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September 2020

A Human Gift

(x = space)

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A Human Gift

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God smiles on a Saturday

The human invention

Of a weekend

An extra day for homework

Sleeping in, perhaps

Housecleaning

Or play

x

It’s a gift we gave ourselves

Along with ending child labor

In “Satanic Mills”

And the imposition on the profit-makers

Of an eight-hour day

For manufacturing iron and steel into

Gold and empire,

All of which happened

With agrarian losses

And also serfs and lords

In the old system

Classes turned into attitudes

x

It’s more complex, of course

But doesn’t bear a quiz

This is the day we have

(not everywhere)

An extra day for homework

Sleeping in, perhaps

Housecleaning

Or play

x

C L Couch

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“Jerusalem,” a hymn, words by William Blake

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Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Let’s play fetch!

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Ash

(x = space)

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Ash

(11 September 2020)

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Today is bright with gray

In my part

A good, sad color for remembering

Thousands lost, then hundreds

More in first-responding

And millions to the nation for

The grieving

A holocaust must happen now and then,

It seems

Babel, Rome to the Goths

Constantinople to the Christians

Germany to the Jews

Lockerbie

And all the despotisms that have set

Fire to nations

And for a time burned ours,

Though we have to speak to freedom, now

x

We have to know

The idea matters

Of democracy

Over agenda

The vote over manipulations

Free-to-choose over robbing choices

From us

And then there are the harder notions

Love over hate

Forgiveness over condemnation

Though I struggle with that last shade, too,

Wishing wanton killers

All to hell

While me and mine

And victims

Go to paradise

x

The good Muslim wasn’t there

To kill the Christians, Jews, Muslims

Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, and all who take the

Way

Agnostics and atheists

Belief or lack thereof was not a standard

Everyone was worthy

To be killed

The only thing of value to the killers

A notion of terror

Destroy the enemy

Without a real plan for what is next

Since the aim has no success

With which to deal

x

The main thing for us now

Is knowing the dead

To take those on the wrong side

Of anger

To place them inside good, quiet parts

Of Earth

In New York, Pennsylvania

Washington, D.C.

And all the family and the military plots

Required in so many places

To read words over these

And offer prayers

x

Terrorism is its own failure

We are free to think on better things

A purer world

Filtered like our water

And our better thoughts

With restraint, awareness,

And love, all love

In stronger, wiser forms

Certainly than they

Who went without

Picked up the devil’s way

With unearthly explosions

Without a thought

The brain shellacked with scorn

And counting people

Like matchsticks,

Too ready to burn

x

Though death is complicated

Murder, more so

And those of us in sunshine

Have to learn

Yes, certainly remember

Be smarter for the future

That arrives each day

Becomes the present

In which we clump the ash

Plant it, hope for

Fine returns

In crops and beauty

Sustenance that will destroy

Sin’s purpose

Hate’s agenda

Turn over like the soil

On which we stand

And where those of us

Still here—and we are here—

Must grow

x

x

coda

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There have fires elsewhere

Many parts burn now

Inside the head

And through our hearts

Piercing the abdomen

On which our other organs sit

We should not forget

The hungry and the powerless

Who have food and will withheld

All the rescuing required

God and our better parts

Bless them and keep them

All the rescuers

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Ben Lei on Unsplash

9/11 Memorial, New York City, USA

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Wishing, and There’s a Horse

(x = space)

x

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Wishing, and There’s a Horse

x

It’s as if

The lower clouds

Muffle the sounds we make

Below

I don’t know if that’s the physics of it

Or simply a sensation

Only on the inside

A guess and a conclusion,

Based on wishful thinking

I hope it’s a good day for you

You deserve it

And it’s time

Because for now

(barring time travel

like the stories’)

Everything is forward,

And I want a forward day for you

Where is

All the opportunity

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C L Couch

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Photo by Annika Treial on Unsplash

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Now a Word for Our Sponsors

(x = space)

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Now a Word for Our Sponsors

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I’m trying to find peace

In the midst of anger

My anger

I don’t know if

My anger could kill

I don’t know

I don’t have a gun

I’m not out on the street

Believing in a credo

Probably creatively interpreted

x

I’m not drinking alcohol

Before or after

Or taking other things

As if

They were helps

Without the principles

Of medicine

x

I hate the thing

That’s lurking in the office

I believe it cheated to get there

And have great trouble

Waiting

For it to be over

And something like

A normal day returns

xxxxxYes, friends,

xxxxxNot the disease but

xxxxxThat would be normal

x

Maybe I understand

The disease better than

My consciousness may say

They’re awful and indifferent

Viruses aren’t alive,

You know

They infect and kill

Without will

Only impulse

To exist and replicate

x

There are other plagues as well

I don’t mean conspiracy

Except for maybe conspiracy

x

Where is the health,

My friends?

