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Idealism

Idealism

 

I think I should start a new book today

And maybe dare to eat a peach

I don’t know about significance

I think it’s in my cup of coffee

And when I can sit with someone

Share the drink

Part of the day

Then the increase in meaning is

Exponential

 

I’m sorry it’s not more profound

Or that I haven’t a mightier metaphor

The sun’s come out; it’s pale blue

My favorite color

Today, I’d rather know yours

Trusting it’s green or

Yellow or

Something wonderfully different

 

We use what we believe

We go for something better, each time

At least, I hope we do

 

I’m stuck with my words, I guess

And nothing smarter

I’d say I’d share

But I didn’t make any of them

We trade in what was made already

Long ago and new each time

(what was that formula for n?)

 

It’s a little bluer

A little greener, too

It’s cold; it’s January

A new combination for the day

A day we haven’t filled in yet

How about that?

Let’s go

 

C L Couch

 

 

blue and green gradient

Nywillb – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67032853

 

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Younger

Younger

 

Once I went out west

Well, twice I guess

The first time I was two

I do have memories

I dreamed about the second time

Last night

Only I went there now

Knowing what I knew

So that I might avoid mistakes

And, you now, I did

 

I’ve heard it said I wouldn’t change a thing

I would change so many things

Sometimes to thwart agenda

Mostly to get it right

To keep the pain from happening

So much

 

If that would daunt a butterfly or upset

The schedule of tsunami,

Then it’s good I don’t have the talent

But I would like to fox many things

Or preventively

Offer something better in the first place

For all concerned

Color me uninteresting

I would dull the pain

Treat the wound by having it

Not happen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Pexels / 9161 images

https://pixabay.com/en/cacti-flora-flowers-pot-pot-plants-1846147/

 

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Life in the Hermitage

Life in the Hermitage

 

I know I teach too much

Old habit

Sometimes it’s prophecy, but

The voice is mine

I don’t speak with any authority

Come down, or come up,

From God

 

Sometimes I think certain things belong

Together

That’s poetry

 

I washed a few dishes in my small sink

I looked into the new year’s sky

It’s gray

That seems right

A January pallet

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

 

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Wishful

Wishful

 

The moon is out there somewhere

Sailing ‘round the Earth

We are here, wishing we could go

 

Sign up for a lunar voyage

Take a chance among the stars

Maybe nothing

Maybe treasure

Worth it, we think

Earthbound

 

C L Couch

 

 

Noupload / 284 images

https://pixabay.com/en/night-full-moon-ship-lake-ocean-2860531/

 

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Visible and Invisible

Visible and Invisible

 

The Lord sings,

and there’s a world.

The Spirit shimmers, and love

all inspires.

The Child touches one and then another,

and everything is better.

Healing and teaching,

death and resurrection.

 

There are other personages

in other stories.

I like well enough this tale of mine, which

comes from a people I must own.  I am

content mostly to do so.

 

I want to learn more and more:

to hear the single notes

that rise into a melody

of sacred time

for sacred dance.

 

And everything is better.

 

C L Couch

 

 

CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125333

English: Coptic crosses in Philae Temple of Isis. Aswan, Egypt.
Français : Autel chrétien dans à l’intérieur du temple d’Isis à Philaé. Assouan, Égypte
Image taken by Gilles RENAULT
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Two Children Die in Border Custody

Two Children Die in Border Custody

 

Two children from another country

Died because they were in the USA

They didn’t break in; there was no crime

They were busy being children

 

This happened famously

How many are dying quietly

 

Security is one thing

Incompetent security another

Are the agents uncaring in their job

I do not know

But it’s the policymakers, our surrogates

And advocates, who show less

Wisdom based on no compassion

 

If it were your child

But it’s not

But if it were

But it would never be

Really, you never think the broad sweep

Of a killing blade might not reach

You or yours

 

Such randomness in civil violence

Such lack of specific concern

Will the impersonal never touch the personal

Are you not affected

Aren’t we all

 

If not for fear of something awful

Let’s turn to the cause of something really good

We say we like life

Let’s like it, then

Cherish it, protect it

Let it go when it’s time

In the ordinariness of the divine

 

Let’s not make tragedy

We say we like free will

Be that democracy

That has made tyrants weep

Despots weak

Bullies to give up the fight

Or lose any place work having

 

I’ve heard us say that we like children

That we care for health, safety

Education

Family

I sound like a poster, now

How about this one, I Want You

Or We Can Do It

 

C L Couch

 

https://abc7chicago.com/2nd-guatemalan-child-dies-in-us-custody;-medical-checks-ordered/4968761/

 

Guatemalan boy, 8, dies in US custody on Christmas Eve – CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/25/us/guatemalan-boy-dies-in-us-custody/index.html 3 days ago … … Guatemalan boy has died in the custody of US Customs and Border … second Guatemalan child to die in the agency’s custody this month.

