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Justice for One

Justice for One

 

I want to hurt some people

No, not that

I want someone else to hurt them

It is a gypsy curse

Or something from a deeper quarter

Of New Orleans

Yes, I might use magic

But then Harry Potter dies

I won’t deserve the stories, anymore

 

Not encountering them is good

We live in different towns

Heaven help offenders who

Live on the same street,

Even the same side

 

In wanting vengeance, I change

Nothing but myself

 

I know a little about justice

The human kind can be corrupt

The divine part is in perfect balance

All the time

I can shake my fist

But God will not change anything

But changeable

In its own time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Calum MacAulay on Unsplash

The Agrestic Grocer, Orange, Australia

 

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Weasels

Weasels

 

I’ve never met a weasel

I hear they pop

Whenever there might be

A mulberry bush close by

And a monkey

I suppose comparing them to ferrets

Would be offensive

For one party or the other

Otters, maybe?

I guess weasels are their own kind

 

But are they slender and slippery,

Able, well,

To weasel out of things?

I have jury duty coming up

Maybe I could borrow a talent

Or two talents

Not that I mind

 

Fear of the unknown

I don’t know if weasels have that, too,

Which is why they move so fast,

If they do

 

C L Couch

 

 

Frank Liebig – Archiv Frank Liebig, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72157122

Wiesel in Röbel

 

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The Metaphone of Pain

The Metaphone of Pain

 

He said it was a megaphone

It was emphasized in the movie

(in the play, first)

Then he found love with someone

Who was dying

And I don’t think he wanted to hear

The noise at all, let alone amplified

For there is a quietness to pain

Small cries that stay mostly in

I don’t mean the whimper

Though that’s fine

I mean the part that wants to cry out

THIS HURTS

Afraid to meet an indifferent world decrying

There are problems all over,

Fella

Sista

Get up and get on with it

 

But this is why

A Grief Observed is better than

The Problem of Pain

It got through

We listen

As we feel

And pay attention

Not to noise

But to a quieter insistence

 

C L Couch

 

 

Shadowlands, a play by William Nicholson

 

Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12490512

 

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Tapestry

Tapestry

(https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/31/if-you-want-to-get-things-done-pause-taking-time-out-is-crucial?utm_source=pocket-newtab)

 

Times goes in ribbons,

Moving flat, overtwining

Three or more to make a braid

Or some kind of Moebius phenomenon

The writer lives in Spain

Time is different there for him

I live in the Northeast

Time moves incessant

Where busyness is a virtue

 

Invoke Einstein

The bridging through wormholes

Impedance, or allowance, of dark matter

Making standing still to FTL all

Possible

 

And in a possible time,

What cannot be invented

What cannot be savored

In all moments

 

And as a coda, wonder with me

Please

What might be the artifacts

 

I’ve imagined time, my time

My life as

A banner or

A tapestry

(if a banner, I suppose there is a message

though I don’t know what that is)

All things are kept

All things recorded

The thread might not all be lasting

Some might have come undone

Been burned through misapprehension

Or bad days for

Another reason

But one strand, at least

Maybe two strands

Keeps or keep

The rest

So that there is intactness

To the living

With a record for accounting

Or maybe, only for display

When all is done

And Parousia installs

A great exhibition

 

I doubt any of my thread is gold

But I do bid for colors

Of all kinds

With bumps and cautionary stitching

Here and there

I don’t know how concerned I am

That the edges be so straight

 

C L Couch

 

 

Time isn’t the same everywhere.

[my emphasis]

You can think about pause as a habit. One executive I worked with would take five minutes to himself, to do nothing in particular, before he left the office. He made it a way to close the day, and leave work thoughts at work, rather than carrying them home with him. You might think about designing longer and deeper pauses for yourself, and how you could create a space where pauses are woven into the fabric of your life or work.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/31/if-you-want-to-get-things-done-pause-taking-time-out-is-crucial?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

Image by Welcome to all and thank you for your visit ! ツ from Pixabay

 

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Such and Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

 

I hope it is still there

The black church I attended Sunday morning

Louisville in 1983

We were the only white folk there

The service went for hours (yes, it did)

And we were made so welcome

I’d like to have stayed for hours more

For Presbyterians, there was a lot of moving

 

Clapping and the singing was fantastic

Because they meant it

(it was tuneful, too)

The praying must have gone straight to heaven

Having made faithful conduits

Such an ordinary feature

 

We would have more meetings

Take our leave and go our separate ways

But we were together, then

Sinews in a toned body of

A holy congregation ‘round the world

When such people meet for such a purpose

Holy, holy, holy

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

Reykjavík, Iceland

 

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Cat House

Cat House

 

Last night I saw

Cat-friends

Allergies notwithstanding

There were people, too

They’re fine, I think,

The cats (I guess the people, too)

