(x = space)
x
x
Precocity
x
God
Help us
Every
One
Even
The bad people
Don’t help them
To be bad
Help them to be good
Instead
You know,
Like in
The Christmas story
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash
x
snow squalls today
x
(x = space)
x
x
Futurism
x
Men retreat
Women advance
Children waiting
They play
An idea forms
A dream invented
All go toward
An interpretive horizon
Until the line and
Agenda are released
And all go home
With marbles
So many
You would not believe
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Untimely
x
I want to sense
The world around me
I suppose most of us do
Even if the world
Has been
An awful place
From time to time
x
It is our home
It’s what we have
And should we leave
Before it’s time
Our absence will be
Missed
By angels in the cosmos
x
There will be keening
As the rings of heaven
Move against
Each other
In a way
They’re not supposed to
x
C L Couch
x
for all the children killed in schools
x
x
Kids hopscotch game in playground.
Photo by Eric Tompkins on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Toward the Ending of a Great War
(for 6 June 1944)
x
Today, many soldiers died
On all sides
x
Many civilians as well
In their towns
And on their fields,
Whole families
And many animals
x
For children
And for parents
We can’t imagine worse
Except for plague and
Drought, which are
Other kinds
Of war
x
The despot didn’t die
And would lead its people
Through
Ongoing and great suffering
x
Awful suffering,
Horrible—blooded,
Vivisected,
Tactical annihilation
By its hand
x
Today, many soldiers died
And civilians;
Many soldiers and civilians live
Then and now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Shalev Cohen on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Remembering 28 December
(in liturgies)
x
Yesterday there was a lesser feast about
The slaughter of the innocents
x
Frankly, I don’t know how to bring
It up, the murder of many children or
The killing of one child
Two years old or younger
x
How does one speak to that?
How does one do it, in the first place?
The answer is, one doesn’t
But tells soldiers and slaves to do it
x
The children are only
Targets, after all, unreal as people
If we never look at them
Or what we commanded
x
Being Idumean,
Herod might even have considered this
An act of war against
An enemy Jewish people
x
But we are right to say
That it was local genocide,
Even of boys the
Killing of a generation
x
Foes from which there would be
No reprisal,
No fighting back would be
Expected
And thus a tactically successful
Maneuver and campaign
Designed by a crazy person who
Had the kind of power
Democracy should slay
x
God would address the Herods
Later on:
You don’t really think
Herod and his would
Get away with murderous
Abrogations?
x
We cannot count the children;
We do not count them now,
Though so many
Live inside danger
x
They are not wood or cardboard—they
Are not shades behind
A chain-link fence or
A craftier, a solid-seeming barrier
x
They starve, they bleed,
They cry as a divine signal
To the rest of us
x
Listen to them, see to them—in this,
The parents are the world—and
Then we can rightly damn
All Herodian kings
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash
Saemangeum-ro, Gunsan-si, South Korea
Solar Eclipse
x
Matthew 2:16-18
x
Acts 12:20-23
x
According to documents and legends, Herod the Great and Herod Agrippa (grandson) both died lingering and painful deaths.
x
De Profundis
(2019)
Four score and seven years ago,
was 1932. There was a depression
and designs around the world.
Some people were well enough.
Near as I can tell, my father’s folk
were all right with government
positions and a salary. My mother’s
people struggled on farms in
Tennessee. I don’t think they were
sharecroppers, though for their
state they might as well have been.
Wringing a chicken once a week
was for a feast of sustenance.
Oranges and walnuts were treats at
Christmas time.
C L Couch
Photo by Joshua Bartell on Unsplash
Pedagogy
(learning for children)
My sister has an allergy
She didn’t have when we were growing up
I have one, too
An allergy
I did not have before
If we return to anything like childhood
I’d rather it were in another way
But nowadays
Now that we’re older, anyway
And just because
She will have to eschew strawberries
As I have to avoid bell peppers
Then invent it on our own
An aspect of joy and unquantified
Curiosity
That without even a nod
Such as children have
C L Couch
Sunday Matinee
A deep sigh is a good thing
Unplanned
It takes regret
Folds it into wings and lets it go
Not that it will leave
For good but
Might fly out of grasp
Maybe out of mind before
It re-alights
And I have to take it back
Exhalation causes other things
To leave
Molecules we’d rather do without
Maybe some toxic atoms
Elements of life that will work better
Somewhere else
Lead and mercury
Irradiated particles that come from
Life too near a glowing factory
These days
It’s all right
Nothing much more dangerous than
When the smoke rolled out
From Pittsburgh to
Its suburbs
Generations’ mischief
Doesn’t seem to change
Like parents to campsites, we should leave
The world a better place for
Children
We gave up on that
I’m not sure why
C L Couch
“Paper Plane” by Xavier Ríos
La fabrica de nubes – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68404545
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.
clcouch123 
_DS.jpg){kind=link}
Recent Comments