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Fourth Parable

Fourth Parable

Imagination,

Willy Wonka

Some songs are extra-beautiful

Depending on who’s singing

Today The Star-Spangled Banner

Always sung in martial fashion

So it seems

I don’t suppose there’s another way

But maybe remember that

The fort and city were outgunned

It wasn’t really victory

But endurance and survival

The flag was flying in the morning

(big flag, if you haven’t seen)

The nation got another day

Sometimes, I guess,

It’s all we need

C L Couch

Jay Bala, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=670634

July 4, 2019 0

Rescue Me

Rescue Me

Once, I was in trouble

It was fixed, I don’t know how

Someone appeared

And kept the fall from hurting worse

Somehow in fact

Abbreviated all the crisis

Pulled my substance

Soul-enfleshed

Back from the next edge, so

That I might go home

One more time that day

And with my spirit

Lean into tomorrow

I don’t think the saints are gone

Or angels, either

Like the elves from Middle-Earth

We won’t need

White shores

While we are defended, now

C L Couch

Georgia National Guard from United States – Air Rescue, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70915161

July 3, 2019 0

Please Wait

Please Wait

Wait

I have something for you

It’s today

I don’t know if you need it

But please take it, anyway

No cost

All you have to do

Is wake a little

In barely an existential way

I don’t mean to pry or push

I didn’t bring the dawn

I’m only asking

For a little time

Go outside

Sponge up everything you can

You don’t have to return

But I’ll wait

In case

You do

It’s fine, I have a book to read

And I can put my life on hold a little

Because the time is worth it for

Discovery of meaning

And if you’ll have it

Maybe you’ll tell me

Maybe not

This is yours

All this is yours

It’s all for you

Redemption in small moments

Sometimes it’s the best

We get to have

An affirmation of a gift

From me to you

On behalf of

One who calls down the day

Each time

Until the last

When small becomes gargantuan

Each thing matters more

For being minor

Yes, I’m not a caller

Not a surrogate

Simply who gets to say, now and then

Yes, it’s all for you

C L Couch

Photo by Yoshua Giri on Unsplash

July 2, 2019 1

Oh, Say

Oh, Say

The American dream

Overextend the company

Charge more for products

Reduce services

Pay people less

Try to eliminate benefits, so-called

Maybe get raided by another firm

Everyone is fired

Move on

Wait, what?

What happened to Knute Rockne

And Jim Thorpe?

Horatio Alger

And the poor match girl?

(wait—she died)

The lives of Harriet Tubman

(whose image we pretend will go

on a twenty, yeah, someday)

Sojourner Truth

The words of Frederick Douglass

Susan Anthony

And to those

Asian and Latinx

Black and even white

In museum heritage

Or not known at all

Who made it?

What is it?

A home, a family

A car unless there’s good transit

In the city

Enough possessions

Something to pass on

Assets, among them

A good story

Justice enough

Truth enough

Faith a little more

Love more than that

A choice

A say

A vote

That’s some dreaming

That was here a while ago

But I can’t find it in my pockets

Or outside where I hear

The pundits

And pretenders

Evoking bitterness

And gorge onto

What should be a better scene

With sapling promises all

Planted, taken care of

Back to basics?

No such thing

Even on a good day

You like basics?

Me, too—guarantee of shelter

Food and opportunity

And, yes, I’ll say it

Say it with me

Freedom

I like reenactments

They rarely bleed

But some real blood might have to be

Spilled again

Before we’re through in

Or with

The world

And we understand what the world

Has been through with us

And a different ecumenism’s called for

Once we understand ourselves,

We’ll have to apply again

And take part

No longer the whole

That’s for villains in poor novels

And movies

So here’s the thing:

Forward to the basics

As in feed everyone

Learn democracy

Not from demagogues

Vote again

Rescind hatred

Don’t make it a crime,

Simply something lacking reason

Not to mention humor

We can learn how to laugh again

Without the grime

Without the fall

We can honor heritage

More so legacy

In festivals

Happy Birthday, USA

We can make it

If we try

C L Couch

covering the National Mall

User:Lipton sale, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60460085

July 1, 2019 0

After a Kind of Rain

After a Kind of Rain

There is hope

While there is good

We don’t even have to know

It’s more than half

We only need to catch a gleam

In the morass of kidnapped night

That better roles have

Abrogated

That was, I think, the war

In heaven

And if the hopeful glint

Is not in evidence

On the field or in a corner

In case our spirits are abducted, too

In the metaphor, we can close

Our eyes and in a better

Darkness recall

The light,

Which lifts the cause for metaphor

And story

More poetry, more narrative

We need more, we must have more

In case so much depends upon

By all means, this is not a call

For this

There is so much around

Barely a kick will stir it up from

Dulling dust

Or here’s a thought:

