2 poems about fire
by an imagined flame
a clear
hot
day and like the gray
to be inside
to pretend a fire
for the scene
of
reading
even to imagine pets curled
around one’s satisfaction
oval rug
curves in the seating and the cycling
of
friendship
through it all
‘round the truth
and
to assuage the fear of what
might
have gotten to us first
and more
but by some
measures to regard
and
put in practice
for the peace in dealing
be it
clearly well or
adulterated by pain in the now
as
well as pain before
recalling
that pain is fear
as well
good fire
by the real flame
which
is not by
but
in
you know
if you’ve heard
or
you were made to go
to school to
learn the faith
and now
apply
and so the fire is within
traveling from heart
to brain
and back again for
more
normalcy or pressure in a situation
to share and to assuage by
every source
within us
in
the crisis
the source of fire
within
because we had it come from
without
to live
and to be standing by
like
orders issues so
long ago as to be by creation’s rings
when set and first called
good
c l couch
photo by Kyle Peyton on Unsplash
those three doctrinal things
what is for everyone today
hope
except by those who will not hope
not believe or have
enough
it seems not
toward wanting more
yet
wanting
more
faith
to believe in us
and in the world enough
if only inimically and
so
the spirit more with heaven as an element
maybe an application until
the spirit
obvious everywhere
and like the poles
should
peace prevail
then go to love
and what
shall
love be if not reliable like seasons
except
to be founding and producing
all the time
what does better
and
reliably
so we might rely and not
have to create our loves
and re-create
all
the time
but depend
and so have a fullness
in
independence
hope has wings
then
while faith has raiment
so
love has
the halo for sanctity
and
could be worldly important
though it’s also ordinary
and to
elevate the
ordinary
so that
even
if the land is occupied
we must hold the love and
so resist
even repel
siege
holders
until the enemy goes back to a phantom place
to plan some
more
while we keep to
and live of our own
until
the world change and we have
with everyone
if
not equally
but all
the time
in
love
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1 Corinthians 13:13 (World English Bible)
“These three things will remain for ever. They are faith, hope, and love. And love is the greatest of them.”
[yeah, I wrote about hope first]
Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity
the Donner film
on Sunday afternoon
how is
it
to be super
and how to dole it out
what gets taken
care of
who
and who does not get
the saving
since we tend to think there are limitations
of time
and energy and
can’t slip through dimensions of these
yet
and
don’t know how that works
so calculate from now
to now
and what is heard
and what is the response
and if not
in dimensions
how
about the nanosecond that maybe
the extraordinary her might pass through
to help
or simply to stop the wars with
a warning that
the rest is up
to us
so
humans
get it
together
and I will be there as I can
billions to help
beyond one
even
the amazing one
and finally like
us
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photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash
how the day begins and ends
It’s a dark-gray day
there are green and brown to see
the sky scoured of blue
hear and see my friends
share a meal of smell and taste
touch the hours away
c l couch
photo by Mahdi Bafande on Unsplash
friends walking
new harmony
if we could walk
along
the gravel or something else
packed-
down until they get
to concrete
set
down perfected paths
without air un-gray
but with an interest in the clouds
whose
shapes we tacitly
acknowledge and with the part that
doesn’t have to
hear
can suss the shapes because
our time is easy and we define
companionable silence
that
we’ve been told about
through sorts
of
books
and so crunching go our way while
underneath
small sounds are radiated
into hearing or
more
silence
or
adding to the satisfying bank of noises
small
at our minds’ disposal
in this congenial time
the gift of that
and
us
our tranquil knowing of each other
and is this why the paintings in which
movement
is
nonetheless evoked
we
still call
the life still
and is this romantic
for we’ll have to
talk
now and then to keep things open
and
available over details
and maybe over
bigger
things that rise up
time
to time
yet for long stretches
counting
also
leaning into things we might keep
quiet with the outside or to
put up with
of
noises from our world even
the harmonious
though
quiet has its harmony
as well
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photo by Nigel Cohen on Unsplash
plus taking the photograph
warfair
there is a war
as a peacenik I admit it
we
know the places
and we don’t
since wars are also fought in secret
secret
or open
the field is the mind and heart
more so the spirit
of
each one
and who shall win the big war is
determined
read
hear about it anytime
