2 patriot verses


Patriot Dreams

I love my country
Though sometimes
It’s hard
To recognize

For violence
Yes
Also disorder
In the halls of politics
And justice

It seems that we all
Lean

Maybe time
To say so
And admit we can do better
Be larger
Than one interest
So to legislate
Even to judge

I am this
And I am that
My group is this
But I can care
Bigger than
That
And must
To make intact
And keep intact
The nation
From the privilege of chaos
And the run of evil
Ripping through
Any sense
Of unity

Faltered
Flawed
We can do better
Larger
Though the irony must be
That patriot feeling
And intent
Be shown in smaller
Ways

The things of families
And of neighborhoods

Leave me alone
Should not be our working words
Not since
We thought
To work out something
‘Gainst an empire

Knowing that
Solitary items matter
As matter
Individuals

Remember
Though
That birthing seems
Separate
But by necessities
Is actually conjoined

That dying
For some choices might be
Shared as well

That we are in our skins
And inside
Our interests
But we do better
Not for
Groupthink
But when we work it
Healthily
Together

By “patriot dream”
(ethereally good)
We may try
(waking
hale)
Vision
Turned like
Named and unnamed blocks
Into
Democratic strategy
And our
Republic’s practice

God save America
All Americas
And both hemispheres
A planet


Nation

For with reason
Any people
In
The world
May
Build this

Choices in smaller things
The easy things
Be easy
While we also have the larger
And complex

Thus
Vote for
Service
For security

Love of nation
Love of home

Families reconstructed
In any number
Blood
And also water
Both safely
Required

We share
The nation’s business
While invested
In
Our own

The larger one
Be ours
Indifferently approached
Perhaps
(check voting
statistics
far as well as near)

But we live on the promise that
We make this
(large
and small)
Our own

Sustaining it in
Quotidian
As well as come-November ways


C L Couch


Photo by Sardar Faizan on Unsplash