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Whence Come Wars

Whence Come Wars

 

Blood and mucus

Tissue and bone

And fear catching the breath

For infection

 

War in the desert

Is a war in hell

The Baptist lessons

Roosting home

There are flames

There is perdition

War at the poles would not

Be much better

 

The uniform, the armor

From the homeland are good

The weapons kill

Split the ground and everything

Above:

No judgment but

An order to obey

 

Sometimes we might ask

Though that is for a sibling soldier

Here the abstract is simplicity

The living is complex

We want to live

We might want them to live as well

 

But the agenda

For the moment

Has to be a killing item

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Angie Johnston from Pixabay

 

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Rising Stars

Rising Stars

 

It’s a holiday here

The USA acknowledges its fallen

With big sales on line and in

Department stores

Selling cars on lots, too

 

But many will remember it

For what it allows, time and space

The capacity for

Acknowledgement, remembrance

Some closely

Who fall with a different kind

Of wound

And hopefully rise up

 

All the fallen may rise at the last

That in belief is a beginning

 

C L Couch

 

 

image from https://pxhere.com/

(no attribution required)

 

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Sin-Eater

Sin-Eater

 

I don’t know what it means

To eat bitter herbs

Ones I wouldn’t like

Salt and bitter herbs

Is what the rite called for

Bread

Bread, salt, and bitter herbs

Then to be run out of town

So that for a time

A year, perhaps

There would be virtue

Lack of hellfire, anyway

The cost of sin

The bearing of it

Having been cast out

Too tragic and too easy

 

C L Couch

 

 

KaMan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59215324

Salt Rising Bread

 

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‘Tis a Gift

‘Tis a Gift

 

In simplicity we are free

That is a claim

And it’s a good one

If bemusing

Because I think we might

Be tempted to take it

Numerically

 

That simplicity means less

(and it does)

And having less is freeing

 

Of counting

Of cleaning

And of time

 

But I wonder

(still I wonder)

If simplicity means more than less

 

C L Couch

 

 

Simple Gifts

(attributed to the Shakers)

 

‘Tis a gift to be simple,

‘Tis a gift to be free,

‘Tis a gift to come down where

we ought to be;

 

And when we find ourselves

In the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love

and delight

 

When true simplicity is gained

To bow and to bend we shan’t

be ashamed;

To turn, turn will be our delight

‘Til by turning, turning we

end up right

 

(cited by recollection; I’ve heard “’Tis the gift” sung and “turn ‘twill be our delight”)

 

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Lessons

Lessons

 

Simple, elegant verse about God

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

But I want it on my own, from my

Own words and thoughts and sentiments

The strings of my soul

The lines that go from me to you

That must be played

That must be worked

That must be played

 

C L Couch

 

 

sculpture at the EMP Museum in Seattle, Washington

Alex Hendricks – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39290671

 

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Gifting

Gifting

 

I have words on deck

Nervous words, maybe

Never having been at bat before

It’s a spring day, looks to be warm

And humid

Cloudy for the outfield

We play on grass, of course

 

But I don’t know

I’d like to ask for something new

That would be a prayer

Not in desperation

Not as in I haven’t got a prayer

(what does that mean, anyway—

who came up with that?)

But a petition with some savor

Since it’s offered on the plate

The paten

Both with words

 

Might I add something new

To the drafts of yesterday,

Yesteryear?

What I’m wondering on this hazy

Day is about the gift

Of time, of weather, gravity

The air I breathe, the water I hope

To drink

What food I’ll have

And maybe something valid or

Viable to do

All these things,

A gift for me?

Why?

I am no worthier, and I think that’s the point

Pulled out of eternity and time

There are things for me

Because there are things for you

The largesse of the cosmos is

For all of us

It has to be

Not to own but certainly to use

Not to twist and tear into submission

We know that nature will not stand for that

There will be repercussion

That will

Ruin the unrighteous

And take all of us along as well

 

A gift that is judicious

A gift that is not kept

More gifts will come tomorrow

If we do our part receiving

The universe is ready

 

C L Couch

 

 

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) – http://hubblesite.org/image/3471/news_release/2015-01, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38165284

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, originally photographed in 1995, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image. Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. The towering pillars are about 5 light-years tall.