Create

Co-create

Strike an agreement with a muse

A long-term contract

Don’t worry

She awaits

With clarity even within

The rolls of night

Even before the end of

Stormy weather

Over one plain or another

C L Couch

Fahad Hashmi – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40357621

Lahore

June 30, 2019 0

Possession

Possession

It’s why I sat outside

Her house sometimes

But nothing like a season

Of murder

That’s a different kind

Of demon’s work

That I don’t understand

Don’t want to understand,

Thank God

C L Couch

CALIFORNIA SHOOTING LEAVES 3 DEAD A man who had just been fired from a Northern California Ford dealership fatally shot two employees and then killed himself Tuesday evening, police and witnesses said. [AP]

TRAGIC PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS MIGRANTS’ STRUGGLES In an image published in Mexican newspaper La Jornada, a man and his 23-month-old daughter lay face down in shallow water along the bank of the Rio Grande. Her arm was draped around his neck, suggesting she clung to him in her final moments. The heartbreaking photo’s spread had the potential to refocus attention on the plight of migrants and Trump’s border policies. [AP]

(Huffington Post)

Great Blessing of Waters by Boris Kustodiev

http://www.kpnemo.ws/other/2008/09/07/russkie_zhivopistsyi__boris_kustodiev/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4744577

June 29, 2019 0

Night Study

Night Study

I just heard

A study shows

The work of studiers

That trees sleep at night

Circadian life

From the sometime home of the cicadas

And, you know, I don’t think I ever climbed

My treehouse at night,

Which has nothing to do with anything

Except that if I had

Disrespect now showing

I might have felt them rest

And had more of my own:

A web of branches overhead

My father’s skill beneath

And the noise of night

Singing as it should

For the child’s ears

C L Couch

Photo by manu schwendener on Unsplash

Münsterplatz, Basel, Switzerland

Antares lights at the Christmas market in Basel. More here https://manuschwendener.ch/2016/12/04/antares

June 28, 2019 1

What We Can Give

What We Can Give

(and following)

Grace to you

And mercy

Though I cannot dispense them

(even mercy is borrowed)

I am not the source

And not to splinter things too fine,

Neither I think are you

But we know the one is

Source and giver,

Who releases memory to us

Of past performance

And of gratitude

As a surrogate, I can offer blessing

(so can you)

Though it is not mine (not ours)

To award

But mercy we can show

Maybe not as miracle

But hard work can come across

Splendidly,

Especially without invoice

There’s grace in that

Grace Act II

And now, the sequel

We can give grace

Our own kind

A human sort that is not

Of the Spirit

But which it approves

A love that doesn’t

Think of it as gift

Nothing to consider on

The page

But that which cuts through mysteries

To ponder,

Nighttime, candlelit considerations

No, in this light of day

We don’t deliberate the question

Simply provide the act

In, you know, action

That, aside, is enough of an answer

Maybe we own our kind of mercy

As well

C L Couch

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

“music in the air”

June 28, 2019 0

Breaking Good

Breaking Good

(BrGd, Periodically speaking—it’s kind of a pun, sorry)

Sometimes I can’t conform

Maybe that’s often

You see, I had not been in the

Hospital much throughout

My life,

Not really since birth, in fact, except

To visit

I didn’t mind hospitals, didn’t feel

Drawn toward them, either

I had a chaplain friend at

Children’s in Cincinnati whose ministry was

A series of small miracles

I say small because he worked with

Children

Whom he could find through all the

Tubes

And meters and restrictions

Of the I.C.U.

To find the child every time

I wished he lived in Harrisburg

Or I lived again in the Queen

City

Anyway, the siege began when I

Was forty-five or so

The combatants are, frankly, dying

And me

Much of the battlefield has been

Inside Holy Spirit then at Harrisburg

It goes on

Now I have strong feelings about

Hospitals, and the

Feelings are not good

In this, I touch a universal feeling,

If too severely,

That of going there

So that I might get out

The people there are good

Nearly everyone I’ve met is kind

If not, the unkind ones came by

While the anesthesia was

Having its way

I’ve been to rehab, too

Stayed at my sister’s house for care

(my nephew visiting my

sick room every day, because

he didn’t have to)

So buildings are not bad, not for

Recovery, though

I’ll never lose the knack

For outside air

So this is about conformity

Many rules in institutions, as

You know

(now so do I

in a living and not yet dying way)

I can take the strictures for a

While

Then must bust out before I

Burst inside

Trite way to put it, since

It’s part of what, what is it called,

Psychopathy? pathology?—either sounds

Important

I must break out from time to time

Join the rest of us outside

Take a walk or

A short drive to nowhere in

Particular

Sort of a habit, anyway

Now a tontine between nature and

Here I am

There’s the world:

It seems I need its vastness

More than ever now

C L Couch

List of Elements in Chinese

Sciencenotes.org

periodic table of the elements in Chinese

(from the web page)

Have you ever wondered if the names of elements are the same in other languages? Different languages have different words for the same thing, why should the elements be any different?

(from me)

There are usable, printable (free) renderings of the Periodic Table of the Elements out there. I use the Chinese version here with the understanding (and the message) that science is, or should be, ecumenical.

June 26, 2019 0