The Unforgiven
(over three hundred now)
Matthew kills
Two hundred eighty
In the place that Papa
Doc abused
Where the recent
Legacy of earthquake
Leaves homes
Waiting to rise
For five years’ passing
On toward Florida,
This is not
The succession of an
Apostle but the
Random naming of
A storm
That, anonymous,
Would rise and fall,
Slam and flood, beat and
And take the
Breathing from too
Many enfleshed
Fragile souls
Saruman Brings Down Trees
A duel is established between
The organic and the mechanical
It doesn’t have to be this way,
Only a demon-ridden wizard must
See it so:
The world exists in duality with
Room enough to have everything,
Mutuality in a multiverse
The Ashburn Old School “on the edge”
of Washington, D.C., Vandalized Last
Night
Might I apologize for an entire color?
I can’t—I didn’t make it, nor do I feel
intense affiliation. But whites (I figure
whites) have defaced an old school on
the cusp of finished restoration. An
old school that had been inhabited by
black students and, I guess, an all-black
staff. The problem in apologizing for
criminals is that I don’t know them. I
don’t know that kind of ugliness in hate.
I don’t get the relish manifest through
stupid, destructive action. I am sorry
though in a general, human way. I
apologize for all of us who are blind
when we can only see one color. I can
praise and thank you who are of color,
as all are, and who make strides by reaching
in and lifting up learning and the story,
however dismal certain chapters must
become. Learning is triumphant and,
we know, shall overcome.
The Selkie Charmed
We offered love
And you took sex
We were wondrously
Outfitted, loving
Shapes and colors to
Show the world
My feeling
You removed every
Thing to get to flesh
And to the bones
Underneath:
Did you think this was
Affection?
It was abduction,
And we never again
Felt rescued or
Recovered
We left home
You took us instead
Into a somber place,
And in the way
That matters most
We are still locked
Away
The Lesson of Saint Francis
We are all animals in
Beauty, here:
And we need guide each
Other to
A pilgrim path
In walking with the saints
Who would eschew
The capital s
Service is ennobled
(As are all better things)
When we love
To give away
What we have
To share with
All other creatures of
The Earth—
The sky, what’s
Under the water,
And what dances upon
The surface
In the measures and the
Rhythms
Of creation
Saint Francis and the Animals
(4 October)
Eight hundred years
Ago in the
Middle part of Italy,
A person walked and others
Walked with him
But when he tried to preach
No one would hear;
So he spoke his message
Unto the birds
The raccoons (in my telling)
And all things that crept
Or flew through the air
He would return to people:
He visited the pope
He met with the sultan of
The Muslim warriors who
Fought in Jerusalem,
Because he hoped
That peace as a cause
Might overwhelm
The rest
That keeps
Getting in our way
clcouch123 
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