 

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Look Up in the Sky

Look Up in the Sky

 

Skinny jeans

Yoga pants

A fascination with boots

Tight clothes on both genders

All we’d need are capes:

Are we trying to dress like

Superheroes?

 

Is there a signal

Or a red Bat-phone

To call us to our lair,

Prepare certain formulas

Then out into the world to

Save the day?

 

Is our wish

For a fortress, where

Alone or with a protégé

We might know ourselves,

Learn our power,

Understand the Earth

And all its forces

Marshalled to our strength?

 

We want superpowers,

Don’t we?

Of course, we do

And why not

 

Telepathy could solve so

Many problems

And who wouldn’t want to go

Through the day without

Some invulnerability?

 

Our children

Our cars

All the machines we have in life

Everything turned toward

Fighting evil

Promoting justice,

Let all be good

 

All we need are capes

And some of us have these

 

C L Couch

 

 

Amelia Earhart prior to her transatlantic crossing of June 17, 1928

Wide World Photos – eBayfrontback, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36943383

 

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Record-Keeping

Record-Keeping

 

A new page

A blank slate

Shall I say it,

Tabula rasa

So my college wasn’t wasted

 

It isn’t real

And it is

There’s no paper

Or a quill

No bowl of ink for a brush

To make

Beautiful Japanese characters

 

No illuminated manuscript

With notes in the margin

A mischief illustration

Of a supervisor of a monk

In the scriptorum

 

No cutting into tablets

Made of Sumerian stone

Etching marks into the rock

We still try to decipher

 

Who were the scribes,

Who are they now?

Who keeps the records now

Seeds in a depository

To the north

 

The banks, the potential

All the things we were

And might be

Even better

 

The phonograph

The library

Keepers

Whose work we can enjoy

From the originals

 

I have a card

I have a flash drive

I believe in what was

Revel in it now

That’s for today

Tomorrow there’s a plan

Well, enough of one

For jazz

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

Leuven, Belgium

 

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Curmudgeonly

Curmudgeonly

 

I need to switch and place

Bread into the toaster twice

(thank you, Krups, and

the stranger who kept me from

buying the toaster I wanted,

telling me it

was no good)

 

But now I’ve noticed

That the toast comes out

Misshapen (thank you,

Pepperidge Farms, though this

time I mean it), crust

Bubbling away or so it appears

 

I like it

Sometimes I like misshapen

Things: my father tried, I think,

To pick bent-over trees for

Christmas

So that he could make them

Strong, the instinct of

An engineer,

A carpenter,

An English major

 

The heath must be blasted, after all

Or there will be no drama

And Romantic ruins cannot be

So even

Otherwise the outcast will not

Find the broken corner to

Inhabit with all thoughts

Of desperation

 

What if he had left alone

The Christmas tree?

My mother would have tried not

To stand for it

And succeeded:

The holiday should be an

Evened-out affair

 

In a house with so many children,

She was right; a

Democracy of gifts and celebration

To reign like the newborn

King arrived to recognize

 

But the body is not even

On both sides—curly hair has

Taught me that

And it’s fine

It has to be

Maybe being left-handed helps

The army that marched on that side

Fought and won and disappeared,

Vexing the Romans

And giving rise to left as sinister

 

Keep the shapes misshapen

For the love—

 

The half-burnt cookie you might

As well eat now

 

The tattoo where she slipped,

Leaving a twitch on the mermaid’s

Tail

 

The Earth where everyone is not the same

Leaving discovery our happy

Mandate

 

C L Couch

 

 

Joshua Trees (Yucca brevifolia) at sunrise in Joshua Tree National Park: Hidden Valley Campground

Jarek Tuszyński / CC-BY-SA & GDFL, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3466755

 

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