There is more, you know

(I know you know)

The sickness of racism

Lack of respect for gender

For just under half the world

To partner

With just over

x

I won’t say perfection—

I can’t—

Is an answer

We are flawed

And creation’s flawed with us

But, you know,

We still can be

Pretty good

Mostly good, when we want

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash

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Watching Science TV

(x = space)

x

x

Watching Science TV

x

How the Universe Works

“Dawn of Life”

(4.5)

Mars had life back then

(it was a viable planet

could it have sent some life

to Earth?

my question

then the episode agrees)

Cyanobacteria

Turns green and then accepts

(takes part in)

Photosynthesis

Releasing oxygen

For other species

There are changes

And the theorist says

They’re random

A little taller, a little clearer in the eye

Both for better hunting on

The primordial range

I’m wondering

About the randomness

Changes for better living

(through chemistry)

But vital changes, really

Not simply for improvement but

For life at all

x

And if it’s random

Like a guess from the universe

To say, look at that, we made things

Better for that one

That kind upon the plain

That must needs kill to eat,

Then is there no touch

Of evolution, let alone

Of the divine?

No working out

Or through of human need?

x

These attributes are needful

It seems an existential crisis

(a crisis of existence)

To have left it,

Left the living to the

Throw of an indifferent die

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Sam Wermut on Unsplash

Stockton Sand Dunes, Salt Ash, Australia

mars

x

0

Love’s Labor

(x = space)

x

x

Love’s Labor

(2020)

x

Today is a gray day

But the temperature is down

Sunny and cool would be better

In the USA, it’s a holiday

I don’t know the story

And I doubt I’ll look it up just now

Too tired (too little sleep) and

An extra headache (maybe from

too little sleep)

Last night I saw and heard

Fireworks

In the small town near my own

I hope all the dogs are okay

No one could watch from the field

But fireworks are mostly

Shot into the air

So here’s an adaptation

To the disease that worked out

Pretty well, I think

Those several feet away from me

Had a good time

For many, this is the last hoorah

For summer

We start thinking fall thoughts, now

Expect the temperature to drop

(though it won’t really for a while),

Even look for turned leaves,

First invitation

To a change in color

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Bryan Lopez on Unsplash

Estadio Juan Francisco Barraza, San Miguel, El Salvador

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Beadling

(x = space)

x

x

Beadling

(pandemic time)

x

It’s Sunday

I thought it was Saturday

Maybe you’re having this problem, too

So I should think church

(good Catholic or Protestant

Christian)

And I do

Though I don’t think I’ll go

Until the year of doing nothing

Has expired

Nothing but science and care

I do what I can

Pray for them

Send bits of money

Wait

Wish it were all over

For the living to be living

More fully

Perhaps more mindfully

Again

x

C L Couch

x

x

(a beadle, church officer, bearing

a rod with a feather at one end and a heavy ball

or other weight at the other

not for adults do we spare the rod

depending on how deeply was the parishioner

snoozing, he or she got one end or the other)

x

x

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

x

2

Antecedents

(x = space)

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x

Antecedents

x

I told my students,

Not so many pronouns

Making sure the subject is at hand

And it agrees

Not for the writer’s sake

But for mine

And any readers—

Say, a boss

Or those who must approve

The presentation with

The recommendation

x

Yet here I am, often

Making a mystery of it

I want you to work a little

Sorry

To track the subjects

And to understand

How often they are intertwined,

And that’s real

x

We have antecedents, too

Those who came before

And sometimes it’s a mystery

That we work out

With records and with words

To have something

Of a story

The genealogists with

Wisdom

And best-guessing

Giving answers so the rest of us move

On in the present

x

Where we come from

Is Earth

In a gorge that was a garden

In a crescent

By three rivers

It’s a story and a good one

Whether Genesis or

The Silmarillion

Or Gilgamesh or

Theogony (when he believed)

Or Metamorphoses (when he did not)

Or the God

Who placed a hand down from the sky

To Earth

To spread the plains and, around the edges,

All the mountains

Or one who came up from below

Closer to the ground

And loving it

Did make mortals when going below

Was needed

To sort out all the hot things there

(I made this last one up)

x

But all (real) depictions

Seem to contain a fall

Divinity or demons

Or our bad choices

They all live with us

(divinity, demons, choices)

Not only for the Calvinists

But as a reason

For the failures in a day

In an hour of time

Under the sun

Or in the argent light of moon

Wherever we trip,

Try to right ourselves

To dance again

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Matt Nelson on Unsplash

Vonore, United States

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Easy Therapy

(x = space)

x

x

Easy Therapy

x

Laughter’s good

Not the grim kind

But the kind that takes you

By surprise

The lungs get some exercise

Brain cells some extra

Charge

The mouth, it smiles

As if it had

Needed some dusting off

Some oil

Before cracking

x

There’s mischief in the world,

We know

Sometimes devastation

Human or mineral

But don’t we need the laughter

For our health?

The kind that honestly

Erupts and might be shared

All around

x

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Sithamshu Manoj on Unsplash

Bengaluru, India

Catching Smiles

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