| What Love Cannot Do
by January Gill O'Neil
It cannot save itself when it expires
like a tire’s slow leak. It cannot bring back
the greediness of youth
mouth on mouth,
skin on skin, that gnawing,
that longing you carried
until the next time
and then there is no next time.
You never see it coming but always see it leaving.
It waits by the door, bags packed,
full of stones from your life.
What it can do is mark
the distance between Point A and Point B,
which feels like a galaxy,
every star you ever wished upon
imploding before your eyes.
January Gill O'Neil, “What Love Cannot Do” from Misery Islands. © 2014 by January Gill O'Neil. Used with permission of The Permission Company, LLC on behalf of CavanKerry Press, Ltd., cavankerry.org. (buy now)
It’s the birthday of the U.S. president described by novelist Washington Irving as “a withered little apple-john,” James Madison, born near Port Conway, Virginia (1751). He attended what is now Princeton University and graduated as the colonies were on the brink of revolution. Back home in Virginia, he served in state politics as a delegate at to the Virginia Convention, in the House of Delegates, and the Council of State. He suffered from poor health, including epileptic-like seizures, so he never served in the military. At the age of 29 Madison became the youngest member of the Continental Congress. He was 5-foot-6 and weighed barely 100 lbs., a quiet man who worked tirelessly, and was the best prepared for every meeting. Madison believed in a strong central government, and he was one of the main drafters of the Constitution. The next step was to convince the states to ratify it, which was not easy in his home state. At the Virginia Ratification Convention Madison faced off against Patrick Henry. Henry was a great orator and gave passionate, soaring speeches about the dangers of the Constitution. But Madison went through the Constitution clause by clause, armed with facts and research, and, although he was soft-spoken and no great speaker, he carried the day. In 1789, Madison was elected to the new House of Representatives in the first U.S. Congress. He was asked to write Washington’s inaugural address, the House’s reply to the speech, and Washington’s reply to both chambers of Congress. He dominated policy-making in the House, including drafting and introducing the Bill of Rights. One legislator wrote, “He has astonished Mankind, and has by means perfectly constitutional become almost a Dictator.” Madison served as Secretary of State under Thomas Jefferson, was elected president in 1808, served two terms, and then retired with his wife to his home in Virginia. He lived to the age of 85 and died one morning eating breakfast in bed. He wrote to Jefferson, “We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us. Our successors will have an easier task. And by degrees the way will become smooth, short and certain.”
It was on this day in 1850, that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter was published (books by this author). When Hawthorne finished his manuscript, he read it aloud to his wife, Sophia. He said: “I read the last scene to my wife — tried to read it, rather, for my voice swelled and heaved, as if I were tossed up and down on an ocean, as it subsided after a storm [...] I think I have never overcome my adamant in any other instance.” Sophia was so distressed that she went to bed with a terrible headache which pleased Hawthorne — he took it as a sign that the novel was effective.
It’s the birthday of poet César Vallejo (books by this author), born in Santiago de Chuco, Peru (1892). As a young man, he worked as a miner and then as a cashier at a sugar plantation that employed slave laborers. He was horrified by the exploitation of poor workers, and became a socialist. In 1920, he was at a hometown festival that deteriorated into lootings and arson. He was mistakenly arrested and thrown in jail, and he spent the next four months writing the poetry that would appear in his first major collection, Trilce (1922). After he was released from prison he moved to Paris where he slept on subway trains and park benches for months. He was sick and depressed, and he couldn’t find a steady job. He wrote to his brother: “I have the desire to work and to live my life with dignity. I am not a bohemian: poverty is very painful, and it’s no part for me, unlike for others. [...] My will veers between the point at which one is reduced to the sole desire for death and the intention of conquering the world by sword and fire.”
Today is the birthday of American novelist Alice Hoffman (1952) (books by this author), whose best-selling novels, like Practical Magic and The Dovekeepers, are a blend of magical realism, romance, and irony. Hoffman grew up on Long Island where her Russian grandmother kept her entertained with fairytales like the Baba Yaga, about a witch who lives in a house on chicken legs. Hoffman’s childhood wasn’t easy. Her father abandoned the family, but he left a box of books behind that changed Hoffman’s life. It was full of science fiction books by Ray Bradbury, and Hoffman devoured them. She says, “Ray became my literary father. He was the one who taught me about the world.” She also discovered a copy of The Catcher in The Rye on her mother’s bookshelf. Salinger’s book about a morose teenager influenced her greatly. Hoffman says, “I hadn’t known that a book could speak so directly to a reader. After that, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.” Hoffman’s memoir, Survival Lessons (2013), is about what she learned while enduring treatment for breast cancer. She says, “It was a letter written to myself reminding myself of all the things that matter, and all of the reasons to go on.” About writing, she says, “When I finish any project, it feels like a dream, and writing — whether it’s fiction or nonfiction — is very similar to dreaming.”
Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket 95 years ago today (1926). Goddard, who was born in 1882, had been interested in outer space since he read H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. While he was a student at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Goddard began experimenting with a rocket that was powered by gunpowder. His rocket produced a lot of smoke, which alarmed the students and faculty who shared the physics building with him. He later had successful outdoor tests with powder rockets, some of which shot up 500 feet. But powder wasn’t very energy efficient and Goddard eventually began researching ways to use liquid fuel instead. In the early 1900s space travel wasn’t on the government’s radar. Goddard had a hard time getting federal grants for his research and he usually ended up paying for his rockets out of his own pocket. Finally, he received a $5,000 grant from the Smithsonian Institution, which enabled him to do research and publish a paper on “A Method for Reaching Extreme Altitudes” in 1920. In the paper he speculated that rockets could be used to reach the moon. The New York Times heard about his paper and ridiculed him. He became a laughingstock overnight, and people called him “the Moon Man,” but he said, “Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace.” He never held a very high opinion of the press after that. Goddard didn’t give up, and on this date in 1926 he completed the first successful launch of his liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts. The 10-foot rocket achieved a height of 41 feet and an average speed of 60 miles per hour. Unfortunately, Goddard died of cancer in 1945, 12 years before the Soviet Union successfully launched its Sputnik satellite. After the successful launch of NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft in 1969, the Times printed a retraction of their ridicule of Goddard and his vision. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., a major space science laboratory, was named in his honor. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 
