clcouch123

(x = space between lines or parts;

am considering the emotional investment in hating the new WP editor)

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Abbreviated Towers

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Things are not working

I do not care

I will do just fine

With paper and a pen

(and another pen for when

the first one broke)

But then I couldn’t

Electron reach out

x

And publishing is out there, too

While I’m writing in a program

That so far is holding out

We needed something faster

Electron reaching out

And now we need

More time

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You know how the pyramids went up?

Cathedrals, too

There was time

Slave or near-slave labor, too

But there were generations

To get them done

Such as we don’t conceive

We knock against limitations

Try to wreck them

Then say, next, please

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We will have no more cathedrals

In part because the Protestants

Are poor

The Catholics are holding back

And independents build cathedrals

Only in their minds

But we do not have the time

A day to move a stone

A year to carve an arch

(Who knows how long for

a gargoyle?)

Thirty years for thirty arches

And then the rest

We could not stand it

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How to Raise a Cathedral

(if fancily, a coda)

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Some Victorians think

The cathedrals were built to music

(literally)

The entire community involved

Over generations

Maybe the way Tennyson

Had it, Merlin raising Camelot

To music

Or Aslan who sung

The world of Narnia into being

With all the other worlds

Close by

Or the way we do it now

The National was finished over years

Then damaged by an earthquake

The Sacred Family

Might be finished one day

(the architect’s outlived)

There is no music

But there is prosaic construction

Grand steps forward, frustrated steps

Taken back

One day to be finished

Then there should be music

(so he hears)

For at least a generation

Simply, impossibly

To have it done

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C L Couch

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Photo by João Marcelo Martins on Unsplash

Barcelona, Spain

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(x = break for stanzas or sections–my dislike of the new WP editor is worsening; I can’t cut-and-paste with spaces between parts, sorry)

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Out Goes the Bad Air

(pandemic time)

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I hope you have

A really good day

Sometimes

That’s all I got

A wish

Though it’s in earnest

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You’re dealing with disease

So am I

You wish for easy company

If only for a while

For now, you find some time

Something to drink,

A chair that faces outside

Where nothing but

Normal motion

Might be happening

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There might be other

Problems, too

Of course, there are

They’re not even on hold

But lurking

Or complaining rather loudly

To the soul

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Sip the coffee

Taste the wine

It’s not a sacrament

Though nature has

Its ways

To get inside

Like faith

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C L Couch

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Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

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The Contract

x ( = space between sections and indications; so far, I dislike the WP editor)

1

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Sabbath starts,

Tomorrow another,

And a vigil for Sunday observances

This time must be important

And there are traditions that,

Sabbath-like,

Will pray throughout the hours every day

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When it passed the first time,

Creation had begun

Everything in orbit,

Even what looks happenstance

Like comets or

A train of meteors

They circle everything

Everything is circling

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Sabbath-time

In certain lore

Is that it’s our time

A gift of rest whose precedent

Is God

The word that spoke into ex nihilo

Created everything

Then called the host to take

Some easy breathing

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2

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We worship God but

Once a week

And there are those who

Go for more

Somehow, God is prodding

And is waiting

Inside the box

And pushing from outside

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Remembering it is God

Who is the source of everything

In motion

God can take rejection

Bear denial

Will not disappear

For our repudiation

Will wait inside the box

But has other places

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For us,

What shall we say?

An issue is control

A tissue-thin issue

God has rendered thin within

The covenant

We think it means so much

And it does

Sometimes salvation turns upon it,

Though here it is:

A planet is presented to us

And by contract with each other

The terms are simple

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Care for this

There are avatars

He knows his place

Risking it each time

She comes to us

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C L Couch

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Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash

Saltillo, México

Clean Night

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