occasion by the river
are you alive
or are you dead
the hobbit
asks
of Dwarves
while they are spitting up and out
river water
packing
straw
and thankful
none too thankful for
being free
and
yet they are
and thanks to the halfling for
half-height
saving all them
if
by an assist of magic
that he
does not understand yet is
convenient doding locks
in
a palace
and now the quest may go on
with rooks
and thrushes
maps
secret doors and try not
to consider
how one might burn
by
dragon
and the poet writes occasions
restore the old
honor new
and
a party ‘round a huge old tree
for both
then the occasion is a book
the red one of his own
with
help in finishing
and then it
goes to
us
and our safe-keeping
but not by leaving
the book
closed
but hear
and then
well
harken
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The Hobbit is a novel by J. R. R. Tolkien
I don’t know how I thought about this moment in the story and to start writing on it
photo by Mike Holford on Unsplash--“Minutes from stepping off the ferry to Sark Island, we decided to walk to the campsite via the coast path. This tree really stood out as a contrast to the yellow glow of the field and the brilliant blue if the sky and sea. Looking forward to exploring the island more!”
Monday morning
everyone needs easier
a half an hour
and I haven’t really
said
anything
but what would you like to hear
on a Monday morning from
this culture
to
your part in it
or within other lines
I’d like to talk of God and imagine a Monday
morning church
clean
from Sunday
shining surfaces not having to be bright
but
burnished from use
and now
the building takes a breath and welcomes
truly interested
to work
a clean church
from
being mostly empty and a day off
for the pastor
a chance for visitors to enter
and
to breathe
and to wish good Sunday for the Spirit there
and then and now
a restful
presence
as if the sabbath were on this day instead
when
we might pause or at least
work
with less intrusion
if intrusion is the way
but
everyone needs easier
hours
you know
like the Genesis example
a good
day of
taking in the quiet noise
then
all return
outside
n.b.
and could be Sunday in the temple
for the same
or
in the mosque the time before the next
call
to prayer
bless the cleaners
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photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
number by Venezuela
numbers rounded
so far
as six thousand five hundred rescued
seventeen thousand wounded
three thousand five hundred have died
yet
they are numbers needed for
aid groups
and to give perspective there while working
there on this
alone
and is there judgment
and
forestall it while
the human toll is taken
and
before and after
count
addressed
and who’s there
and many
and
many will be going
and I don’t be
I have to
say
and from a distance
well
I pray
and have given money toward relief
though I’m old and poor and
my family gives me grief
while I should go
on
and they are giving all the while
and fiscal easier
as well
and there’s material in prayer and that’s the point
and it isn’t
but
to give to help
however that is healthy
honest
toward their lives
and
sanctity
having been made by God and natural indifference
notwithstanding
yet
is the God of love and has directed us
by that aspect
even
alone
or through which to send
everything
we send to these in every status
of
the need and our
response
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1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
NIV
photo by Derek Lee on Unsplash
anymore
3 July 1863
the heat of July in southern Pennsylvania
it’s hotter now
these days
but a hundred fifty years ago and more
then
inside uniforms bearing
supplies and heavy guns
and
two days fighting even
to serve on the winning side and then a final
charge
to determine victory
then the march on Harrisburg
to end the war
and
the cannons fired too soon if like the rebel yell
but
too early over the field
then following orders though the noise
had cleared
the damage done with time
to reassemble
the smoke gone and
regardless
came the charge
over a flat place with little cover
and
stopping wasn’t ordered
anyway
and the soldiers
with their leaders were
cur
down
Hood shot down and
only some made it
to the stone wall of the enemy
and
were killed
there
and Lee called up Pickett to sort his army
for more fighting
to which
Picket proclaims with anger in his blood
and grief for loss
to Lee that there was no army of his leading
anymore that
day
the charges lay on the field
free in the worst way
from
any earthly order
anymore
clc
photo by Johnny Kaufman on Unsplash
“Roadside Sunset”
Gettysburg, PA, USA
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
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photo by Kyle Peyton on Unsplash
today a writer cannot write
1
fathers
solstice
church
how are these handled
not
well by me at all
and maybe you might wonder how
you’re doing
too
it’s a day
and things have added up
as
they might have
and could we honor
restful
hours to which we’re sabbath-called
it’s been so long
since Dad
and I haven’t checked the time for Earth
to
tilt the other way
and
church was a computer things for me
this morning
so not well
by
who were they
Abby
or Heloise or someone
to offend
by error or
well
getting nothing done
at all
so the hours
they go by unsettled if
not
riotous
for lack of shape and
easy conversation
and
thank goodness I shall see some friends
and if drink enough
you know
the Brita stuff then the head pain
might
go down and the day end
inexorably
and
could be with
a pleasure and who knows
an insight
for
tomorrow’s draft
2
so an apology not as
the classic explanation but
rather
the contemporary expression
of
regret
then
maybe how your day has gone
you’ll tell
me
for peer frustration or
and I want
to know
even if
I’ll feel worse
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if not so well for Fathers Day and summer solstice and Sunday church officially by many Protestants
image by Peter Pruzina from Pixabay
break
the sun breaks up
the gray
which I think is good
at
least when the gray is pale and blanketing
without interesting texture
from lines of
clouds
maybe of promises of needful rain
c l couch
photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash
at 3
if around this itme
I should hear
behind me
through the window and the wall
sounds
steam and protest
from large tires on the street
I can’t help but think of autumn
and of yellow
the schoolbus that’s allowed
to pass and
when
need
be
stop traffic on its own
pleasing
instruction
and associative
announcing
school
and now the end of school
the day’s
accomplishments
while
we might not be done but if we’re children
are
sense of release
from
well
release
and now to use our legs or our own wheels
if we need them
to go to
honestly
to
snacks
and thinking or not thinking about
about what’s next
before the yellow truck with
seats
should
pick us up
again
too early for the new day
of a new day
the final journey for the 180 year
the start-up healthy
wheezing trip
in
August of
a year
we say in this context
must be
new
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photo by Marcelo Cidrack on Unsplash
Miami, FL, USA
hard times by Charles Dickens
sigh
I had a father
from a distance
and
the day is
sentimental and I suppose
we’re supposed to go
along
and I don’t want
to
for I miss the one I could have
had in
him
but for
the demon rum
maybe the war that caused it all
perhaps
the conversations that
we could have
had
the things we could have learned together
and did not
parent
mentor
friend
love of outdoors that was his as a child
and I trust
I hope
a man
I came across old photographs
one with him wrinkly
dressed
sporting a fedora
decades before the Spielberg
re-invention
though maybe
Steven
had
such
a photograph as well
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on Fathers Day
Dickens really did write a novel called Hard Times
I notice nearly all the the tense is past, real and nostalgic, as if events as well as wishful feeling can only go back there
sigh
today in the USA is also Flag Day, and globally it’s Mitzi’s birthday, Mitzi our dog of seventeen years, who appeared as a scrawny foundling puppy on the porch and grew to be a fat and happy dog
photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
clcouch123 
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