la vita è bella

keep the life worth living
meaning
life itself worthy
meaning
in and of itself

while we can bend it
tear it
staple it into something else
or accept another thing attached
in crazed efforts to
resemble
(as in
re-assemble)
something else

something conceived as better
though misdirected
mis-
achieved

but then life
can bend back

it has that quality
and
tendency
in fact

it can bear the folds
the rents
the holes where there had been made
accepted attachments
even
those that were not healthy

once folded out
life maintains the beauty
even
new
tempered beauty
yes
from scars

and also
then the way that some insist
art must be
born

but this is life
sometimes first and
after

the art come after
or along
like companions
on
the way toward a practical
or mystic Compostela

the pilgrimage
that serves the life
and
in turn
describes
defines
the life
even from the first
it is

c l couch


photo by Silvestri Matteo on Unsplash 
Dying Rose
San Zenone degli Ezzelini, Italy
is there no beauty here? (I ask)

this is the poem I tried to post yesterday and couldn’t, maybe more due to the image size or resolution, as for any other reason; if the post posts now, then I’ll know the smaller illustration is acceptable (even though I like the margin-to-margin design, sigh)