An Alligator on the Runway
And how shall the pilots
Deal with that
Instinctively, they might say
Into headsets
There’s an alligator on the runaway
Ten-four (or whatever)
Please advise, perhaps
Then waiting for an answer
There are rules,
After all
About animals on runways
Regulations
And what are they
Now?
I suppose an airplane
Running over animals
To keep a schedule
Would not go over well
Should anyone besides
Whoever’s in the cabin
In the tower
On the field
Should be watching
And there’s the clean-up, after
Poor alligator
Poor airplane workers
Poor plane
Poor schedule
We’ll all have to wait
While the wildlife authorities
And referees
Are contacted
And they come with easy loops
Which with to catch the alligator
Then to take it home
And the schedule
All our lives
Resume
And now we’ll have to wait
On their waiting
‘Til it’s shared
What happened
After all
Since I only saw the headline
afterward
Well, they arrived
And wrestled, so to say
Then the beast (the alligator)
Was taken to a river
Then all procedures, even the gator’s,
Resumed
C L Couch
USA Today via MSN (headline teased to start the day)
Photo by Shelly Collins on Unsplash
We’ll Need New Articles for Einstein, Too
(23 April 2024)
Is it
Today
That’s Shakespeare’s birthday
That is
The christening day
By record of
The fact of birth
And if a construct
Then a construct with some very good
Actual
Details
A birthplace
A church
Parents
All the poetry
For
A first reputation
And some munificence
With which
To fund
Some future
With
Plays
Also a theatre
That burned
Down
And that they could
Build a stage again
A favorite of the queen
And then the king
Respected
No doubt also scorned
For envy
By
Peers of verse
Especially
Also of drama
A family
And a burial
Back
At the church
Near the altar
As a deal
And after checking
Mini-eons later
To find the skull
That held
The face
The
Mind
Like Yorick
Isn’t there
(proving something
proving nothing
Macbeth-
like
sound and fury)
Maybe to be set aside
Become
Einstein
Someone whom
We’ll argue for
In the same way
For
For future
Academics’ sakes
C L Couch
n.b. (I think well)
My christening
By the way
Waited a year and
A half
Oh
No
Grist for more
Speculation
Photo by Dalton Smith on Unsplash
23 April 1564
(looked it up—twenty-three score years ago)
The Passing Over
Passover
The saddest of all miracles
And by the evidence
The history
Something that was absolutely
Called for
By the Lord
Against
The forces of the world
Extant in Pharaoh
We think it
Antique now
Perhaps
Since Egyptian is a style
And a history
To follow
With romance in thought
And purchasing
But it happened
Slavery had happened
The people lived
But poorly
The struggle for identity
After basic needs
The worst of all
And one of Egypt
Then of Midian
Was called
And did not want to come
But with his brother
And his sister
Called to lead
At least to take
The people
Out of there
No longer straws for bricks
Requiring miracle
To build
A miracle
So many miracles
To have a leader
To being
A prophet
Holding and excoriating
The court of many kings who
Also thought
In the lack of perspective
Once it had grown
They might as well be gods
And rule
Like their
Personalities
With their
Agendas
So there plagues
And again
We style these
And our imagination
Counts them
And the reason for their order
Is guessed at
But Moses said
There is only one reason
One plan
At work
As we sing
Today
To let the people go
Brutality
Built on
Presumptions to power
As well as
Divinity
The plagues persisted
(COVID is like these)
Until one last
Wave of pestilence
Invited
Unless Pharoah
With a practical heart
Against the magic
As they called it should
Let the people
Go
And it did not
The power could not relinquish
All it meant
To lose these people
Scared of them
For all their number
And maybe
Of their God
Unless
Unbelieving
Simply considered all of them
Moses
Who had been one of theirs
Another slave
Who had tasted of the best parts
Of the fertile land
Appearing by the Nile
And now that
Was a miracle
The gods who favored us
Each year
And there was back when
We don’t remember
The one who was
One of them
Whom we brought
To our side
Having predicted famine
And their God
Become one
Among our gods
To save us
So who is this person
Now
Whom we receive
Who would break free
And leading
All the others
And their God
Break free as well
And so lessen
Our treasuries
And pantheons
I will not release
I am Pharaoh
I am god
It cannot happen
And so the Passover
The first
And awful Passover
The angel pestilence
Save for protecting blood
Above the door
While the blood ceased in the firstborn
In every other house
And in the court
‘Til Pharoah
In new and tragic
Loneliness
Relented
And there was release
For who knows how many
(yes
God knows)
And then
Commemoration
As we have
With an empty chair
Should another prophet come
C L Couch
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash
Color Our World
(Earth Day)
Tomorrow is
Earth
Tomorrow is
A day
And it will be Earth Day
Shall we have an Earth tomorrow
Shall we have
A day
For green understanding
And gold wisdom
On our
You know
Blue world
Jazz understanding
With the waves
And sudden rushes
Both of wind
And water
The shoreline that
Behind which there is land
Before which
There is contemplation
Also the depths
That bring us danger
From both
The thrill
Of discovery
And the danger
Of encroachment
An Earth that should balance
In its orbit
Where all the planes
Should touch together
A turning point of miracle
And a starting point
For life
And as life
We hope
Should continue
By all means
Celebrate
For she is worthy
Of our partied
And our treasured
Wisdom
And emotion
And pledge perhaps
That we’ll do better
By this day
Next year
And there’s the doing
And the learning
And the doing
So that the blue and green
And gold
And the transparent air
