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Our Many Faces

Our Many Faces

 

Aleppo, yes, I know

 

Sounds like a sixth

Marx brother from

Post-Vaudevillian

Capers

 

But children die there

From what war takes

 

Which is all right

Since we don’t value

Children, anyway:

 

If we did, we’d see

They were not shot

And killed, they never

Suffered in want

Of food or a good

School

 

We’d value them like

Prizes won in the

Most precious bingo

Game or ski-ball

 

We’d sit with them,

We’d watch them eat,

See that they are

Clean inside and out

 

And have temerity

To ask for help when

Needed

 

We’d celebrate the

Family that we are

Part of, even if we’re

Not their parents

 

Because in the most

Worldly way we are

 

We’d say, it’s for the

Children; and we’d

Mean it

 

We’d change

Everything to have

Them safe and well

And jiggly playful at

Home

 

We’d do the world

Right this time

 

C L Couch

9

Easter Uprising

Easter Uprising

2016

 

Some chose to mark

Easter day with willful

Murder

 

Family picnics in

Lahore Pakistan

Christians targeted

Though tell me there

Were no guests of

Islam other faith or

None

 

Day of faith and

Homely celebration

We who were not

There can nonetheless

Relate

 

Imagine those we

Love even those we

Forbear by mere

Relation

 

Scattered rent apart

Undone

 

Reunions friendly or

Indifferent never

Again

 

The soul the spire

Tying through a

Family broken taken

Away

 

Now the future holy

Day focuses alone to

Count those of us

Alive

2

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter (prose poem)

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter
(prose poem)

So my friend calls from Indiana. I tell her of my sister’s new job. I am relieved and happy, because my friend’s been struggling with sufferings that would drive me mad. She sounds well and has a chance to tell me some about her family on her way to church to help lead (in technical matters) a Bible study there. It is cold here. It is colder there (single-digit degrees for many days). When she must ring off, she does. I am at the coffeemaker and place the backside of the phone on a spiral burner on the stovetop (everything turned off). While the coffee’s cooking, I clean out some plastic bottles into which I put tap water to drink throughout the day. Not thinking at first, I place the cleaned-out bottles just outside the burner circle set upon the stove. When I’ve done this four times, I have four empty bottles cornering a phone set on a burner plate of labyrinthine form. I’m sure there is a deity for winter (generally, Persephone, though I’m thinking there’s one for winter only), and have I not built a small, strange contemporary altar to her. A narrow receiver (wireless) offered up inside four plastic monoliths keeping in their stillness their own kind of sentinel watching. Is this supplication? I want my friend to be well. I want her husband to enjoy retirement and her daughter have success at school. I want the cold to move on, over there, though for a Midwest winter season, I guess what is endured is rather normal. (Still too cold.) My temps in southern Pennsylvania still have two digits. But we are called to be ourselves storm-ready against a coming, miles-wide soon-arriving gale. It smacks the South and later rounds out to sea—on the way releasing slivering ice and snow and the season’s other dangers onto our regional metropoles: D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. And in my small town? I pray for navigable roads. In my small place, I pray for electricity’s constancy—that it might faithfully provide sufficient heat in rapport with the thermostat. And now I guess I wait. We wait. I clear the stove and leave on the burner now a single cup, ready for coffee. The empty ceramic vessel a suburban symbol of encouragement and also, I think, of supplication.

4

Ishi

Ishi

she is the last
one in her family
a hermit in Siberia
rescued recently

they were religious
they fled the Soviets
(one could name another
group when it oppresses
or suppresses) and
she is the last

when she is gone
from earth
only her story will remain

another ghost of Ishi for
she is the last

2

Psalm 16, a song of (USA) Thanksgiving (Day)

Psalm 16
a song of (USA) Thanksgiving (Day)

The Canadians had their day already.
I wonder if that’s because they’re
more easily, readily thankful.

In the USA, there’s so much to
be thankful for. I grew up in
Pittsburgh, and I like returning
there. Pittsburghers tend to
speak their minds, and their
minds are good. (Their driving’s
better, too.)

I have family. The five of us with
spouses, children of the new
generation, and pets (old, new). We
are scattered, which is sad, though
in our ways we keep in touch.

Friends I have, a small circle. And
I have made it smaller. Not the
happier of moves. But the friends
I have I cherish. They are good
for me, so good. They circle out
in nearness, which is the sense of
those we know and how and when.

I live alone and often feel the
peace of that. (I first typed pace
for peace, and I enjoy that too.)
I sleep badly, which means I have
hours of the day to be awake
and doing such as this. Would
someone else put up with that?

Hannah, my cat of nineteen
years. She is gone now, and
eighteen years were pretty good.
Then she faded fast. Not bad,
all in all. She was the queen and
I her knave. She ruled in blessed
benevolence, scolding me for what
is apt within the catly-noble
mind (which means daily
reprimand for not mind-reading
every whim). Still good, good-humored
company. Now a loss, though better
she go first. She awaits me on the other
side, ready to scold me what else I
missed in mortal time.

Mostly. I have you. Lord, I
know you love me anyway and
always. You love me in darkness
and in light. I am perpetually
astounded. And, yes,

thankful for this, all this, the
plenty that you give.

Thank you, Lord—Love, me

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