smally divine
we worship
sometimes through living
sometimes through talking
over
the smallest things
if to say
thank you silently
patience in the car or
in
our thoughts that run too fast
reactions to
most everything
with
questions
or apologies should there be an expletive
if mild
if inside
still
to rub the slate a little more
here and there by hope
of
pardon not
to rasa
but
to have some clean spaces there
in hope of heaven
should it
go that way
c l couch
tabula rasa, clean (razed) plate meaning the state from which we begin and to which (on which) we add our experiences as we live on, John Locke being credited with the name and formulation, though the idea goes back to Plato and, I imagine, ancient others
photograph by Benjamin at Unsplash
available for hire [says photographer]
(the photo is not of my vehicle—though as goes the song I can dream, can’t I?)
terminus
it is finished
and
it wasn’t
but
to Jesus in that
time
it was
in that moment of unliving
it was done
and to be
plain
there was no more
and
who knows of surprise
from God in
having
or unhaving this
the finality
of death
not
to feel the body released
from iron and wood
to be
taken down and carried
who knows where
at first
though finally to stone
small space rolled shut as all of
space rolled
shut
in all systems everywhere
it might seem to
us
and to angels likely
and who knows
but
to God as well
even some knowing
might not
shut out the pain and then the nothingness
to have
in all the heavens
as with us on
Earth
we had our prophecies but forgot
or forgetting to believe
and
did it happen right away
the resolution
and
the glory
and was hell harrowed
right away
or did the sleep without sensation
go a while
so
it was death
complete
even more so than our own
though the moment did arrive
when
the stone and
the space inside the stone
were
not enough and there might have been fire
in release
and
so to heaven
and on Earth
so much a timeline
we don’t
know
though we believe
and who knows how difficult for God
who gave up being God
to
live and
die mortally
totally
by our count for three days
and then
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photograph by Lucrezia De Agrò on Unsplash
late(ish) fall bares trees
spiny soldiers guard the land
so the ground may sleep
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photo by Samuel Bryngelsson at Unsplash
bless the wild
better than
form
is the love you place on wild things
blessing
these with
spirit and adventure
to
let them go
while under care
to dance and run and
love
in all the untame ways
that were
created
then released
while forms are fine for form
but
let the lightning-forces go
never the same
to strike
even with danger in
the magic
risks
in release
but how does freedom that you show
go in any other way
so model this
and
everything outside broken cages
as
the bars are devil’s interest
and love is as roarious
as you
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photo by wallace Henry on Unsplash
going my way
I might
have confessed already
I used to do my homework
by
Monday Night Football
which ran longer
than
primetime typically allowed
I might
have
paper
pencil
later pen
typewriter
while
on my own
I worked through ersatz responses
to
assignments that I’m sure would have
gone better had I
allowed the proper
situation
such as
a cell in a scriptorium
yet here
I am
years later
with tinnitus
and so
doing the same
as
when Cosell told me
that they won a game
they did
not
deserve to win
which and whom
my brother
Rick
liked
to cite and recite
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photo by Klim Musalimov at Unsplash
the luck of the Irish
(or of whichever group is yours)
how many billions of us here
on one planet
with enough aspects aligning
not only
to harbor life but
to let it go
sentience
construction beyond nature
building everything for good or ill
to have a world
of us
no other planet far as we know does
this
and other systems might
we’re also made to go away
in time
we have choice
because the Earth by nature has
a shelf life
and we must be gone by
time
now we have a billion years or so
depending on who’s
counting
but sometime we’ll have to be somewhere
that’s the way this Earth and us were
arranged and what
shall we know of other
living
places
carbon-oxygen
that is
and shall let us land
in spite of global space shipwreck-reefs
or
defensive denizens
that
we might
to build again
maybe in alliance
more
than conquest
for a change
we have a billion years to go
to get that smart
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(Carl Sagan Day this year was three days ago; I been returning to world-thoughts ever since)
photo by Lianhao Qu on Unsplash
Abraham Lake, Clearwater County, AB, Canada
published 14 hours ago
on the elevens day
Veterans Day
the sale
yet we secure the sales
and
all the ordinary things
of home
and there are more and better
the people
those
we’re related to
our friends
all those we knew and didn’t know
whom we were fighting for
and we’re not whole or pretty
when we’re fighting
in our
fractured ways
by orders
and we give
as much as there is
and
if we’re here then we know others
who gave it all
by service
home
then
and somewhere else at war
which is the current privilege
of nation
democracy the great experiment
and thank you
thank you so much
for
giving of the gifts
of mind and heart
and skill
and should it go that way
in war
of blood
of bone
of talent
of however goes the willingness
to serve
which we count positive
so positive
not
by perfection
but by extraordinary exertion
on the field
in the arid
dusty streets
by the rinsing ocean
in depths
in heights
and on the even line
that horizons out
to Earth
and finally
to home
for all the steady service
and the sacrificing
maybe
it seemed ordinary
too
and yet is remarkable
in serving the great experiment
democracy
and peace behind the front
out of the trench
also
behind base fences
a presence and an action
which bring temporal peace
until
we all have eternal
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photograph by Jake Weirick at Unsplash
Kristallnacht
(9 November ’38)
how pretty it all sounds
crystal
and night and such
yet
was a horror
too much enthusiastically destroyed
avowed violence
by fractured minds
and
government
encouraging blood-letting
and
who swept up
everything of broken
bone-
sharpened fragments
after
who tried to repair and so
live on
if under a mass of hate like iron cloud
that any moment
crash
with written on it
a night of broken glass and hearts
could
happen again
and by depravity
worse follow
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photo by Harlie Raethel on Unsplash
evergreen out back
safely burns the red out front
briefly with all fire
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photo by Sean Foster at Unsplash
clcouch123 
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