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Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Please

Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Please

 

God, what shall I say

Of you today?

You are exasperating

You are all hope

You are the center of my faith

You are the labyrinth

I mean to cross

I take my comfort from you

As I take sustenance from food

You are my food

There are no empty calories,

Which on occasion is my deal

I will die

I am afraid

I think I shall meet you there

Or someone from your office

I had an episode last night

To remind me

Though there’s fear

There will be relenting, too

A last litany with Earth

A first step toward

What you deem is next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Froaringus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7633775

 

5

Two Children Die in Border Custody

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.

Public Domain

 

1

Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood

 

I tried to tally death a couple

Of weeks ago

Starting with two explosions in Kabul

The second device murdering those who

Had responded, rushing, to the first

Since then, schools have been the setting of

Murders, too

Workplaces, neighborhoods

Nature has taken part in many

Though we kill well enough on our own

 

The count of death is maybe not so

Useful beyond actuarial

The flesh becomes abstract

The quality in tears evaporates

The blood is in another room, not

The one in which we’re arguing

Funding and our rights to shoot each other

When and where we like

 

Control and majesty of black metal move

Us more than someone else’s

Daughter or son

 

This is not about an issue

It’s about a loss that’s real

Stolen like bounty in the night

Hell’s gone a-hunting

So ephemeral a trophy,

The soul

 

If this is an issue for you

Then vote for something

And in the mean time wait

Until changed forever

And on occasion wonder why

Steel propulsions have to mean

So much

 

C L Couch

 

 

Index of /teaching/g/circles

 

4

Too-Young Good-Bye

Too-Young Good-Bye

(youth, adults—the Humboldt team and friends)

 

In Canada

In Nipawin,

Youth and hockey

Care and safety

And something else transpires

Coaches and sponsors

Everyone does a job

And something else transpires

A bus and a truck tall and wide collide

And that’s it

There it is

An explosion perhaps not

In fiery effect

But of life regardless

And too terribly

I’ve been in vehicle crashes

So are many others

A truck crashed once into my car

I was sprayed with glass

And there was no question

The family station wagon would

Be replaced

People have been hurt in wrecks

This is what I know

Those who are close to this

Know so much more

And horrible

There are

Those who left

Pulled mortally from here,

The here and now we

Have

Those who remain

What shall be done

 

Too many must heal,

And we must return

To take each one gone

A gift

Of flesh and soul

And in quiet, be thankful he

Was with us

For a time—then

For each one still in sight,

Perception

 

All-gendered victims now

All ages then and since

All places

All relations

Thoughts and prayers are tired

Though we will inhale and

Pray for real, again

For faith however tried

And for answers that like deer

Are nimble and grace-filled

 

Look for authenticity

In choices of

Our love

Good-bye too soon

 

Each one

Not from eternal reach,

But the for hours we must count

‘Til heaven says all counting’s gone

Together

In a redemptive now

Always beginning

 

C L Couch

 

 

image above from Pinterest

image below from http://www.tripmondo.com/canada/saskatchewan/nipawin/

Nipawin deer

 

0

Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship

(Oakland, California)

 

Emptied of her passengers,

Investigators and skeletal crew remain

Fun with fire, it’s been said of Nero

No entertainment here

No longer

 

What issues matter to a burning ship?

The dead who ride no longer care

The living must mourn first

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/04/oakland-ghost-ship-warehouse-fire-deaths-24?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+morning+briefing+2016&utm_term=202855&subid=16706344&CMP=ema_a-morning-briefing_b-morning-briefing_c-US_d-1

1

Appalachian Highway

Appalachian Highway

 

Moving life and death back

And forth: death dominated

On an earlier day

 

With eight persons shot in

Pike County homes, south

Of Columbus

 

Where the mountains rise

And God looks deep into

Vales

2

Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania

Burnt Cabins,

Pennsylvania

 

We’ve suffered

A local tragedy

That might never

Be explained

Even if a reason’s

Given

 

We have a super

Highway—yes,

America’s

First “super

Highway”—that

Is the Pennsylvania

Turnpike, and

A retired trooper

Of the state

Police tried a

Robbery at one

Of the stations

There

 

Between small

Towns in the

Allegheny Mountains,

Two workers

Are taken, held

By his gun,

Until the truck

Arrives to gather

Monies from the

Turnpike tolls

 

The theft occurs

And fails, the

Captives shot

And killed; the

Officer-now-

Suspect is killed,

Too

 

Serving troopers

Prepared and

assigned, had

Arrived to restore

An aberrant,

Criminal scene

Back to ordinary

 

Nothing ordinary

Anymore here:

With tears, the

Deaths are told

 

Each word

Sounding like

The heavy note

Of a mourning

Bell

 

Sadness ringed

Round sadness,

As voices split

To tell

 

It will be a

Story of

Transgression

And the sorrow

Brought to many

Kinds of

Families, and

It might pass

From focused

Attention

 

But here was a

Neighbor tragedy

On persons who

Will not

Appear in their

Expected places

At work or at

Home

 

And others living

Who will never

Be the same

 

A chance for

Money maybe

Too easy a

Reason for all

That befell

Close by—I

Tend to believe

 

Something else

About surrendering

Life happened

Here

6

Not a Trick

Not a Trick

Easter is a surprise, the
Rabbit out of the hat, one
Might wryly think

From where and when
Comes the trick-tradition
From Easter and the tomb,
I think, and Spring, generally,
In the land and from the
Time and place in which
Top Hats were popular

Something living retrieved
Out of nothing—something
Drawn out from the void

The rabbit is fecund (rabbits
Always are, aren’t they?),
The hat circular for the cycle
Of mortality, moving in
An immortal way

Hoping that, in coming ‘round,
One will pass the door to
Eternity, maybe to pause
There

Our magic with the rabbit
Is illusion—dedicated that
Way—but here’s what is
Real: the pure, created one
Has escaped the rounded
Maw of death, leaving (this
Time real) magic words working
As miracle

What is lifted now is living
Truth to behold

No applause needed or any
Desired, for this is grace

The cost of admission offered
Always, for all, a price to us
That’s free

6

celebration of the season 3, Ghost

Ghost

it is like us because it was us
breathing, living once like us
ghost become, be-turned in death, untimely
and unfinished

are they real?—we are real, and
we’re the ones who make the ghosts, for
they were us

we know a ghost of one kind lives
we meet it every day: anything that
haunts us in our daylight lives, the
choices and the acts we want to leave

behind but carry with us in a lingering
way not finished

we make our ghosts, and they haunt us

the other kind?—well, why not, since
so much of us is left behind, undone
so that we carry it in some
unresolving way

after dust, before heaven
what we leave that’s extreme and
exigent persists

so we make the ghosts, and they persist

is it bad, then, on one day a year, we celebrate
the ghosts this once?—and then again next year

Happy Hallowe’en
while remembering

they will be

2

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