Sometimes a Celestial View Required
Sometimes it’s as simple
As it’s wonderful
Lord made us
And Lord loves us
It might not seem that way
In hospitals
Especially in cancer wards
Burn wards
Terminal compartments
But there
Is love
It’s in these places
In the prayers
And in the spirits
That are struggling all
Around
Where angels
Set themselves as well
To listen
Watch
And weep
On assignment
Forsaken
Never
By the ones
Remaining
(and that’s most
of them)
On our side
A war in heaven
Wars on Earth
Extant
Allowed
By a God who loves so much
To keep us on our own
Even though there could be
Cosmic automation
And so there are
The sides
The wings of war that
Transitory fly
Sinless disease
Conditions
Damage
And those fighting all around
For health
Finally
For all the foes
Of war
Of what we cause each other
And
Disease
By what happens
For a reason
Or by anyway
Keep going at it
Kid
Keep going for the healing
And all you
With the kid
In the battle
All the battles
On
After
The battlefields
Stay with
Us
Keep us going toward
All the health available
On this
Side
You know
And
Yes
Perfectly
The other
C L Couch
Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash
we know they’re there
the aftering
I know other things
have happened
in what for us was nighttime
under the glare of sunlight
over there
or
yes
under cover here
save for stars and moon
new things
and then
as well
perpetuation of the old
ongoing
without ceasing
all the bad things
overwhelming
so it seems
when will it end
and what shape
is the terminus
will we know it
when we get there
there
a block for worry while
we bury devastation
and then
what happens
next
to stay
and who has the energy
remaining
to rebuild
and what about the funds
required
and sustenance to keep us going
in the meantime
and meanwhile
and plus
should anything resurge
disease
or battle
or the fire
and typically
tragically
the quake
what shall the aftereffects
do to us
the trauma now
impeding
any hope of progress
of ongoing life
that is
leaping over crises
and catastrophes
to resume
and now
resume again
heaven help us
and we might ask about
the first
time
where were you
and
yes
we must say
we’ll even plead
come here now
some sort of
Immanuel
c l couch
photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash
fixin’s
there is war
there is disease
there is famine
there is drought
that causes
famine
though despots
are as likely
if not more
to bring on hunger
in the folk
like you and me
there is corruption
beyond the natural
(though
we waste
enough)
there is the irony
on a blue world
of not having safe water
guaranteed
anywhere
thanks to our being here
the
poisoning residents
so war
disease
hunger
famine to hunger
lack of safe water
despots
and corruption
which is before the count
the destruction
caused by nature
that we call
our mother
time to time
raging as well
under Great Spirit
who must weep in bouts
while spelling anger
how we melt
the valleys
that his hands
pressed and made
mother nature
father spirit
(or
switch the genders
or
add to them
certainly)
leading the cosmos
and our lore
about the cosmos
and whom do we respect
what
to we respect
there’s self-respect
and what do we do
with that
other-respect
perhaps
though mostly as a type
I think
so good that we can envy
or so bad
we can relate
and so vote for
well
these are our problems
aren’t they
and listing them
might help
but as
or followed by
a plan of action
certainly
and not let sado-masochism
make our only world
for habitation
no
we can do better
I am sure
and you are sure
and when we’re sure
we’ll reach out
in spirit
and in flesh
to make it better
make the wounds better
like parents
with Band-Aids
small doses of antiseptic
under
small kisses above
then really get
to work
to make the world
cleaner
through and above
well
everything
not a purge
(never a purge)
but
to fix
and rebuild
then to design above
something to say
and fairly
journey
on to other worlds
c l couch
photo by Nicolas Gras on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
The Lathe of Earth
x
We will get used
To being back,
Back from the edge
Of the disease
And into something new,
A new shape to life
Because there is no back
To normal, though
Touchstones of our lives
Might be used again
x
No back to the basics
Only forward to the basics
Forward to new normal,
As is said already
x
We’ll closet all our plague
Paraphernalia,
The way the Swiss
Keep their arms in closets
After military service
Though I think they prefer
Chocolate and negotiation
And so should we
Until and when
The next, dire thing
Should happen
x
coda
x
We’ll bury our dead
As after war
We could deal kindly
With each other,
Though the tone set
In the nation
Went against that
And we have found
That we have
Way too many guns
And, unlike the Swiss,
Don’t know how to use them
x
C L Couch
x
x
The Lathe of Heaven is a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin.
x
Photo by Rosie Steggles on Unsplash
Death Valley National Park, United States
x
Wishing in Retrograde
(after which the planet does return)
I don’t know
Everything seems stupid
What I’m writing, the images I’m
Looking for to go with it
(my looking, not the image-making)
If an apology will do,
I’m sorry I don’t have something better
And I want everyone to have
A good weekend
A safe weekend
In my nation, we’re expressing a split mind
On the one hand, everything is opening
On the other, the disease is worse than ever
Cases are spiking
Like a medieval mace in a museum
We’re number one for sickness,
Loss of life in the world
Like my state being first
For the worst roads
Is it any wonder
Other lands are barring us?