Of what we know
Shall be preserved
Also enacted
For the present
And the future
The future comes not
On its own
All of it
In seeds
We plant today
And also leaving parts
As fallow fields
As the wilderness
Should teach us
By example
Not to say
That civilized is bad
It’s what we here for
Why we have the Earth
To begin with
And the inevitability
Of growth
But there is growth
And there is growth
What we should remember
Of the wild
And of the planned
And to keep both
And all
That is good
In blue and green and gold
And the clear parts
That keep us breathing
And inspiring
Together
C L Couch
Photo by Tim de Groot on Unsplash
Relative Faithful Consciousness
I haven’t said God
To you
Or me
This morning
Through I might have spoken
To God
Anyway
Yes
I know we say it
Different ways
Different
Intents
(too early
for
ontologies)
But I think
You know
I mean to say
Civilitied
Good morning
Or
Dear God
To start a prayer
As I stretched
And moved with
Care
Depending
On mindfulness
Toward the counter
To make
Coffee
Someone was there
(without Reed-Kellogg-
like
diagramming for
discovery)
And I think
(anyway)
I knew
Grumpy
And doesn’t God
Get grumpy
Too
Withholding a flood
But wanting to retaliate
In other ways
Or simply have us
With our wills
Go away
A while
Well
Maybe not
I guess God’s always on
Always perfect
Always love
Good morning
C L Couch
Photo by sumingliu youyou on Unsplash
Nature for Liturgy
This is your day
God
But then
So was yesterday
A litany to you
Could have been
Between the sunset
And moon
Rising
Or even closer
The response
Of branch
To wind
We could guess
The words are everywhere
And should we know
The language
We could antiphon
With
Nature
Find the circles
And to join
Them
In
Nature’s lack of need
To worship
But providing perfect places
For it
All the same
An invitation
All the same
From
The world that
We have
Gradually
Used up
Irony
And gratitude
Shall we apply
In moving
Aside
(inside
or outside)
To be
Here
In splendid
Airy
Easy
(save for awe
mountain peaks
or seeming
depthless
oceans)
Company
In unaware companionship
But offering
The same
Anyway
For our hours
In irony
And gratitude
C L Couch
Photo by Chuck Eugene on Unsplash
ain’t together
(roaming like clouds or cellphone signals, I apologize)
anticipation
like the ketchup
rain
should come
at any moment
through
the unrelenting gray
to the west
and south
severer things have happened
and
I think
we
shall get the dregs
of it
flooding tempests
and tornados
well
it’s windy
now
though I don’t think
shelter-driven
though
of course
I could be wrong
and I’ll
be looking for
a doorframe
after all
and you be safe
unless
you be
stormchasers
then
I don’t what
to say
how about
God speed with you
and make wings
ahead
blow you the other way
when exigent
need be
coda
I’m sorry
we aren’t going through
what you go through
in Ukraine
or in Gaza
or
in parts where the same things
happen
and we don’t hear about
so much
I’m not talking about
bullets
killing or
explosions
the terror
then the thirst
and hunger
after
the infections
and the awful
draining
fear
for families
and I’m not in Philadelphia
where someone had to shoot
at Muslims
having Eid al-Fetr
at the end
of Ramadan
and I’m not everywhere
where white folk
hate the Jews
or anyone who’s not
so white
(I guess I mean
pure
ethnic white
whatever hell that means
as a thought
or an
agenda)
anyone
that is
whom we’re afraid of
as the next
majority
in number or
otherwise in power
well
I merely
started talking
about
weather
and by
implication
climate change
but
maybe
everything’s extreme
anymore
and the peace of moderation
sometimes called
the swing vote
might be desired
more than
ever
or I’ll only speak
for me
from a kind of centered place
that I hope is not
the hurricane’s
but God’s
eye
c l couch
photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash
with at the start a reference to a TV commercial from the '70s
The World’s Kitchen
(https://wck.org/)
Makes food
For everyone
Who’s hungry
With good food
In
Extraordinary quantities
And then
They die
While at the front
“this happens in war”
Is part of
The first thing’s that said
About that
Well
Starvation happens
Too
Unless you’re on
The winning
Side
And even then
We mourn these
Providers
So often
Earthly saviors
And will they go
Away
Never to come
Again
Into the fray
Near the fray
Where they don’t
Have to be
But please return
The needful
And the comfortable
Plead
And request
Respectively
We are hungry
We’ll be good
They say
Respectively
So food that’s needed
And the others
Needing not
To be there
Respectively
Thank goodness
Nothing good happens
Without something
Bad
Rejoindering
And that’s not enough
Of course
A chestnut
Or a saw
Let us go there
Who like the launching
Of attacks
And cook for these
The refugees
The wounded
Who will need
Holding up
For feeding
Let us go there
Now
To make
And feed
Some life again
That we ordered
Or supported
Or
Are in favor
When campaigning
Sending
Eleven-dollar checks
Let us all go
There
In every continent
Except for now
The southern continent
Where
We do not war
For now
Let’s go
Instead
To every other place
Where hunger has been
Caused
And cook for these
And feed them
Then go back
To reconsider
Ordering
A war
Rather than food
Again
And sadly
Tragically
Some will
Though many of us
Will learn something new
Something old
About our neighbors
And will go back
To feed again
C L Couch
Who were the World Central Kitchen workers killed in Gaza?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68711282
Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash
By Design
And
Yes
The wars go on
And nature matches us
For blood
If not intent
While nature
Is indifferent
But our
Destruction’s will
And
You know
That’s it
It’s will
And will you not
C L Couch
Photo by Carl Kho on Unsplash
clcouch123 
Recent Comments