red and then orange
though for fall the green has yet
to let go at last
(don’t mean to be on a one-trick pony about fall, but I’m glad to be arriving here and now, now and here)
evergreen complains
you bring on fall all you want
we know how we’ll stay
(this one seems to have come out all its own, as it were on its own)
c l couch
photo by Aurora K on Unsplash
dear God about the seasons
I see red back there
the colors turn
I guess
the last spell
coldish
helped
the sky is blue-gray and bright
there are green leaves
in shade
pre-fall then
and beautiful
for
what it is
plus reminding to us all here
up here
what is to come
while in Australia
and
New Zealand
it is
changing
well
symbolically from white
to green
and of these
the season-tones
I have
I
should gift-thank-you
and
I do
while thanking
and
respecting
of the people
way down
south
as I must think of these
down
while I am up
and
it would be just
to have an upside-
down
globe
to have the downside up
and become
the normal
up
regarding our perceptions
let south be north
for a while
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photo by Faith Lehman on Unsplash
2 disparate poems (one poem about church, the other about art)
church time
liturgy
a language for the church at prayer
though we can go through
the mass book
on our own
the missal
I should say
not sacred language
in whatever language
unless
there is a translation
of glossolalia
but
as far as I know
normal words
that
enable me to go through
devotion
or a service
on my own
or two could
do
and this is church
is
said
that two or three are gathered
and no more
which means I’m not
a church
by myself
and
should have company
in prayer
and worship
(prayer for worship)
if
we want this to be church
as if it’s us
there is
perhaps while in the formal feeling
again
I ask
does art come from pain
and must it
always
love what we do
do what we love
we’re told
trite
cliché
advice a trope
along with dream big
I suppose
and
we know that life is hard
the artist thrown out from the start
or
disenfranchised once
the vision’s owned
because
normalcy
without a challenge is what’s
paid for
and
not the art
except that it appear
magic
at the show
someone decides to buy it
for
colors that complement
or
honestly could be because someone
is moved
(and
the colors complement)
never pay the artist
though
assuming
grants
or commissions
that for most
are in an air
too rare to breathe
and so
we go like the bohème
in a garett that’s happy enough
while
poor
until the poverty should bring disease
without a cure to pay for
by medicine
or
southern Italy
with the means to rest
and so
sun-heal
and I exaggerate
and
don’t
and so after
losing
what
the ordinary company of
one
next to another
having lost most of the world
already
there is work
and it might be art
and
I think shall be
proving
the thesis of the ages
I suppose
except for those who were not poor
to art
who
I imagine
started out that way
by something else
and then the provocations
to the institutions
true
freedom and creation
that outcast
as they please
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photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash
Harmonious Times, Paul Signac
my word
(as some say)
I have Bibles around
though having
well
that’s nothing like opening them
and
it’s been an awful summer
and
maybe had I opened one of these more often
I’d have had
not no problems
but closer
to solutions
which
I know sounds quaint
if not
antique to some
but since life and
death
is described and taken on
maybe not such work for doilies
after all
with humor
look up
Balaam
and sex
look at the words
the works
of Solomon
also
Judith
with
all the violence
finally
an end to Earth
with the promise of what comes next
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photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash
pathwork
the poem is a path
I guess
we start
then move down or around
the page
depending on the form
the program functions
we can have translation
if we may
there are pools
from which to sip
and
forfend against the traps
that only rhetors
might
have set
but let the way be easy
through a story
though
the story’s difficult
or
fearful
yet there is a frame provided
if not for comfort
then
to keep going
and you’ll go alone
though
you don’t have to
as
it’s a form for speaking
after all
and even in a hall
to tell of what goes on outside
inside
so where
or how walk on
the path
is wide enough
and narrow
to discover what is offered
only as
we go the step around or
valley
toward what’s next
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photo by Deborah Goodsell on Unsplash
whom
what
do I want
to say today
but
that you are loved
by Earth
except when Earth should fail
and humankind
with
me
well
until we falter
too
that God remains
the faithful
if invisible
and
yes
that is a conundrum
for apologists
or
simply those who want
to believe
yet
there’s will
and we must exercise
our own
what
to believe
and without good evidence
what
to believe the most
love
faith in anyone
God
in God
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photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
Annunciation school and church
shame
what is the shame
humiliation in
allowing such things to happen
such
awful things
and those who seek to move the world
but
cannot keep children safe
by lesser measures than vainglorious
and is that
it
we cannot say
one cannot say
I did this
and the mountains shook
the seawaves vibrated
by my hand
I pressed my enemies into the ground
beneath the beneath
and
took on God’s role for myself
over heaven
over hell
no
we simply mean to keep our children safe
most of us
that is
to remove the means
for harm
from them and from those
who’d
just as soon hurt them
to let Annunciation
say
these are the children
these
are welcome
we will keep these in the world
and
rise and fall by how we do
to have them in the school for learning
in
the church for faith
at last madness all to own
and
did it say
I hate those Christians
for
what is there to believe in
not myself
only the power I might bear
a little while
‘til I’m caught
‘til my
life is over and what
do I care
this is significance
blood
and flame
I’m like a king
a stupid
conniving
thieving king
a king
of nothing
this is what I am
what I’ve
become
and by such cruelty
and madness
I shall die
only
for remembrance
of them
not who I was
but
what I did
and even then only the loss
and hoped-for judgment
of
the flames
except for those
forgiving
even though I hate the Christian
almost
as much me
then
as I must hate
certainly deny
if not
forget
their God
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MINNEAPOLIS — Mass was underway Wednesday morning to mark the beginning of the academic year at Annunciation Catholic School when bullets started to come through the glass.
. . . which killed two students and wounded more than a dozen other people, . . .
(MSN)
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/ways-to-help-victims-of-the-annunciation-church-mass-shooting/
(KSTP)
photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash
the work of art
maybe it’s the tension of creation
of sensing
something different
to be
remade
and so reconsidered
there’s simply the beauty
in the difference
of the thing
colors
angles used in other ways
untypical
exhibiting by protest no matter
how
genial
the showing and
the gathering
the sips of wine and such
the room décor
the thing
once owned
should complement
though there was the making
and the message with
remains
to rise
time and again
through the risks of close
appreciation
and
reaction
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photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
celestial travel ecumenical
the journey crost
over
the bar
a star that guides
the journey each of us have to
take
hoping the water’s navigable
and the pilot
knows the way
and has firm grip upon
the wheel
and can command the crew
both technically and
kindly
then Tennyson has sailed this way
crost to the other side
and
we might do the same in variants of
faith
and transport but
to arrive
to disembark or simply step
from this life into
heaven
or
what you call it
how you get
there
that
we may study
talk about
while we pursue
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Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
after Tennyson composed the poem, he requested that it appear at the end of all published collections, and it did
photo by Gene Gallin on Unsplash
"Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach Ferry, North Carolina, USA"
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