I wouldn’t want me, either
There are stories of break-ins into Canada
From the USA
Clearly, the wall is put up along the
Wrong direction
Having me think the purpose will be turned
Around, and from everywhere
We won’t be walling others out
But others wanting us walled in
Which isn’t everything, by far
The world is suffering
We should take a chance to help
Maybe our help would be accepted
You know, the WHO
And UN take us back
Maybe after Monday
In January 2021
The world will have us back
C L Couch
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
Consider Morning
Through closed eyes
There is a day unfolding
The sky is gray, turning pale blue
Maybe the misty parts will
Burn off
The street is dry
Opening the eyes
Brings out
A different contemplation
Now objects are seen
In pale light and shadow
Lights left on, under shades
Burnish everything
That is illuminated
There is burping from
The coffeemaker, while bread sits out
For the toaster
In the world that strangely has no time
For now, whenever these are served
As much as anything
More than clocks
Begins the day
It’s real, it’s not
It’s what there is
Uncertain muscles stretch
Brain cells don’t know yet
Which way to go
Feeling this in modern times when
The world has gone to war
The anxiety is different now
Because the enemy is inside
Not in conspiracy but
Atomic fact
With atoms making molecules and cells
With certain ones, too many, at
War with each other
These are the trenches
And the foxholes, now
There are those, bravely
On the front line of defense
First responding, second following through
With finding beds and
Other care
Third, treating symptoms where there is
No cure but creative treatment
With logistics
The next line, also at risk,
Who must be brave
Are those who fight the war at home, who
Hold together, maybe where there
Is no thread beyond connection
There is a layer in-between
Call it the community
That tries to stem the hoarding,
Who in company
And companies
Makes supplies to go up those lines,
Like rolling bandages
In past time
Maybe rolling them, too, just now
Then there are those who bunker-hide,
Meaning beyond reason, who
Make statements from the back
As if
It were the front
Who’ve never read “The Masque”
Or, reading it, forget
The lesson that, like fog inside a city,
Anyone or everyone might
Be touched by this,
Which means all are connected
Mere bellicosity never having won
A day much less the cause
Love will win with reason,
As it always does
Every time
C L Couch
Rathmannsdorf, Saxony, Germany
spruce trees in heavy fog
Seventh-Inning Stretch
God
Help us
I think God will
I believe
You don’t have to
Not because I’m better
Never that
No
But because belief
Infects at different rates
Like a desirable disease
And some are never touched
Some are cured
Or forestalled
By degrees of nihilism
But it’s fair to understand
Faith as sick
The world doesn’t welcome it
Many take remedies, so to say
For me,
Welcome the infection
Feed the fever
Starve the cold
Once the heart is hosted
All other major organs
(yes those, too)
The wisdom of the world
Is foolish to believers
We are fools
To its wisdom
C L Couch
Mask of a fool dancer; Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl); North America department, Ethnological Museum, Berlin, Germany (Jacobsen collection, 1881)
By User:FA2010 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15334105
Penultimate
Where do we go from here?
Life on Earth diminishes
Human life, animal species
Extinct, genii of plants within
Which might have served
Chemistry for fixing disease
We look for life out there
And why not: that’s what’s
Next
But for today, while we’re
Still here,
Build a world that someone
Else might want to visit, work
With us, share
Delhi and Flint
Pay for water; no water comes
Forth
There is no Moses at the spring
To channel water from an
Ordinary source made
Miraculously (cleanly) abundant
Through divine agency
Flint, a town in Michigan,
Faced with lead-infecting water
For the families and the other
Centers of community
Delhi, the second most-populated
City, now with broken waterways
Facing silent threats of thirst
And starvation and disease
Mis-directed plans, protests
Aggressive, violent
Innocents trapped between;
For lack of clean, living currents,
Why cannot—in global, protected
Pipes the size of bunkers made
Of (lead-free) new solid kinds
Of concrete and PVC (see, plastic
Can have its use)—why cannot
The world simply drink?
I’d do the same with food to
Stave off starving, if I could, and
Disease, if it could be tunneled
Under without harming anything,
Beneath
But instead of magic utterances
Or nations’ decrees
I have only these
clcouch123 
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