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Remember the Sabbath

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Remember the Sabbath

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To keep it holy,

That is,

Set aside

For a spiritual purpose

Take ordinary things

Like the materials

For temple and for church

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Like rest and relaxation

Contemplation

Talking about easy things

As well

Easy play

The pleasure of your company

Ordinary things

Set aside in honor of creation

And creator

That’s all we need to do

One commandment kept

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We may interpret;

We’ve denied it

And the consequences

Having been directed

Over ages

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Ordinary set aside

It should be a good day

On another day, when scheduling

Demands

I’ve said before, but I didn’t

Make these things

That go on being made:

A new set of six days follows

Then a seventh

A new chance

Almost absurdity

Of reason

ETs will ask,

And you didn’t take the free

Day that your God directed you

To take?

We’ll be leaving now

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Have the sabbath day

It’s good, clean fun

Let’s hope we could manage that

Against ongoing, human depravity

The other days

It is the easiest of hopes

And means

A sabbath

For salvation

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C L Couch

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Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

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We Deceive Ourselves

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We Deceive Ourselves

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And the truth is not in us

Self-deception

In the liturgy, because of

Self-righteousness

A belief that we are right and

Good in all things

And that sins committed

Must have been done

By someone else

Or misunderstood

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But there’s another voice

A voice of conscience

The angel on the left shoulder

Pitted against the devil

On the right

(so go the cartoons)

Not subtle or complex

A voice that says

You’re wrong

Not like the critic’s voice

But prodding

In a way that

Doesn’t hurt so much

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Comes in waves

Not the correcting

But the minding

Like the waves we hear

When holding the shell

Next to our ears

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The truth is not in us

We deceive ourselves

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Can we fix this?

Not forever ‘til forever

Though there are mortal measures

If you ever went to Sabbath school

Or heard about goodness

Have read something

Watched something on TV

Or on-line

Without sending anything

(without expectation)

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Then you can write the next part

You may

(me, too)

Without deception

Or deception at a minimum

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C L Couch

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The cited part is from Christian Scripture (1 John 1:8) and the (Catholic, Protestant) service liturgy.

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Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

Louvre – Tuileries, Paris, Frankreich

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What Sigmund Freud, Erma Bombeck, and Jean Shepherd Knew

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What Sigmund Freud, Erma Bombeck, and Jean Shepherd Knew

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Some memories

Are childish

Because they come

From children

We might cringe

From the foolishness

More so from

Childish behavior

From adults

From the adult

Inside

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Well, I’m not sure

If memory can cleanse

Embarrassment

Though it could teach

Humility

Or another understanding

So that’s why

I said or did

The thing

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Otherwise, we cringe

Again

When something no one else

Can see

Because it’s in

The mind,

A symbol of regret

Passing by

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jisun Han on Unsplash

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Ow

(x = space)

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Ow

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I rock my back

My back says ow

My mouth forgets to say

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I fell down some stairs

Last night

It’s still a curiosity

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I didn’t have to sacrifice

The plate that I was holding

Ow, I’m learning

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C L Couch

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Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash

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Banned Books Week

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Banned Books Week

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We put the titles

On a cup

And I see books I have enjoyed

And those I could have

Lived without,

Which means discretion

Not the better part of valor

The valor is in standing up for books

With earnest stories

And a style

And all of us

Won’t like all of them

And that’s all right

That is democracy

That I hear is a fine thing

For neighborhoods and nations

And a floating planet

Wanting the approval of gravity

In the cosmos

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Banning books

Is a step

Not an easy step, I hope,

To burning books

And, you know, books of religion

Should they be read

Are the first ones to go

Books of the human spirit—well,

That might be all of them—go

Next

And we are left

Without touchstones,

The things that keep ideas for us

From slipping unanchored

Into a seastorm and the winds

Of every doctrine

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If there is beauty in a book

We should preserve it

If there is truth as well,

That’s better

(Keats is on to something)

