(x = space)
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Back from There Again
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Took a drive around and over
Through the mountains
Through tunnels
Up angles, down
The rounded Appalachians
Blue Ridge, Alleghenies
No rain or snow this time
There was wind
To blow my little car around
Clouds and sunshine vied
I got back
Hobbiton looks the same
Regarding what I left
Today,
I can only hope the cancer treatments
Work for him
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C L Couch
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Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash
Appalachians at midday.
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(x = space)
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Old River
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There is sunshine I haven’t
Seen for a while
Western Pennsylvania had been
Living into its reputation
For precipitation
(there is a flood watch on
because the Ohio,
deep and wide
like the song,
could overmarch its primordial
lines)
I’m glad to be with family
Took two occasions—three if
Counting my sister and hers moving
Here—being New Year’s
And my brother’s illness
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Four out of five
Like the dentists
Have made it here so far
The fifth is coming soon
And I don’t know how to contemplate
What might happen next
x
An elder brother’s murder
Was the dilemma for sibling Claudius
Here, cancer wants to commit
The crime,
The murder of my brother’s health
Unlike those of Claudius,
My words fly up with thought
And heaven catches them
I’ll keep offering
And offering
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In long ago, a sacrifice
Might help
But in the suburbs
No such help
Because we’ve grown beyond
The need
Some might say
(and should)
The laws have changed
Now it’s medications, institutions
On another altar
We can kneel and pray
Ancient of days
Will hear
As if it were the temple near
Whose opening we’d approach
As clean and ready
Bearing gifts
As we can be
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selah
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Now roll away, tumors
Like the stone that matched
An opening
So long ago
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Pittsburgh
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(x = space)
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Visiting with my Brother in Wintertime
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Tired now
Just got reconnected
And can write to you
Am in
The Renaissance City
City of Bridges
City of Iron
City of Steel
Where my brother is
And cancer in the city, too
In him
It seems to be consuming him
Turning him in
Like a folder being folded
Movements happens cruelly
The pain is slow
Tomorrow the severer
Treatment starts
How this will work in him
How it will solve anything
Well, it could
It might
I can only pray it must
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While skiing down the slopes of Big Sky Montana, I took the chance to slow down and look and capture the incredible beautiful scenery around me. Scenes like this seem to center me, with the stillness of snow settling in.
Photo by Jonathan Knepper on Unsplash
Big Sky Resort Road, Gallatin Gateway, USA
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(x = space)
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Tied Backward on the Mare
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I had
The worst
Dream last night
Someone
Was insane
Not me
Someone I knew
Worse
I had to watch
Her being
Pushed and pulled
(everyone
was wearing
white)
By men
While
The mother
Watched
It was
Awful, brutal
Intimate
I hope I
Never have
This dream
Or another like it
Ever again
Ever
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Photo by chrissie kremer on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Cancer Is as Cancer Does
(as we try to do to it)
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I don’t know what to say
I have bad news
My brother’s not well
That is not news
It’s gotten worse
That is
All who have siblings are aware
There is a care
A worry that each day
Goes well for them,
That overall they’re satisfied
And happy
I am the middle of five
There are larger
There are smaller
If you are there, then you may know
We never know our place,
Exactly
When is deference?
When is dominance?
It goes on
We simply have to stumble
Day by day
Tripping over stones of protocol
Loving all the same
x
We are none of us
Young;
He has completed, just
His three score and ten
Though as we know
Statistics up the number and
The optimism
More
How will he live well
With his time?
What time is his?
I ask questions without
Good answers in this
Mortal place and
Bounded time
The news will be compounded soon
With prognosis and
Prescription and
Choices
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My words are getting thick
Everything is heavy
For a while
Before the legacy
Of sadness
Is poured out enough
For good choices
And actions
Of my own
Say, a prayer
Say a prayer
That’s invitation
With gratitude expressed
Now
While still beforehand,
Which is to say
Thank you
x
x
for Rick
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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Vaccine-Based Immunotherapy from Novel Nanoparticle Systems. Researchers at the Texas Center for Cancer Nanomedicine (TCCN) are creating particle-based vaccines for cancer therapy. The particles carry molecules that stimulate immune cells and cancer antigens (proteins) that direct the immune response.
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(x = space)
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Snow Bunnies
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And on a wintry day
Dust bunnies come to play
They like the extra morning
Light
That shows the dust to play in,
Right
And should a human passing by
They know where to fly
For them, the winter is THE season
We have to clean—they
Have no reason!
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another entry in the dust bunny saga
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Camouflage
Photo by Atharva Tulsi on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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From Chairs
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We look over,
see
Winter’s lower light
Break
Through
The invention of
The window
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Relief
In viewing
An out-there when
In-here becomes
Too close,
Distractions
Not enough to keep
Supernal us
From rush to and through
The stars
We know are out there, bearing
The truth
Of things
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Maybe
Especially when exigent
We hear
As well
The angels’ songs
For mortals
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(x = space)
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Paradisal
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God, love us
From afar
And in our cells
From walls to nuclei
Better than gravity
Your affection
Keeps everything together
Not that the loss
Is chaos
Everyone needs chaos
From time to time
But you know that
You know us
Made us for chronos
And for kyros
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In time
(both kinds),
We shall know all
Certainly beyond
The truth, beauty of Keats
We’ll know the beauty
In rushing fear
As well as the bridge
That rescues over
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We’ll have something
Of the knowledge
You meant
To bend the tree
In its own time
And yours
And ours,
Once ready
We’ll have it right
And better yet
We’ll know the love
The makes it
And respects it
Living the lessons for us
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After the nightmares
When dreams lead
To healing wakefulness
New plans for action
We may make
Together
All togetherness,
The good
The sanctioned
The unplanned
That makes a heaven and an
Earth
At first
At last
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C L Couch
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Yellow Leaf Mid-Air
Photo by Sandis Helvigs on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Holy Families
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Candles lit
Season’s days are counted
It’s easy, given the
Days, to think on
Family
The sacred family
The holy family
Set apart
Unusually constructed
Older husband
So it’s said
Check the old windows
His hair is thinning
Brown to gray
She in blue and white
Meaning peace
And youth
How often
That may happen
And the child
Born to the mother
Not the father
Though he will be the
Father as that
Matters day to day (and
it matters greatly)
A boy
Who grows
Then moves apart
To heal
And to teach
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This is the family
With the child
Warranting visits from
Shepherds
And from magi
With the calls of angels
Splitting the sky into
Pieces of cosmos
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A family
Spirit-set
And in that way
Each family is
A holy family
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Loretto Motherhouse (Nerinx, Kentucky) – Seven Dolors stations, Station 2 – Flight into Egypt
By Nheyob – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34985128
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