2 feeling poems for the date and also day


for the saints with a small s

especially for those who do not know
or believe

and yet you’re good
and have done something
good
and I don’t know what it is but someone
keeps a record
so organic as to require nothing
but
the good thing done no matter
how fast or
unclear the circumstances

and
doesn’t this
sound silly
that some small service be accounted
when
it might be an open door
or careful arm when needed

drop in the bucket
literally
the classic hat
or let it be a metaphor for the quiet
favorable
accomplishment

and as for
style
who knows
that’s up to you
but
do one help and then another
and then
take
care you are on your way to a person of
some virtue rising from the page
of a reliable character
in
a story

the teen who finished out the ride or
Merlin serving
the great monarch
if
there could
be one

or no letter kept but someone knows most
likely
or it could be that no one sets down
anything
and we have managed something
that is its own reward or
might be forgotten in
a moment when the world resumes its
pressing
expectations

small s
saints
we got them
you
are one
and I shall know you only when we meet beyond
this page again


(this came out really sentimental: is it the theology that doing something good is sweet?)


do we know where our child is

it’s three o’clock
now 2
the time change makes us yawn
though anymore our clocks
are
changed for us
and we might hardly know
or know at all

some
adjustments to the national schedule
over night

and we are
a dim time that was expected later
and
the dark arriving earlier for a while now
and sorry
for those this will trouble
and so
another excuse for fire in the pit
or the place inside
as
safe as it can be
then
to warm and to reflect
that it isn’t all
the freezing isn’t
all
black/white fields at night

but it’s a cycle
with the promise of the green
come ‘round
again

(it used to be asked by the TV at eleven that did we know where our children are? which as a child watching did seem strange, since I always knew)


c l couch
1 November


photo by Murray Campbell on Unsplash