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Public Bear
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Pooh
Has entered
The public domain
Welcome, Pooh
And Piglet
Tigger
Rabbit
Kanga and Roo
Owl
And the blond boy
With buckles on his shoes
Who made a world
So that our world
Might be
Prettier
And kinder
And we can hope
A little wiser
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C L Couch
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(Public Domain)
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Majesty
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Born a king
Because he was male
Had he been a girl
Born a queen
Like Esther
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A monarch for salvation
Of the world,
Which grinds against our notions
Of democracy
How can we kneel to a ruler—the
Words don’t really mean that,
Do they?
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And they do
Words surrounding words
Of majesty
Omnipotence
And glory
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Such that we’d be glad
To bow before the one,
To lie on the floor
If that were called for
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A birth into the ages
Love coursing through
The blood, the
Organs,
And first breaths
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Born into prophecy
Surrounding prophecy
With grace for that
And will
To make mountain
And the sky above
And stars so far
Beyond our reach,
Though we reach for them
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How will it be
To meet the creator
And the sovereign of the
Earth and skies?
Wake up each day,
Face the sun
And do not stare
Meeting God
Is like that
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for the birth of God, the next day, and for our days
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A corona mass ejection erupts from our sun on August 31, 2012.
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The Drive to Church on Christmas Eve
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What shall we say
On this night
There might be stars
There might be clouds
There might be snow
(depending upon
temperature,
elevation, and
the axis tilt)
I know there were
Christmas Eves
When it rained
They come to mind
Evoked by
Memory
Bright lights in dots
Upon the windshield
I am on the way
To church,
A child myself
On the way
To meet another
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Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash
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Lean-To
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Earth tilts
Unlike pinball
The other way
Then tilts
The other way
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We light fires
To appease
So that the axis
Listens
Turns us back
To growing seasons
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We’ll have winter
Now
While they have
Summer
The world is made
Of complements
As well as
Paradox
Winter summer,
Equator and the poles
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A world on which
All things hold
That must hold
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Our home
Embraces opposites
In seasons
In tilting one way
Then the other
In value for us all
And each one
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Sunrise in Iceland 11:19 this morning.
Hafsteinn Robertsson from Hafnarfjordur, Iceland – Winter Solstice, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73751614
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Trying Time
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Christmastime is here
Guaraldi plays to this
We shop
We pray
We put up stock
In pantries
To last throughout assembly
And the lie-in, after
After
All the franticness is done
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Christmastime is here
Days on
To get ready
Hours, minutes
Winding down
Christmas will happen, anyway,
You know
A festive day
Followed by more days
Maybe eleven
The partridge sings the day
All we have to do is sing
Along
Or, if we’re tired,
Only listen
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Photo by Jad Limcaco on Unsplash
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Advent 4
(in pandemic time)
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The test was negative
An early Christmas present
So I’m sick with something else
A strain of flu the shot
Could not take cover of,
A cold that has
Gone deep
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A sliced-up immune system
Trauma, medication
Treatments, operations
But I’m here
And should be
For Christmas day
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And, yes, I’m thankful
I’d rather be
Knit together better
But I’m here
Have all appendages
Insides busted up, here and there
While finding aging
To be a cranky business
‘Tis the season
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‘Tis the season
The wreath is almost done
The Hanukkah lights
Have been done for days
The early miracle
The rituals continue
Lights and green and red and gold
And have I finished all the gathering
For the holiday?
You know, I think I could say
“Stop” and “ready”
Anytime
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I hope the world
Beyond sectarian
Has a fine Christmas time
The solstice will happen soon
With tiny increments toward
Spring
Cold weather
Hot toward the south
Until it chills again
But Christmastide all over
All kinds of holidays
With expectations
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Maybe we may take
Some freer, fuller breaths
Because much of the world
Is slowing down
And ceasing for a time
And, if not,
We can imagine
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Fill the time
With something good
With something stopped
With easy joy
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Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash
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Wednesday Invitationing
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Will you join me for
An hour or so?
We’ll sip something
Look at nature
Listen
Listen to each other
I want to know how
You’re doing
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Good, clean fun
We’ll laugh
We’ll tell stories
Maybe laugh some more
Maybe we’ll share words
From each other’s
Secret language while
Magic
Words proven beyond us
Are written
In the sky
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Then afterward sun
And cloud move
Toward
The end of day
As if they have
A syncopated plan
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Electric Spiral Energy System
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Modranicht
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Maybe I need a break
Go somewhere
Look at lights that others
Have put up
Phantom merrymaking
On my part
No, wait, they were put up
For me and others like me
To go by
To gaze at from afar
Appreciate the rainbow lights
Against the snow,
If snow,
Against the dark
Of night
Of loneliness
Of season’s night
Of season’s loneliness
That say, we’re here
And some of us
Are here for you
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Modranicht, Night of the Mothers (a Yule celebration, now Christmas Eve)
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Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
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Four Score
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I’m not sure what to say
Today
A day for remembrance
To respect a President
Who said so
And all the boys
And girls
To men and women
And civilians of all kinds
(were children killed?)
Who died
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We can’t seek vengeance
Though we went for victory
And that tragically
Is fair to say
We made a war at home
That wasn’t there
Between the rubber drives
And paper drives
And rationed sugar
That was the war at home
We imprisoned
Our own
Now
Remembrance might
Be for learning, too
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So we are always ready
For the next time
Properly vigilant
With reason
And with passion
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Victory
Deserved
Marshall plans
After
Win
Too high a cost
We all agree
Rebuild the world
After
Bless the nation
Bless the world
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Ready at war, which
Has been the
Burden of
A nation
Seek peace
Every day
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Photo by Ryan Stone on Unsplash
World War II Memorial, Independence Avenue Southwest
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