(x = space)
x
x
5 July
x
Post-parade
As we must be
After battle
We have to count the wounded
On the field
The dying
And the dead
x
In Chicago
And across New York
Wherever we commit
And find,
To make the discovery
Again
x
That we are bestial
Worse than,
Since we weaponize
Our extensions
Limb
Tooth and claw
For killing
Over distances
And up close
x
Conviction is an odd word
That cuts at us two ways
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Million Now
x
Two and a half years
A million dead
Shall we count?
We should have time
While counting out the days
For boosters
Should we be privileged
For boosters
x
If they were like stars
Then there would be no question
Everyone would want them
Like the bread
That goes with circuses
Is New York still giving money
For a shot?
x
People I know are gone
Because of COVID
It’s hard to take in
I might be dense
How could I know a million
Twenty times a number counted
For the city some miles away
Whose rutted streets
For the moment
Have no wagons for the dead
Or another absurdity in
A Python moment
x
Try to count
To a million
Try to consider millions of
The dead or fleeing
Thanks to war
Go ahead, combine the numbers
Since the same hate’s
At work
Every time
x
There is liberty
In abnegation
Deny the medicine
Turn oneself into
The other side of counting
x
C L Couch
x
x
1 Million COVID-19 Deaths in the United States
x
Photo by Susann Schuster on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Counting
x
There was an equinox
The sky returned to balance
While our Earth began to slide
The other way
Into spring here
And winter to the south
x
We call them snowbirds,
The folk who go to Florida
In January
I’m not sure about the opposite
Those who might want
To travel farther south for winter,
Maybe call them penguins
Puffer people
Magellanics
x
We wish for a good season
Much to plant
On planet Earth
To hope for green:
Seeds to break
Blades to rise
Life to harvest
Healthy crops of health
x
C L Couch
x
x
Observed this Yellow Bittern for a good 20 minutes. It was trying to find the most comfortable position for its morning food hunt. Photo was taken from the lotus pond at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore.
x
Stopwatch for Genesis
(1 January 2020)
How do Arabs count the new year
How do Jews
How does China of
A billion tens of fingers?
How do those who know only seasons,
Who count days as
One traversal of the sun,
Then of the moon?
A change of feeling in the year
To favor birth or harvest?
It would be fair of all of them
To ask of us
The people of the nanosecond
Why there is counting and, once-measured,
Presumption to ownership
How does God who with better reason
Owns the days count them?
We guess a lot about this
A day
A day that is an age
I don’t think God can be bound
Held by our computing
Any more than the bars of an abacus
Should make a cage
Or calculators calibrated to electrocute
(maybe watch out for
servers serving)
There is even scandal in census-taking
For the king rather than the nation
It’s in the Chronicles and Samuels
People dying for
The autocrat’s close ticking
Now’s a fine and healthy time for remembering
God’s of chaos, too
And if we want, if we will
We can be held ourselves
(by God or ourselves)
To keep it either way
C L Couch
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
hide and seek
Iran Hostages in 1980
(52, 444)
I remember the Iran hostages
Held there for so many days
I remember the rescue fail
Husks of aircraft on the desert floor
And I could only imagine
(And I did)
About the crews and soldiers that
Had been carried inside
It was the start of Nightline on ABC
Where we got reports
Each day (each night)
And always a figure graphically depicted that
To me
Looked like someone mummified in black and white
And the number grew each day
Without better resolution
I was reminded of
The Viet Cong kill count each night given
On the evening news
And wondering why
The GI count was always higher
C L Couch
http://jssyellowribbon.com/YellowTree/
clcouch123 
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