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Destination (and a note)

I’m facing another surgery for my heart.  I can’t say I’ve been feeling well, because I haven’t.  I’m sorry for not being more interactive.  I do enjoy reading your works.

Christopher

 

Destination

 

God’s plan

We don’t know it

Shouldn’t try

We have a code for life

It’s about sheep and goats

And a golden mean

Commandments and a wheel

And the

Way

This is enough

Certainly, our records show

We’re hardly successful

In these

Our actions tell too much

Failure by choice (so)

Dare we know

All the plan

When we reveal such small willingness

About

The instructions

 

C L Couch

 

1

All Fall Down

All Fall Down

 

Horses caught

In California wildfires

I want to care about

The rest

Humans hurt and houses lost

Land that will not recover

Easily if at all

But I wonder if they were freed

Or caught on the wrong

Sides of fences

Were they kept in barns or stables

Or were they let free

Could they run from

Terror

 

Irony

It’s in their veins, the capillaries, the

Marrow of their bones and nuclei

Goading

Their extraordinary muscles

Gifted by Apollo to

Own the sky

 

Then what is left

When hair and flesh

Are burned, and bone at last

Fails and falls into ash

Will all unbound furies merge

As all mortalities

 

Risie into heaven where

Animal innocence cleanses all,

Teaching human souls

To gallop, how to dance

In resurrection

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/08/horses-burn-death-california-wildfires-los-angeles-creek-blaze?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=255824&subid=16706344&CMP=GT_US_collection

 

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The Parable of Nathan

The Parable of Nathan

(2 Samuel 12)

 

David was the king

 

Nathan in the court

Prophet, one of what had once been

The ruling group

 

Nathan told David about

Someone rich with money, lands,

And livestock

Who stole the one sheep of

His neighborhood to have

A feast of mutton

 

Who is this thief and murderer of

Law and goodness,

The monarch demanded

 

Nathan taught

He prophesied a lesson

Timeless truth to borrowed power

(Which is all the power there

Is)

 

This thief of God’s provision

Nathan said to David,

It is you

 

C L Couch

 

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Fascinatin’ Rhythm

Fascinatin’ Rhythm

 

My room is like the cenobite’s cell

Because I must stay here

Though it is the hermit’s joy

Less and less to move

I want my car outside the door—nothing

Much, it simply gets me there

 

That’s the promise I want:

That I can leave, find faster air outside

Enjoy a slight change in dimension

A single shift in the horizon of my own events

Only enough for this, yes, this is how well I

Want to be

Today

 

C L Couch

 

(title borrowed from the Gershwins, Ella Fitzgerald, Eleanor Powell)

 

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Litany

Litany

 

I speak

Then you speak

It’s good

It’s good for the church

For the service

It’s even better for us

A way to talk that has rhythm and remembrance

Ages-long and fresh each time

You speak

Then I speak

We listen—we don’t forget that part

The service ended,

We go in peace

 

C L Couch

 

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Borne in the USA

Borne in the USA

(Thanksgiving Day 2017)

 

Those who can, eat too much

Those who can’t are often fed as well

There are parades that

Honor stores and industry celebrities

Though most of our parades are

Done that way

 

A magazine editor wrote

President Lincoln

Suggesting a holiday—

This was during the war when a respite

And a time for thanks would welcome relief

To all the tragedy

FDR secured it for the nation

 

We watch football, formed when

Athletes from Canada comprised a new event

With Harvard students

Canada has Thanksgiving Day at a different

Time

I hope other cultures have it, too

Maybe you will tell me, and

 

In the mean time I’ll say thank you to you, mindful of

Respective situations

 

For you give me a reason

 

C L Couch

 

 

(photograph from Flickr)

 

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Do You See Me Now?

Do You See Me Now?

 

I was a cat in Moscow

A photographer liked me, I guess

My manner, my similarity,

My distinctness of

Western cats

So at the fair in 1963, he (it was a he)

Clicked away

(Like my paws on pavement)

And I am here for you

Now

Meow

 

C L Couch

 

Photo declassified from ’63 Moscow Fair.

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/nov/08/cia-cat-photos/?mc_cid=38a2949b82&mc_eid=7f3cc8b5a9

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first World Day of the Poor

first World Day of the Poor

(day late, no dollar short)

 

Francis says to us

Blessed are the hands that reach beyond

Every hindrance of creed or culture

That in a profane way keeps us

Apart

 

The physician quotes

Blessed are the poor—

In spirit or

In flesh—

For yours is the realm of God

In this love is not a democracy but

Obeisance to a royal decree

From the one who

Rules perfectly with justice

And unerring care

 

This is not the kind of mystery that’s hard

To resolve

Who made the poor? we did, and

We keep ours down in a fallen world

That drives them, drives us

Deeper

 

The answer to all questions is, Who cares?

Acceptable question this time to

A question

To those in front of us, a catechesis, a

Secular investigation doesn’t

Serve;

 

The poor are here,

A monarchy for them and us;

That’s far off

 

The open hand is empty, and sometimes it’s

Clenched in pain

The challenge in the giving is

Courage to unclose, to press into the soul

The bravery, tenacity

 

The food and water

And more

And better

For the living

And the dying

In the right time for each

For the change

 

When all are blessed

 

C L Couch

 

first World Day of the Poor

We cannot remain passive. Blessed are the hands that reach beyond every barrier of culture, religion, and nationality, and pour the balm of consolation over the wounds of humanity.  Blessed are the open hands that ask nothing in exchange, with no “ifs” or “buts” or “maybes”: they are hands that call down God’s blessing upon their brothers and sisters.

Pope Francis (who proclaimed the day)

First World Day of the Poor, 2017: Let us love, not with words but with …

 

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Hospitalism

Hospitalism

 

My sister tells me it’s a man thing

Not wanting to go to the

Hospital

It’s certainly true that I do not want to go

And that I thought this

A healthy inclination

Now I wonder if for those women who

Care so much

(In quantity and quality) if there is a

Kind of comfort there

Someone else to provide, to

Decide,

To break the news

And deal with it first

 

C L Couch

 

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