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(x = space)

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The Day before Tomorrow

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Last day in Advent

Made it

Whew

Rain, snow

Overwhelming cold

We should be postal carriers

To endure

It all

Strange meeting place

This junction of

The Northeast, MidAtlantic

The weather comes

From north or south

Or east or west

I’m trying

To get used to that

It’s only taken

Twenty years so far

There are forecasts

But better to wait

To know what happens

Though encounter

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How to plan a picnic

Must be an undertaking,

Strategy

Requiring options

(bring the ants)

Sometimes the living

Is absurd

If not cartoonish

But these are the days we have

And the environs

Those who stayed

Or passed back through

Appalachia

To stay

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And all the world has

Its places

Its challenges

Its practices

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And now (among

the practices)

It’s Christmas Eve

And there are days in Hanukkah

This year correlating

Come

To light our way

The world could breathe easier

Except in Ukraine

In Myanmar and Yemen,

Oppressive parts of China

And of Russia

And in the manipulative

Shadowed corners

Of the USA

All the places where we watch

For detonation

Also the human heart

The battlefield it remains

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Sin and virtue

Pounding and pushing

Pulling circulation

Strain

(Sturm and Drang),

The devils on the inside

On the outside

Rendering Christmastide

So perilous

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And yet we sing into

A night

We wish were silent

Save for children’s cries

For all the reasons

Children cry

Among them to receive

First oxygen and hope

Into the world

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Render the night

Impossible in virtue

We’ll sing it,

Anyway

We’ll kneel

We’ll try to light our way

We’ll quietly acknowledge

Neighbors

Some will party

And some will do nothing,

I suppose

Though the world is affected

By what we do this night

And for a thousand years

And in the time

Remember birth and

Death

And everything

That circulates a world

Keeps it moving

In the spirit

In the flesh

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Though maybe for an hour

Let all mortal flesh

Keep silent

And in fear and trembling

Stand

To receive

To hope for blessing

In the night

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Let fighter planes

Fly so carefully

Perforce keep watch

Like shepherds

Over continents

And there might be songs

At crowded borders

And the lines

Kept distant

From welcome

Because mines have barred the way

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Peace on Earth

The ersatz wish

Some must believe

(yet some must believe),

Withholding war

The practice

That must be enough

For now

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Into the world

The child comes

The children come

And everyone

And everything

Now have responsibilities

To keep it together,

To throw

And try to seal patches

The worn places

And to keep watch

For the tearing places

On the outside of Earth

And, you know,

On the inside

Heaven

And hell

The human heart

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Anxieties may end

Because it’s here

Our plans are done

And in place as they are

Out of necessity

Of time

As chronos

So might we have

Christmas

For a day

Twelve years

Perhaps a brief era

If only hours

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A spiritual time

A cultural invention

Arms reach out for a change

Hand in hand

In brave hope

To sing a silent night

To sing in glory

Once the vigil is completed

And there is indeed

There really is

A dawn of hope

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Glory and hope

Amazing

Because a child is born

That for a time

Affects the government

In minds

As well as capitals

Until when all time is done

And in a kairos of eternity

It’s Christmas day

And all the other graceful days

Together

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C L Couch

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Photo by Monisha Selvakumar on Unsplash

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