Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator

Goodfellows52: A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator: AUBURN, Maine — I lost two of my favorite New England poets and a brilliant junior high science teacher over the past three months. Al...

A word to the wise from 2 poets and an educator

AUBURN, Maine — I lost two of my favorite New England poets and a brilliant junior high science teacher over the past three months.

All three contributed to the greater good and gave us insight into life’s travails and achievements in our brief lives. Gifted poets and teachers have the aptitude to get inside our heads with their life-changing works and their flair in a classroom.

Eileen Merullo, 95, served in the classroom and her country during World War II.

According to her obituary in the Revere Journal:

“She graduated from Revere High School in 1940 and received her B.S. from Boston University’s Sargent College in 1944. Immediately upon graduation, she enlisted in the United States Army and served as a registered physical therapist in the Army Medical Corps, working with wound- ed soldiers in the Amputation Center at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. Always proud of her military service, she was a lifetime member of the Revere chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, and a charter member of Women in Military Service of America, as well as other veterans’ organizations.”

Mrs. Merullo inspired her students, sparked my curiosity about the natural world and is the reason why I have never lost interest in science.

I will miss her and the way she handled herself in the classroom. She didn’t take any guff, but her compassion for her students came shining through during each lesson.

Diana Der-Hovanessian, who died in March, wrote a poem entitle “Shifting The Sun.” I read this poem to mourners at St. Anthony’s Church in Revere, Mass., when my father, Albert John Blasi, passed away from Alzheimer's in 2014.

SHIFTING THE SUN

When your father dies, say the Irish

you lose your umbrella against bad weather.

May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Welsh

you sink a foot deeper into the earth.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians

When your father dies, say the Canadians

you run out of excuses.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Indians

he comes back as the thunder.

May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,

he takes your childhood with him.

May you inherit his light say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the British,

you join his club you vowed you wouldn’t.

May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,

your sun shifts forever

and you walk in his light.

Losing any parent is an ordeal and it is easy to get lost in a maze of grief. I am just fortunate I can still walk in his light. Der-Hovenessian’s poem is a powerful look at how people around the globe deal with the death of a patriarch.

I heard Donald Hall’s poem “Affirmation” on National Public Radio.

Those tender words about aging stuck with me and I began to read other poems by Hall and discovered he was a former Poet Laureate. He passed away at 89, but “Affirmation” has never left me.

Affirmation

To grow old is to lose everything. 

Aging, everybody knows it. 

Even when we are young, 

we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads 

when a grandfather dies.

Then we row for years on the midsummer 

pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,

that began without harm, scatters 

into debris on the shore, 

and a friend from school drops 

cold on a rocky strand.

If a new love carries us 

past middle age, our wife will die 

at her strongest and most beautiful. 

New women come and go. All go. 

The pretty lover who announces 

that she is temporary

is temporary. The bold woman,

middle-aged against our old age,

sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand. 

Another friend of decades estranges himself 

in words that pollute thirty years. 

Let us stifle under mud at the pond’s edge 

and affirm that it is fitting

and delicious to lose everything.

“Affirmation” is blunt and doesn’t shy away from aging as life slowly slips away from all of us. But it was privilege to know them through their inspirational poems and in a classroom.

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Nothing old about the Old Port Festival

PORTLAND, Maine — The Old Port Festival features mouth-watering food, a really cool parade, music, crowds — and heat.

My family has usually endured sweltering temperatures that sent us looking for the nearest shade tree or an air-conditioned eatery.

But Mother Nature broke with tradition and a chilly sea breeze took the edge of the summer heat. Sure, the sun was warm, but the cool air from a cold ocean was welcomed with open arms by festival goers. 

After dining on Pat's thin-crust pizza and fries, we listened to the harmonic band of Snod House, which played a different version Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road."

The did it well! Buying a Snod House CD is worth the investment.

We listened to several songs before deciding to shake the crowds and head to Portland's Eastern Promenade. Huge houses line the beachfront property and there is a perfect view of Casco Bay.

There was a small crowd of people up and down the strip of this ocean paradise watching the 2018 Atlantic Cup in Casco Bay. Watching these fast-moving craft glide across the choppy water was impressive.

I could go on and on about one of the brightest days in Portland, but I will let my pictures tell the story.