as for the small wars
the wars of each one and by
our
families and friends
they go on
and the victory isn’t called
and it is
all
perilous because
the fight is in the self by
which the better weapons
are
love and will
and there is temptation to give up
or
to give in
because the other side
entices
as if it were so shiny
even
though it’s moldering since
part of heaven
lost
and we say
fell
though there was no real direction
but opposite
and now two sides and
well
since
Eden
and we choose
and there
remain
though it’s gloriously odd
that we might
turn
away
but then may turn again
old betrayals resolved
if
imperfectly for now
and so the war of spirit shall go on
until the Megiddo
victory
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sorry, the title is a pun in English; I’m not sure how this will translate (“war fair,” as it were, rather than “warfare”)
photo by Lisa Forkner on Unsplash
“High Stone Wall in Megiddo”
a silly rabbit
by no theology
and God
I want
to be with you
and be here with you
‘cause this
is what I know
and
have I had a taste
some kind of earthly introduction
to paradise and I don’t know
could
be in worship maybe
out of my
tradition to take
part in Communion
feeling the elements of you go in and
down
I guess
and all around
to sound puerile about it
like the wheels on the bus
or
the digging of Mike Mulligan or
go
dog
go
go
me
go
to God and not
to die
but so to live
and what I have for now
and navigating fields
poorly
‘til what I have is gone
except for spirit and
the body
that with a home and these
shall
last
we’re told or by some impulse anyway
to know
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several things from childhood are cited (and more I am remembering)
photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash
old gray
1
nothing
in my eccentricity
like
old gray stone
we have some fences around
here
a few are nice
while most are overgrown
there are some buildings
too
that stand
the association for me
is
with ghosts
of those who set
or
raised whichever and
the story
with the persons who are lost
maybe
in wars between the states
or
the war with England for first freedom
and
there’s what
to keep out
what
to keep in
speaking of first and
who
was here
and to extend the poet
classic and ironic meanings
it might have been
true and
could
still be that
good fences make good neighbors
so then
stone fences make stone
neighbors
2
texture
moss
what is fallen
what remains of what
has
fallen and what
keeps the form and
stands
for meaning
living metaphor for
boundary
for
protection
that could yet
be actual
for a building made with local
material
and that we mean to keep
and
to repair
and it’s the fences we have more of
in
all states and they are old
and some look pushed together while others
forgotten or
ignored
or someone owning
likes
the fallen texture
lopped shapes
even the worked through parts
made low
through
time
and unknown circumstances
they make good pictures
I believe
photographed
or
painted or fashioned with material
of one’s own
color
black and white
what
is decided
what’s at hand
or if we may
to
go there
smell
touch the long sides or
where they’re broken
touch
the nubs and
feel
the age
the stories
and I will make up stories of and
for
the ghosts there or
nearby
to have a story by my
home fire and
maybe an invitation for a hearing
by yours
3
the buildings and the fences
and
especially the fences
to drive by
as
the buildings are kept mostly at
a distance
but all
appreciable and made when
words
like
middlesex meant
something for a status and
a name
and the word we know
from
another poem
later Gettysburg close
about which
so
much has been said and sung and on
which
to borrow from a third so much depends
though
these are matters
upright or collapsed
like
dreams and
visions
we forget
to tell
the next ones on the way
the next ones
here
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Frost on fences, also Longfellow and William Carlos Williams
with another note by me
an unintentional study
even a reverie
though
I could have meant that
briefly
photo by Richard R on Unsplash
our books of hours
God is love
and is it
tiring
and is
the rock of faith
for
metaphor
the lion
first of Judah
and shall we believe what the figures
shall be pointing
toward
as we consider openly
without agenda first
‘til
we go there to find
what might
be our purpose in our tasks
that is
fair and openly
which is a matter of the mind and for a metaphor
the heart
though we accept the source
and
then the spirit
that is an entity and real
pointing
only toward creator
who
is the love
somehow
for
real
and this dance
then
between the thing and its referral
which is the contest
of
a poem
and what the poem itself might indicate
which
is what
to know and to accept and then
to embrace
for faith
and life
and through that all the rest
in a holy now
and in the holy hours
to come
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photo by Şahin Sezer Dinçer on Unsplash
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