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If I Were a Teen

If I Were a Teen

(in pandemic time)

 

If I were a teen,

I’d read a book, I guess

Something touchable to do

I’d go outside as often

As I could,

Though the freedom

Would be limited

Because I’d have to talk

With friends six feet away

And never play

If we wore gloves

(latex inside leather),

Could we play catch?

 

I might have a phone

And thankful for

The blanking skills I have

To focus on the screen,

Missing everything

Else around me

I’d play something,

I suppose, on the computer

Gaming with my friends

Making new ones

As teammates across

The world, perhaps

If only in

Competition

I’d have meals with my

Family, because that would

Become important

Maybe I’d eat less and

More often

I’d take walks for exercise

Volunteer to walk the

Dog, if I have one

I’m sure there are calisthenics

To go through inside

But really

 

This would be the strangest

Time for me

I should be in school, though

There might be good things

In being away

But after a while I might

Find it all ridiculous

How do I finish my grade?

Do I start over?

Will what I have to do at home

Be enough?

Will I know what

I really need to know?

 

Maybe I’d learn something

New

Maybe I’d re-appreciate

My siblings, if I have them

Maybe I’d also

Try not to be afraid

Because people I know

Or I

Might get sick

Or might die

I hear the numbers

Of people doing each

 

I’ll do chores

And try not

To drive anyone at home

Crazy, crazier

Because that could get serious

I’ll try to be thankful

Though at my age

That’s hard

But not impossible

This time is not impossible

 

C L Couch

 

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

 

6

Elsewhere

Elsewhere

 

Is there war elsewhere

Maybe where you are

But maybe guns were held up

And the loading of them

Fingers withheld from buttons

Launching missiles

Or the switches from grenades

It’s a question that pandemics

Might quiet war, some

 

There will be violence

People shoot each other

Stab and hit with whatever

Nations have agendas against

Nations, this nation

Among them

 

But might the fear of illness

Death from infection

Become an agenda, too

And might our attention be mislaid

From war, if only for a while

So that we might attend to this

Instead, something the world

Should attend to

 

And could it be that noises change

From the usual reasons to

Others: ailments, hospital workers,

Ambulances for the sick,

Mourning from disease instead

Of how we do each other

 

When it’s done

When that might be

We might all take a breath

And then another

And maybe take a salient moment

Then another

To rethink, if only some

The business of war and the

Destruction only we can make

There might be peace in treatment

Let some make it last

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

 

1

This Is Our Story

This Is Our Story

 

Finally, there’s wind

The static air can move at last

It could be a carrier

Or a cleansing thing

But with sunshine christening

We’re hopeful it’s the latter

We need good days

 

And how idle does that sound

Imagining the waiting rooms

The wards, the angled beds

All the suffering from symptoms

It is a ministry of comfort

Nothing more though that is great

For now

And perilous

 

The problem with the anodyne

Is that it’s ancient hope

And little more

There is no easy cure

And for now there is not an uneasy one

Our prayers and thoughts

Seem not enough

Not to mention less than nothing from

Ones who utter them through angry

Or indifferent mouths

 

Against instead the real need

Some liquid in a tube

Delivered by a needle, disassembling

The cohorts of the virus

Well, we can think and pray for this

And these

With others or the silence

Of our closets

Asking to bless

All workers who pursue the

Necessary, healing good

 

There seems little else to say

No other topic pressing

It is a time of plague

Optimism notwithstanding

On all our houses

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash

Melbourne, Australia

The light was fading as I was flying the Mavic back from another shoot and the symmetry of these streets caught my eye. Love me some long afternoon shadows.

 

10

Both Our Houses

Both Our Houses

(in a time of, well, you know what time it is)

 

A plague on both your houses

I’m sure someone has thought of this

By now

My house and yours

Might be infected

Remain in isolation, though there are

Phone calls and the Internet

Our neighborhood of houses

And the nations

It might be nothing, might be

The thing that’s going ‘round

I could use some lamb’s blood for the lintel

No small thing,

Because my faith is shaken

 

The thing is vague except that it’s

Pervasive

The Montagues and Capulets

Cannot join hands

Just yet

But let the lovers have their way

They cannot touch for now,

Which is plague enough

 

C L Couch

March 2020

 

 

Photo by I.am_nah on Unsplash

 

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