If it’s dull, it won’t matter

In the thought

And will ban itself

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Children are not stupid

They’re not grown-up, either

There are grown-ups all around

Who must be wise

Keep matches from the books

Keep censoring away

Don’t throw everything

At everyone

Let children be children

Let them learn

Let them grow

Rethink the considerations of them

As a laborforce

For ideas

They are Cook

Without agenda

We are Endeavour

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C L Couch

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Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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Sleeper Awake

(x = space)

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Sleeper Awake

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It’s 69 degrees

(Fahrenheit)

At (twelve-oh-five, we say)

12:05

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Fall arrives

And hobbits,

The birthdays

Of the Bagginses

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New season

With an equinox

Autumnal

To complement

The vernal

By a half,

Half a year,

Half a world

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We tilt into another

And existentially

A new one

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We have not had

Today

Or this changing

Of the Earth

Around 11

Post-meridian

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Here is the same season

As a new one,

New seconds

Newly breathed

Into hours

And an age

Collectively

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Spring to the south,

Autumn

To the north where

Where there

Might be dragons

In their lairs.

Then

We bring in cold air

And awaken them

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We think fall

Might be the readiness

For freezing,

Sleeping winter;

And yet

(like new school years

for young ones

and for teachers)

Here and now

The adventure,

The quest

Might begin

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C L Couch

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Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

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What Number Pain Today

(x = space)

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What Number Pain Today

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I don’t know

Or recall

Who came up with

Quiet desperation

Perhaps a modern poet

I hope you

Don’t have to live that way

Something inside

That found its way

A sidling kind of thing

That won’t let go

It could be memory

Or money

The potential for a  scandal

Or simply a lot of pain

Not the kind that

Inspires a statue

And who needs that?

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Pain is a reaction

A response

Also a signal

Can keep in the inner workings

Working

It should have an end

Not simply a measure

But that’s what

Therapy

Or medication’s for

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Or simply bearing

Old body pains

A place of wounding

In the spirit

We can keep

Except sometimes we can’t

Then the therapy

Or medication’s needed

Prayer

Companionship

Companionship in prayer

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Aquarius bears water

The libation bearers, well,

Libation

As offerings

Atlas

Or the elephant

Bears the world

And there’s the story of Saint Christopher

Who carried Christ, not knowing

It was Christ, through water

And a storm

And the child’s weight increasing

Until the one who carried him must say

He bore the weight

Of the world

And did bear

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Carry weights

And pains

And as pains are signals

Pay attention

Carry,

I mean carry,

Carry on

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C L Couch

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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the phrase “quiet desperation” is by Thoreau in Walden

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The Game of Life

(x = space)

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The Game of Life

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I’m not ready

I wasn’t ready for my

Comprehensives

I did fine

I wasn’t ready

For my mother to be sick

I did what I could

I contributed

She rallied

I won’t be ready

For the next big thing,

I think in children’s media called

The NBT

I doubt we’re ready

For most things,

You know?

They happen anyway

And we respond

We do well

We don’t

We try

We retreat

We come out again

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We are changed

For the next time

Though it might not be

In kind

But we pick up things

They get tucked away

Consequently,

And whether consciously or not,

We can reach into the drawer

Of the file cabinet

Pull open the door

Of the mind palace

At a little more

Since in the keep

As in the world

There are treasures

Set from the beginning

And we’re always

On the hunt

Solving the riddle

Finding other puzzles

Finding keys

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Life, folks

That’s what we got

In all this

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C L Couch

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A Game of Concordia

Photo by Karthik Balakrishnan on Unsplash

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Old

(x = space)

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Old

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We get old

Forgetting we were young

No one would believe us

White hair

No hair

Everything takes longer

We wonder what to do with our day

An irony

On irony

We know more

Unless we gave that up

Stopping in our heads

Sometime ago

We could grow

We have things to say

Who wants to listen?

The gray become unseen

Unheard

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C L Couch

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Photo by Alice on Unsplash

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