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Near-Dead Reckoning

Near-Dead Reckoning

 

If I had children

To rear (that used to be the proper

Word), I’ve little doubt

I’d treasure some time apart, now

And then

There’s a story of the mother of my

Namesake

 

She was going to walk

Around the hundred-acre wood

Her son asked to go

And she said no

But when I return

Welcome me

As if I had been gone far

Away for a long time

 

Nowadays what guilt the mom or dad

Must feel to know

That children are taken from their

Parents with no returning

Promised

 

The parents now are criminals, they’ll say

Trying to enter by

Liberty’s calling

 

The children are caged, too

 

Everyone is guilty, by the way

Not one of us gets off

Unless we’re trying

 

God will accept a prayer

To bring entire families

Along with sanity

To what has been happening

 

My father’s people were

Here to tie

Up the ships of all the rest

My mother’s people, there’s a problem

Only a few generations here

So I’ll

Have to take my chances

 

Warming up to say

That without family

Without the value placed

Up on the shelf in pride of place

 

That what have we of home

A nation of all promises

Is dust collecting

In an empty place

 

I don’t have all the answers

I don’t know all the rest

But I think impracticality also

Becomes illicit

When we break the bond

That promises compound reckoning

The nuclei destroyed

Hostility left to orbit like

Errant electrons

 

Preachy

And sing-songy

Yes, I know

 

But there it is, I’ll ‘fess up,

And if you’ve come this far

We can go farther

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://www.expatsinvallarta.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Nogales-Tuscon-sign (/jpg)

 

3

Ascendant

Ascendant

(believe it or not, for J K Rowling)

 

Suddenly the steam from

The coffee rises in an eldritch way

Because the cup is now a cauldron and

The liquid is the matter of a

Spell,

Not the dangerous kind

The easy, adolescent kind that only

Causes sit-com harm,

The kind that must be resolved in

A half-hour

And hadn’t hurt that much, to begin with

 

But rain is coming on

Humidity is high

There is wind high in the trees

The branches dance to universal motion

And I wonder who

Casts such a summer day

As this

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://novedadesdetabasco.com.mx/2017/04/08/se-preven-tormentas-fuertes-en-zonas-de-puebla-oaxaca-veracruz-tabasco-chiapas-campeche-y-quintana-roo/

 

4

Border Talk

Border Talk

 

I don’t know what to say about

A family torn apart

I never had that feeling

Once I thought I’d lost part of my family in

A famous fire

I was hundreds of miles away

I cried for a day to find

It wasn’t true

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://keranews.org/post/view-border-mcallen-locals-debate-child-immigration-crisis

 

0

Made Up

Made Up

 

It’s Sunday

Maybe I should think something

Religious

I’m two days behind the Jews

Only one day after

The Adventists

And for those who never keep a sabbath

Why miss out on

The rest

 

It’s inside-out

Or should be

Take the time to know the heart

Four chambers to walk through

A mind that is a ride

In a synapse car

 

None of this is religion

But there’s something about

Wonderfully made

That comes to mind, while

I’m on the synapse-ride

In a park with a

Neuron saucer

 

What would I configure

If I had to make up me

 

It’s been done with

Someone who has more

Art and skill than

I shall ever have

 

In fact, the one who

Made the ride to

Set me on this course

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2017/06/hacking-human-brain-lab-made-synapses-artificial-intelligence

 

0

The Formal Feeling

The Formal Feeling

(title from Emily Dickinson)

 

Catharsis after tragedy

The sad rush we feel, knowing

The experience is over, that we got it

Vicariously,

That it will not happen to us

And by the way

The community depicted now is stronger

It’s after the terrible and blessed

Have both transpired

And watchers leave the scene

(we leave the theatre)

To go home, chastened and relieved

It wasn’t us

They got their due

Their nation will be better

Let’s go home

 

It’s not closure

(what is)

For a future ticket will bring it all to

Action, opportunity, and desire

For mortal flaws to seed

And then to flourish

And are these analogues for

Life outside

Well, for those who must

Who will not learn

By mastery of organs or

Of language

Who will not hear

And will not heed delaying paradise

So not to have it at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

image from a production of Hamlet, 1899

 

0

Flesh and Blood

Flesh and Blood

 

I tried to tally death a couple

Of weeks ago

Starting with two explosions in Kabul

The second device murdering those who

Had responded, rushing, to the first

Since then, schools have been the setting of

Murders, too

Workplaces, neighborhoods

Nature has taken part in many

Though we kill well enough on our own

 

The count of death is maybe not so

Useful beyond actuarial

The flesh becomes abstract

The quality in tears evaporates

The blood is in another room, not

The one in which we’re arguing

Funding and our rights to shoot each other

When and where we like

 

Control and majesty of black metal move

Us more than someone else’s

Daughter or son

 

This is not about an issue

It’s about a loss that’s real

Stolen like bounty in the night

Hell’s gone a-hunting

So ephemeral a trophy,

The soul

 

If this is an issue for you

Then vote for something

And in the mean time wait

Until changed forever

And on occasion wonder why

Steel propulsions have to mean

So much

 

C L Couch

 

 

Index of /teaching/g/circles

 

4

Lauda

Lauda

 

All the things I should have said

All the times I should have said

Thank you

I love you

I’m sorry

Let me help

Yes, it’s me

Yes, it’s maudlin

Though it might be useful

I might be

Maybe I should wear motley like a fool

A reminder to step out of the folds

Of an otherwise fixed and unkind people

To say instead

I’m fragile

And I make mistakes

But I’m not done

To say instead

To act instead

Let me try

 

C L Couch

 

 

Wikimedia Commons

 

2

Barn-Raising

Barn-Raising

 

It’s a day, a process

As long as many are involved

It stands a chance

But that’s the deal: we must

Come together to make it

Happen

And afterward we have a barn

And each other

All in company

 

Maybe the U.N. should go into this

Raising barns in needful places

And then making delegates

Raise barns in troubled places

No doubt some of the work would be bombed

And other work burned down

We have to allow

For that without ever

Approving

 

C L Couch

 

 

Catskill Animal Sanctuary Needs Your Help to Complete New Barn …

 

2

The Circle Will

The Circle Will

 

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

All of Christian theology in a

Capsule, so I’m told

And I can believe it

 

Little ones to him belong

Who said he will not suffer fools

It was not Jesus

He welcomed the small, the foolish,

And the outcast

I take great comfort from his

Company

And so might you

 

They are weak, but he is strong

Is there strength in doubt

In cynical insight—if

So, then I might qualify for

Divine companionship

To marvel in the one who

Walks beside me

 

Yes, Jesus loves me

Yes, Jesus loves me

One more time, and the spell is cast

It becomes official

He has pledged some kind of

Fidelity to me

Because an invocation counts

So much so we give it once a week

That, like the bath on Saturday,

We take it, needing one or not

 

Yes, Jesus loves me

The Bible tells me so

Ancient lore

Interpretation of the text

Desert mothers and our fathers

Keepers of oldest insight

Dry seeds in small packages

Waiting for young water

 

What will be our next song, children

Maybe about fittin’ Jericho

Or whether or not we know we

Smile

Songs go back to truth,

Which is why it’s clever when

We can sing all the verses

 

Time for reading now

And later there’ll be play

It’s a good day in God’s land

However many rainy days

Or rungs to climb

It takes to get there

 

C L Couch

 

 

Whole_note_and_rest.png

The original uploader was Merphant at English Wikipedia

 

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