The screened-in porch was open to them

In fact, a breeze

And persons to protect the bowls

One cat’s from the other

The skittish cat leaped up

The other flowed like mercury

Upon the floor

Seeking a container of some sort,

I think

The way liquid does

We ate

They hoped

We watched a film

They stayed away

We had to pass through, after

Their insistence came alive again

Furballs of self-interest

That is their purpose

And their lesson

Nature to the rest of us

Not wrong to want our way

Not bad to serve affection

For no reason

Beyond being

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay

 

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Still Life by the Window

Still Life by the Window

 

The light comes through just right

And when it doesn’t go that way

I have the chance to

See it all tomorrow

Next to the air-conditioner lines

There is a work lamp

Good for reading under

There are eucalyptus branches in a jar

Actually, these vibrate

Challenging the lesson of still life

 

There are candles on a stool

A phone resting in its cradle

A coaster that’s a tile, promoting

Science in Puerto Rico

There are matches in a glass

Some English candy in an (English) tin

A pinecone

 

An ancient folding chair is folded

Next to these

(ten dollars from a store that whose

stock was old things)

Next to the jar, some crayons in a cup

Reminding me of color in the head

And in the world

No braces of birds or fruit cut in half

No mirror framed in gold

Or furniture I’d find in a museum

Now

 

This is my exhibition

Of my time

The early twenty-first century

By now, many were expecting

Keys to hovercrafts next

To gloves for flying jetpacks

For now, the guy who few in Lost in Space

Will have to do

We’ll catch up by leaping forward

 

I have a corner

And in yours

 

C L Couch

 

 

Still Life with Grapes, Peaches and Snail, signed by A. Ruysch and dated 1685

Anna Rausch – http://hoogsteder.com/paintings/still-life-grapes-peaches-snail/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38783341

 

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Tentatively Yours

Tentatively Yours

 

If we are to heal,

There has to be a hope

That someday it will be complete

That all the things that festered

Will have finally unwound

From the brain, the heart

Any infected organs

That persistence of pain will

Be replaced

With something like assurance in

Confidence of being well

That the counting that has met

Each day

Now useless

Will give way

To errands, nothing much

A nothing kind of day

Wouldn’t that be nice

Wouldn’t that be lovely

To have a day that’s dulled by

Anything but pain

Not to be morose

For what I have

I’ll still wrap around mortality

Until the glorious surprise

Of the next thing

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Michael Anfang on Unsplash

 

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Bendiciónes Pequeñas

Bendiciónes Pequeñas

(inspired by and with permission from Cathy Birdsong Dutchak at https://wanderessence.com/)

 

To be brought a small bowl

Of peanuts

Cacahuates—do I recall that rightly?

In a courtyard of an albergue

To accompany the glass of wine I’ve ordered

In the north of Spain

Somewhere along the pilgrim trail

On the other side of Spain, Hemingway might be

Trout-fishing

With or without companions

I hope with

He could have done with more company than

Cats (apologies to the six-toe-to-a-paw friends who

still retain his houses in the Keys,

on Cuba)

 

I’m not sure I could take the path

Maybe for a while

But I could sit there inside a breeze

Of northern Spain

Contemplate the pilgrimage

The pilgrims of all kinds

 

Have a sip

Reach for the bowl

Taste and see

 

C L Couch

 

 

(on the pilgrim trail to Campostela)

Option to Valverde de la Virgen (3.4 km)

Each day on the Camino, you don’t know what you’ll encounter as you walk in the footsteps of thousands of pilgrims. Sometimes you find pleasant surprises such as the oasis of my albergue, La Casa del Camino: Albergue de Peregrinos.

Though it sits along a busy road, it was a beautiful spot with couches and comfy chairs, lounge chairs, hammocks, and beds on the lawn for lounging.   There were areas under canopies and umbrellas and a line of square foot baths, and the most welcoming owners you could ever meet. When I arrived, they presented me with a glass of cold fresh orange juice as they checked me in.

Bowls of apples sat on tables, flower boxes and hanging baskets dotted the space around an above-ground swimming pool (with no water), gardens bloomed, and Buddhas reclined and sat, looking serene.

I sat outside having a glass of wine and one of the owners brought me a small bowl of peanuts.

When I have happened upon places such as these, I felt so joyful and grateful for the peaceful and refreshing surroundings.

This place rates up with a number of top albergues along the Camino.  There are fair shares of bad and mediocre ones.

(my emphasis)

https://wanderessence.com/2019/08/25/camino-day-31-leon-to-valverde-de-la-virgen/

 

Photo by Les routes sans fin(s) on Unsplash

Camino de Santiago, Spain

Perspectives on hills, pilgrims on the way. /// Le sommet d’une colline dévoile parfois une perspective hors du temps.

 

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