‘A Breaking Point’: Second Child’s Death Prompts New Procedures for …

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/us/felipe-alonzo-gomez-customs-border-patrol.html 2 days ago … “Moving forward, all children will receive a more thorough hands-on …. Jakelin Caal Maquin, a 7-year-old girl, died in Border Patrol custody …

 

note

The agencies that can help most personally and astutely will lose their funding in the current shutdown.

 

(image)

A “Rosie” working on the A-31 Vengeance bomber in Nashville, Tennessee (1943)

Alfred T. Palmer – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID fsac.1a35371.

Public Domain

 

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Night and Day

Night and Day

 

I grind my teeth

But rhythmically

As if the radio in my head

Plays a hit parade

And my jaw drums along

Something to do

When on another boring walk

Along the lower campus

On a night that promised anything

But interesting

 

Now it happens in

The way that people talk about

That makes it a problem

In my sleep

 

I think it happens so hard that

I move my teeth around

There is an overbite, an underbite

A space that I did not have before

I guess that’s a problem

And I’m not awake

To enjoy the syncopation

As the beat, beat, beat

Promised in the big-band song

Or maybe something from a musical

Or the music that marshals characters

In an adventure film

 

What kind of protest

Do I not know about,

That my mouth must make

In subtext

Underneath the consciousness?

I should find out:

My goodness, life can be so strange

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Night and Day”

Cole Porter, songwriter

 

https://googlecreativelab.github.io/coder-projects/projects/night_and_day/

part of a creative coding project that can be downloaded

 

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Perennial

Perennial

 

I hope you have a really good day

I’m not sure, I imagine it’s

A special day somewhere

Someone is having an honored time

Something that’s been done before

And should be done again

 

Some might say we’ll get it right next time

Others not so worked up with perfection

Look at all the nothing we don’t have

But it sure is good

That we’ll all here together

 

Is that the meaning in the ritual?

We do it together

And in less formal time

We talk about it afterward

 

Until the next occasion it might, or must, happen

Again

And anew

 

It may sound an invitation to

All dullness

Even with some innovation

As things evolve

Sometimes it’s rechercher du temps perdu

But like an actor’s good performance

A freshness is deserved each time

Even stepping back

 

So that remembrance is sweet

And so are you

And so, for a change, am I

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Chenspec – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52413744

 

(“Sonnet 30,” William Shakespeare

À la Rechercher du Temps Perdu, Marcel Proust)

 

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Second Day of Christmas

Second Day of Christmas

(Boxing Day)

 

Boxing Day

I heard it was British

And in a loosely associated way

Thought maybe it involved

Kangaroos, which

I had seen boxing in cartoons

 

I gather now

The boxes have to do with gifts

Since this is the day the British

Present each other with, well, presents

 

I guess for them it is as well

The second day of Christmas

Two turtledoves

I’m not sure when the Yule log is lit

Yesterday?  The first?  The sixth of January,

Twelfth Night?

The first day when it’s cold?

 

And mummers,

Strangely costumed people—

Who became carolers

Or was it the carolers who transformed?

I’ve seen the costumes

There is a parade in Philadelphia

Some are ridiculous

Some are the occult totemized

What’s going on?

 

These are my people

The English and the Irish

The Scots and the Welsh

They started coming here

In the fifteenth century

Through to a couple of generations ago

Did they want to get away from

All that?  Or

Was it their own change

In what they knew to have?

 

I was a WASP

I am from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio

With a brief adventure in

California

I am too old for young adventures now

Maybe one more expedition with

The older soldiers of Ulysses

By way of Tennyson

 

Maybe my gift today will be

A little understanding

Where I was

Who I am

Who might I be

As I am

For you

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Peretz Partensky from San Francisco, USA – White Doves at the Blue Mosque, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24568193

 

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