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They Wave Farewell

(x = space)

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They Wave Farewell

(Memorial Day, USA)

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Red

(with white and blue)

Waving over fields

Dropping morning dew

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For us

It is remembering

A waving day of it

Poppy remembering

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Nature teaches

And must be

A burying place for war

The fields wave

The children wave

We wave

They wave farewell

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Nature weeps

With dew, with rain, with

Anything that falls

All of us may fall

And weep

We may weep

For the children

(all are children)

Of the world

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

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4

I Hope the Dogs and Cats Are Well

(x = space)

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I Hope the Dogs and Cats Are Well

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I heard stories about them

Early in the war

Not so much now

There might be zoos

I remember that detail

In a story by Unamuno

About the end of the world

And the wild animals getting out

But dogs and cats need our help

They always do

We made them that way

Adapted them for use

And took away their other capabilities

How could they stand up to wolves

Or bears or badgers

Wolverines

Or unknown men and women

With machine guns

Who have no familiar smells

Nothing about them

To indicate

Friend

Or family

Or home

Cats and dogs might do all right

With welcome from the stranger

But in battlefields

The anonymities are too severe

And the cruelties

Tend to pile up

Where did they go?

Where are the ones I was protecting?

I do not know anyone

Anything

Anymore

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C L Couch

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Photo by troy williams on Unsplash

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5

All the Children

(x = space)

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All the Children

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It doesn’t take much

To go into a classroom

Filled with children

And a teacher

Carrying guns

And then proceed to shoot

There are no opponents

And no challenges

There

Where is the victory, then?

The mannish triumph?

Only destruction

Taking lives

Of those who don’t fight back

Cowardly command

Of a situation

Why not keep it to

A video game

Electrons make the hell of it

Pouring onto Earth?

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This does not address

The visceral:

The violence of bullets

Piercing children’s flesh

And what the bullets do,

Once inside

Was this accomplishment?

Or would the defense

Have been insanity,

Should the shooter

Plan to live beyond the killing?

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We’ll never know

There might have been no expectation

To live, after

It doesn’t matter

Unless to know

Somehow prevents another

Time

Of people killing children

Because they can

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C L Couch

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Here are the latest developments in the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting

As the town of Uvalde in South Texas mourns the killing of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school, a vigil was held for the victims at a community arena Wednesday night.

“Amazing Grace” was played as those in attendance wept and hugged.

The mass shooting on Tuesday has again spurred statewide and national conversations over gun control, following on two others over a two-week period —at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a church in Laguna Woods, California.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/texas-elementary-school-shooting-05-26-22/h_c348336110a9bff90edf25aeaf2acfbd

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Down Roads We Go

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

New Forest National Park, United Kingdom

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Shorelines

(x = space)

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Shorelines

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Sometimes

I get to the ocean

Some of you live close by

I could be envious

But I get there

Now and then

It seems to be important

That I do so

It’s not the shoreline in the photograph

I don’t know where that is

But it will do

Any such will do

To remind us

Of where might be our origins

Or our destinations

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Or the real thing

Better

To walk by when it’s early

To think about

Origins and destinations

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C L Couch

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Photo by Zac Harris on Unsplash

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3

Ephemeral

(x = space)

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Ephemeral

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A loose hair

A tress, in fact

Something for keeping

As Victorians

And other nineteenth-century

People

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In a box

A remembrance of youth

Or younger days

Or the other day

When the lock was snipped

And tied with ribbon

And I remember you

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C L Couch

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Photo by Emma Simpson on Unsplash

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3

Unrequired Beauty

(x = space)

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Unrequired Beauty

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I drove by

What might have been

An accidental field

Of flowers

No fine edges

No uniform establishment

To speak of

If it had been planted

That was a while ago

Perennials, I imagine

Every year the patch returns

Of blue and purple

Rising

From brown earth

Like holidays

Like celebration

Slowly

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C L Couch

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Uva, Russia

Photo by Daniel Spase on Unsplash

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Sorries

(x = space)

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Sorries

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Maybe there is

Nothing more

Sometimes

Except to say we’re sorry

We’ll do better

Then do better while

Moving on

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C L Couch

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Photo by Andrew Johnson on Unsplash

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(I made up “sorries.” Sorry.)

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4

Slip-Sliding Petition

(x = space)

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Slip-Sliding Petition

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God, I’m tired

Not tired of life

But from lack of sleep

Dreams

That wear me out

So that I’ve lived a day already

Then try to rise

Into waking,

Real agendas

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This is a prayer

Maybe I could ask for something

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I can’t think of anything else

I’ve drifted off

Into Saturday

Or something like

Is Saturday a prayer?

Amen

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C L Couch

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Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash

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Close Call

(x = space)

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Close Call

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Danger, Will

Heatstroke air today

Both hot and humid

You’d swear we were

Sitting, rocking, reclining

On a porch

In a Southern family drama

Spanning time,

Hope, and cynicism

Sipped by lemonade

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Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this

But once I asked a Southerner

How Southerners

Endured all the close heat

There

I thought maybe home remedies

Or some adaptation over generations

Here’s what I was told:

Air-conditioning

Sigh

No saga

Only appliances

Or a central system

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C L Couch

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First-edition dust jacket cover of As I Lay Dying (1930) by the American author William Faulkner.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91865318

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