Tell Me How to Get
God is great
God is good
And we thank God
For the ‘hood
Does anyone
Pray like that
Except behind
Some gates
And an association
Does anyone think
This is as good
As where
Big Bird lives
And even the garbage cans
Are fit
For a Muppet
Do we like our blocks
Or do we wait
For the next thing
The bad
Horrible thing
To happen
I’d like to sit upon the steps
Of concrete
Maybe warmed
By the way
To watch
You know
The world go by
And have it stop in parts
As people
Who stop to talk with me
Because we know each other some
And it’s
A pleasant moment
Offering another string
To tie up together
Silkenly
Our block
The most delightful web
Maybe like the God’s-eye
That they make
Out West
Brief togetherness
And then move on
And eventually
I’ll trek inside
To supper
With the ending light
Passing through the plants
Set near the windowsill
C L Couch
Photo by Esther Tuttle on Unsplash
Terremoto
(Mexico)
It is the land that moves
Who pushes it
The Earth
And all of us
We lean into fault lines
Hurrying along
The motion
That will, by nature,
Harm us all the same
(Earth doesn’t need our help)
Loss of life
Among the rescued and the rescuer
Cold irony
In an otherwise heated day
We grieve
For our neighbors
And I trust will pray
Those who do
And those who do and don’t
Will think and plan
More actively
To live our prayer in action
This is mission
This is living
In a neighborhood
Of us
Somos Oaxaca
C L Couch
Earthquake shakes southern Mexico for second time in three days
http://b3co.com/mexico/da-de-la-bandera/
Aleppo, Pennsylvania
Neighborhood is
Near three rivers
Reminding us that
Syria, native or
Immigrant (like the
Rest of ours), has
Been America for
A long, long time
Receipts
I’ll keep these for a time
Since they mark and note
The trip I took not so far
Away or so long ago
Pay slips from the turnpike
To represent my drives
Out and back, a map of
A town back home I found
At a station kiosk—sometimes
These are surprise-filled
Documents, even for a
Place I know
Coffee receipts out, those
For sandwiches on the
Way back in
Business card for a city
Place, the kind of which
We do not have in my
Small town, but at which
I had lunch with my family
Saint Vincent de Paul, whose
Thrift store I visited with my
Sister, where I bought a small
Piece of clear-black glass
An olive oil store—a
Festive, promising
New niche place—I
Got a narrow bottle of
Honey-serrano vinegar
For my brother-in-law
Who cooks a lot
Purchase record for a
Calendar I bought
On sale and then the
Best—a paper testimony
From a local bookstore
How I wish there were
More like this! I had gift
Card, it had the books
There are other neighbor
Places to support—those
Selling food and clothing and
Art-expression pieces from
Those makers starting out
Close by
But these books will do
They were my part in
My going, my time away, and
My returning afterward
My small trip—for
Now, a small-documented
Odyssey
clcouch123 
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