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Teachers and Soliloquies

(x = space)

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Teachers and Soliloquies

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Something kinder today

There is kindness in the world

“A kinder, gentler nation”

Is derided as a message from

The Republican President

Of the USA

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Prosaically,

I wonder if we couldn’t have

Kindness and gentleness

And the like

And use more today

Or ever, really

Looking back (supplementing history

and stories),

Having today,

Looking ahead

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The reaction is to see these things

As weak,

Yet that love that lasts

And joy after sorrow

Are the strongest

And if we can care in a divisive,

Bitter world,

Then we are strong

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Hate is easy

We yell or spit or hit or stab or shoot

Then avoid the consequences

All sounds pretty cowardly

To me

And if I do these

Then I am that coward

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Mercy “is not strained” (neither forced

nor artificial)

it drops (behaves) like “gentle rain

from heaven”

Our heatwave is breaking

We could have more of that

The literal kind

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As for the metaphor,

Mercy

(kindness, gentleness)

Is something that we all

Could try

To bring relief

Like rain on dry ground (metaphor)

To change the world (not a metaphor)

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C L Couch

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Mother’s Love

Photo by Sandy Kumar on Unsplash

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Good Medicine

(x = space)

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Good Medicine

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Ukraine

Gaza

Indifferent use of the Fifth Amendment

Shots fired

People pushed in subways

Toward the tracks

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Pollution

Bhopal

Valdez

Sins of the fathers

And the mothers

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Greed

Envy

Sloth

Get someone else to do

The awful work

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We’ll get high

Easy to drug

Our lives away

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Bestsellers

Out of certain patent-medicine truths

Snake oil so to say

Sorry, snakes

We use you for good medicine

After all

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There’s hope in this,

Good medicine

(though we can go easy on the snakes)

Finding it

Making it right

In all its forms

For all the ills

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This is hard

Hard hope

We’ll take it

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C L Couch

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By Przemek P – https://szarada.net/okreslenie-z-krzyzowki/np-waz-eskulapa/, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71246119

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A Simple Love then Complicates in Fear

(x = space)

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A Simple Love then Complicates in Fear

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A simple love then complicates in fear

A lust begins a hot surrendering

We think we have it all when love is near

T’ward deeper feeling’s ember tendering

And we believe a faithful person true

We’re human, after all, possessing flaws

And may decide what is for fondness due

Those fails incumbent not unto our laws

The question is what flaws will each abide?

We fear to change, though poems say we must

‘Cause perfect love won’t find us on this side

Thus alter will or no or aging just

New and anew, decide for you and me

Then we shall be and Hamlet’s not not be

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C L Couch

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Photo by Leo Fosdal on Unsplash

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Astronaut Comes Home

(x = space)

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Astronaut Comes Home

(for Scott Kelly, Christa McAuliffe)

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Hello, Earth

I had stronger bones

When I left

And now I’m taller

I’ve been watching you

Listening to your song

I’ve also turned the other way

To take in Diana

Hunting without impedance

In the night

We’ve also ticked off satellites

Trying to keep count,

Keep track

Delivered into orbit

The ones that work

The ones that don’t

Spare parts into small,

Perilous payloads

All the detritus

In between

If I could apologize for

An entire planet,

Well, I would

I’m sorry

Nonetheless, the land

And water took me back

After the air had had its way

With us

I’m thankful

Thankful for so many things

All the presidents should

Be brought here

To see the world

Without the lines

We so easily have drawn

That we war over

Move around

Then after sorties

Move back

Truly, sadly artificial

Artificed by us

When there is greater,

Sometimes gruesome need

For all our able hands

And an extraordinary

God-given

Horizon-filling

Resource

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Hello, Earth

We are home

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C L Couch

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I’m not sure why I was thinking of astronauts, though I often think of outer space and those who go there.  And with the new school year in the offing, maybe I was thinking it’s a good time for learning about space and space exploration.  I don’t know.  Enjoy.

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Photo by Bill Jelen on Unsplash

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Impromptu Earth

(x = space)

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Impromptu Earth

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What is needed

For the timing, Lord?

Order or chaos

Either has its charms

The opposite of order

Is nihilo

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Creation can be wild,

Order can go crazy,

Chaos the odd anchor

Keeps us safe

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Is it a magic thing

Or science?

These and more

Are real

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We need chaos

God allows:

Sarah laughing

When a pregnancy announced,

Leaving fire

Or clouds to show the way,

Accepting

Ravens bringing bread

So the prophet lives

To challenge bastions

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Responding

To the r.s.v.p.,

Jesus cooking fish

At the shore

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I know the void

You know

We call it chaos

In translation

Maybe there are biases

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Maybe like weekly money

We children benefit

From allowances

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From contraries

That complement

Our sure things and

Our mysteries

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C L Couch

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Photo by Nikolay Hristov on Unsplash

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Cold Comfort

(x = space)

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Cold Comfort

(without irony)

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I’ve gone on before about

The cup of cool water

I mean it’s cool

And it’s water

And to offer it

Is so good

Is it easy?

In an applianced culture,

Maybe,

Where ice is a small push away

But in a desert land,

One must find the water

And if inside rock

The water might be cool

And we can offer it

To relatives

To friends

And strangers

Even adversaries

Enemies who might need

To drink first

Before starting negotiations

Or given simply because

The gift of water

Is small

Amazement

Brings peace to the home

And for any

Table

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ilya Plakhuta on Unsplash

Ukraine

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Counting Back

(x = space)

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Counting Back

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Those who lived long ago

Did not count their time

Backward

We do that for them

With B.C. or B.C.E.

While in their time they lived

Counting forward, adding years

Toward forever

As we hope to do

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C L Couch

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Photo by Murray Campbell on Unsplash

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Pilotless Wheel

(x = space)

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Pilotless Wheel

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God is great

Traditions affirm

Many of them

Most of the living world

And the world before

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God is good

A source of mercy

Even for

Those who do not know

Those who deny

Given space and time

Mercy in these

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But, God, what kind of

Rotten world governed?

There is beauty

There are delightful moments

There is too much injustice

Too much lack of protection

Too much destruction

In the name

For the cause

Of politics and profit

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You are in charge

We are

It is a war itself

Of wills

We think that you arranged this

We believe

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In this alliance is

The cause of misery

Of evil

The stakes are high

They must be

This is real

Everything must matter

Assignments

Consequences

The religious call them covenants

And so they are

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Sometimes the wheel is left alone

Sometimes there’s a grab for it

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C L Couch

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Photo by Maximilian Weisbecker on Unsplash

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Middle Age

(x = space)

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Middle Age

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I’ve been watching

The History Channel about

Medieval times

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I wonder how it was

How it might be

To work outside

The ruined Coliseum

Or another broken

Roman place,

Knowing that the time before

Was more advanced

Than ours

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We can look up

Look back

Behold the slowly falling

Structures

That we loot for stone,

For wood for fuel

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There was a golden age

And if we knew

A golden age before that

And another

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All better times than hours

We work

Cutting grass

Bearing water

Hoping that the overlords

Should they invade again

Should leave us something,

After

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C L Couch

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The Dark Ages on (by) the History Channel

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

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