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2 preachy poems (and I could apologize)

Wise Fragility

Don’t lose what’s authentic

That sounds good

But what if one were not authentic
To begin with

And what if one grew up inside
And was only subject
The falsity
So prevalent in
The human world

A wish
A want
The wisdom
And the health
In being who we are
With all
The honest virtues
And flaws

Flaws can be honest
Too
And loved

So what is real

We think when we’re naked
We are
Real

But isn’t when
We look the way we choose to look
For modesty
Or show
That reveals ourselves
In some depth
Some way

And bring it out again
What we know from what we’ve had
How we’ve been
Treated
Too

How about consideration of
How we might
Treat ourselves
With both health and pleasure

God
Making
And approving
Both

The way we treat each other
Vying
Too
In the best way
We were
Made
To deal
And to approve

Be you
Be me
And in love
All kinds of
(wise
healthy)
Love
Trade parts of each other

As lovers
Friends
(and)
Or nations

(the notion of naked versus dressed and when we are (more) real comes from a passage in The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis)

Cabinetry

I keep a few doors open
I don’t know
So I can appreciate
The colors in the labels
Of canned food
Or
Because I want
To be reminded of what’s there
Or
Because I’m claustrophobia
And the open doors
Trick a sense of space

Or maybe
I’d rather have life open
Not that it is
Though I think it should be

More than that
I think all our lives
Should be
Open
Like these doors

Not as politicians
Say
Nothing hide
Because they’re lying
In that
They have many things to hide
And so do we
Collectively
At least

But could we do it
Open up our lives without
Rejection
Without even prejudice
Except toward being human
Which
Of course
Is all
Of us

Open up
Maybe
(collectively)
Take off the doors
Somehow

Leave them that way
Which shouldn’t be a problem
Save for tremors

C L Couch

Photo by Tina Witherspoon on Unsplash


How to Go to the New World
(either way)

I still don’t know what
To say to you
Today

I mean
This is me
And I don’t know
Not knowing
Words
And something of their use
Often
Re-rendered
When conscripted
Into verse

Or let the message
Be a branch
Or bird
Inside the tree

Or something of the sun
Through clouds
Below
Leaving a gospel
In a shadow

But something new
Or affirming
Something old
Or even ancient
Like virtue
And its complement
Of rules
We take for argument
From Greeks
Who took things
From Egyptians
Then both subsumed
By Rome

And so
What’s happening
In Asia
All the while

And then the holy
And the Roman
Christians
Establish empire
Where for eons
There had been those
Who fought
And
Dwelled
Expanded and
Diminished
On their own
To have the only world
They knew
And it was vast
More than enough
Until the white gods
Came
The devils
To deceive us

A whole world
For its varied understanding
Of
The way things go
And on another side
How seasons
Turn
To go another way
And so subvert
The growing year
Of Gregory

So much
So many
To have touched
On so few
And in one time
And so
Move forward
When complexities
Are
Rife with
Differences
Agendas
Styles
And signals
Of the fear of the unknown
Toward other people
In the shadows
From our light
Whose singularity
Makes others
Fearsome in the dark
That we have made
Much darker
Not
To behold
Their part
In the same light

We could tone down ourselves
And so inquire
Of the ones
We do not know
But could
In openness
And inquiry
The way we learned research
In school
Before the grown-ups interests
And fear for profit
Took us over

We could learn to love
The differences
As might have been
Our first impressions
When meeting
As children
Invested by impulse
With curiosity

And let the world change
With our acquaintance
Let everyone be different
Just a little
For having met
With outstretched hand
Empty for introduction
While the other hand
At our side
Is open
Too
With honesty
Allowed to gain
Through inquiry
And
Once permitted
Exploration

C L Couch


Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash