two poems about help
once cadging up
God
you got me moving
if only a little
that you’d have me take more steps
and reach within my limits
if
all right
on the inside first
too many things are plain
yet I can’t see with any sense
worldly
or
soulful clarity
too easy to feel down
and
while there
from looking up at shapes there
perilously blurred
while what is
to see
is round confusion and so
where
is the way
I cannot get for
steps
or if there were a ladder hiding from
me
existentially concealed
and who’s to say
for ears
to hear
look
there is the way
still in prayer
tired
too tired to look up
too doubt-pressed
if
something about the hills and rescue
though I think that is reaction
wishful
thinking for a rescue
that in a better
mind we know that if comes
it shall come
from
wherever
any direction
of
one source
then why to look at hills
maybe to inspire
prayers
in
nature
sign of encouragement
by the sign of rising
earth
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. . . from whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121 1b-2
KJV
(some think question and response)
photo by Marc Babin on Unsplash
uneasy under the sun
(maybe a Prufrockian telling)
it’s hot
I drive under the sun
hoping to leave the car
once
parked
to get inside
before the heat
sights too directly and too
much on me while I
in turn am
targeting
the heated keyhole
with
keys already warm
so
it seems
and hopefully soon out
of my pocket
on
their way to
the old
dense
green wooden door of
the eccentric-angled yellow house
with the broken portico under
hopefully
again to navigate
which
is not the heat
but every day
and there it is the rounded poorly-matted
stoop
the lock
key inside beneath the wave
yet
breathing
maybe to sneeze
in fact
from the central air
only on the first floor
not
on mine
(sadly the solar crests do not
engender
mermaids on waved rocks
or
on my street by
sunlit bricks)
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photo by NASA on Unsplash
myth took
they
(ubiquitous)
say
someone cannot live inside a fish
for three days
fish
don’t accommodate that way
and
generally
I’d think so
but then there’s Leviathan
who other than big and monstrous is
not given dimensions
or
other aspects
so who knows
maybe myth can do
pretty much anything with anyone
and by
myth I mean
ancient getting at big truth
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photo by Dimmis Vart on Unsplash
she forms by function
her art that challenges lines
she multiverses
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photo by Abhi Verma on Unsplash
a couple of cosmic verses
two nebulae
birthplace of stars
and
were we a nebula before
if so
what shape
and
did someone name us
for a form
maybe matching a myth
from
their own lore
and will they tell us
our own story
for
a reach
we do not have
older than us
sure
and yet extant with penchants for
visits
and conversations
unaware of angels
a favorite story
the older couple who
entertained divinities without
awareness
yet greeting needful
strangers
as it seemed
gave welcome to their shoddy place
and
offered the last food and
drink they had kept for themselves
before they’d
die from their own need and
lack
and yet in that meal
the plate
and pitcher
kept refilling and would
do so
forever
by the way
and after sleeping
the two awoke to find their hovel
changed into a manor
filled with
all signs of prosperity
to own and live
while
the valley town that would not
welcome anyone
or open
anything to strangers
more so those who did not appear
as they
well
that
town with the valley
now was flooded as gods
in judgment
and in brutal mischief
may decree and
do
(it’s a story of Greek gods, cited by Saint Paul as well)
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photo by Kevin Mueller on Unsplash
remembering the ducks
I think about a duck pond
which might be across street from
where
my grandparents lived
a place we were allowed to look at from
afar
or am I thinking of what’s called
the Children’s Lake
in a small
like mine
town
that like
across the street had
ducks
and geese that had better scurry as
folks drive through
and the ducks
and geese there have
in fact
their own speeding limit
I don’t know
the ducks are pretty
and
sometimes seem to me
too fragile
as if God forgot to give them
armor
more than the chemicals that
keep them floating
I don’t know
maybe the chemicals are enough
as are
memories
that come to the surface
and
sometimes have ducks floating
upon them
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photo by Haberdoedas II on Unsplash
simpler green day near
solstice calls the summer start
then shorter green days
orange autumn day
equinox incites the fire
by red longer night
winter silver blue
longer days the promise bear
by solstice we met
spring the ground awake
spring equinox pale-promised
pastel growth begins
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photo by Bozhin Karaivanov on Unsplash
Christmas in July
we say that Christmas is December
and yet
because we need not fixed remember
then
there is no reason why
can be no Christmas in July
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a while ago, a friend was asking why Christmas could not be celebrated in July, not with sales but with services; part of this verse I came up with right away, the rest boiling like plum pudding over years
photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
central Texas
one death we struggle
getting over
so
so how to comprehend a hundred
deaths and
more
storms and floods
destroying
like Time’s rolling sons in
the old hymn
taken
the material and
lively
debating over quick response
especially in a time of
cutting funding
for
all kinds of services
mostly
though a matter
now
of rescue
and the dreadful counting
receiving
aid
enduring then
to take
on
against all pushes of despair
considering
instead how to rebuild
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” by Isaac Watts
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the op’ning day.
(excerpt)
flooding town next over
(from mine in Pennsylvania)
Carlisle
one day
for storm floods
that were
severe
boating on streets
through town
no chance to pass through
radiating intersections
all the trees and parts of trees
that fell
and the delicate
dangerous dance
with
electricity
now nature helps to dry
in its irony of
having
delivered all the water first
the human focus next
on
taking
finding stock
and then rebuilding
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photo by Wes Warren on Unsplash
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