Temporary Good Life

(All Souls’)

 

Temporary good life

Big, empty house

Dog by my side, having been fed

Now ready to snooze

The program that he likes

On television

Good coffee for me, the

Human

It is All Souls’

To go with along with Saints’ the

Day before

And the eve before elaborate

With costumes and with chocolate,

Led by carved pumpkins lit

From inside

Or turnips in old Ireland

 

All Souls’ to say that after

Saints (big-S) whose litany

We sang and patronage remembered—

Saint Brendan for the navigators,

Saint Nicholas for

Children and for hookers

(who surprises innocence)—

The rest of us

Should have a chance

For remembrance

 

Maybe the veil

Thinned for Hallowe’en

Remains diaphanous enough

For discourse with those made

Of clay and ash

Now mingled with eternity

Whose memory is not miracle

So much as simply having been alive,

Which is something,

After all

 

We take our pleasures to the graveyard:

Children, candies, and stories

In picnic-style we reminisce

And hope that in repose

All might be well, as

Saint Julian reminds us

In the world that is a hazelnut

(Blake’s piece of sand)

Small, complete, and loved

 

For me, the gravestones have been set

Too far apart,

And I cannot visit

No candied skulls, no fires,

And no proper memories

But those I can have here

With coffee and the dog

Inside in

A borrowed home with dawn

(outside)

Thinking about rising

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto from Pixabay