something like /LAHN-uv/. The entire story is pronounced approximately: BROH-guh nah BUN-oak ah YEE-ull. NEER whahn OO-sahj AH-stoo.

I guess Paul Curran would own the copyright on this translation. And the blame for it if it's incorrect!