clcouch123

two poems for Thanksgiving narratology
[narratology = dealing in story (sorry)]


this Thanksgiving
(mutuality)

say
find something to be thankful for

still here
a body
with a spirit inside
a mind

if the high point of that arc
was a long time ago

and everything’s been gradual
since
then

the bandage from last blood test
fell off
somewhere
hopefully not
to create a gross moment for someone
for me
the continuation of a series
gross
if bloody
that began with the first heart attack

or with
fall off the sofa when I was
four or so
and
there was a pool on the hardwood floor
that I could see

this is the past
highlights
or
lowlights
and how do you remember things
your own time
with time
nature
others
your own inventions on your own
and when dealing in
perception based on how others
treated you

that part of the play
when
Eliza says she is a duchess
because Pickering treats him
that way

and
there is
how we treat ourselves

now add the theme of thanks
for the day


Pygmalion/My Fair Lady (cited)


starspeak

and where is God in this
and sad
if not tragic
to
have to ask

maybe it’s because there are no easy
answers on the planet
except the gift
of
itself

in the cosmos
either
except to look with whatever combination
of our senses
to wonder
to measure
too
if there are no numbers for the wonder

we say
in certain liturgies
that
a star is coming
though they’re not supposed to be
loosed from their places

there’s that
wonder

the exercise to call it something else
by which it’s easier
or
to admit there is no knowing
and so let it unbound
unidentify its place
except it flies
and
also famously arrives

with a doctrinal purpose
but that we also leave it
simply as
astounding

also passage in an
extraordinary
narrative
that might beg belief
while
not insisting on its truth
on
what it represents

like the fictive guess
in “The Sentinel”
in which
Arthur Clarke invents a dying star
with
sentient civilization ‘round it
its last explosion
seen over the skies by
magi
of western Asia

and we could write our stories
too
as well as listen to what’s
set
and shared each season though off-season
makes your guesses
takes your chances

give
other versions a chance

allow imagination
serving
as an ironic stretching as a building-up
of credibility


“The Sentinel” is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke.  The story is said to be the inspiration for his and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.  (Clarke having written that novel for and from the film.)


c l couch


Happy Thanksgiving! which should be a day of thanks for all, everywhere—or of hope for such with those in unthanking situations.  (Sorry, need to bring up both.)