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Weathering

Weathering

 

Storms, fire

Firestorms

 

That’s in California

 

Floods, tornadoes

Water-sheets

And other means

Of rain to strike

At us

 

Texas and in Florida

Where sand is

Bagged by convict

Volunteers—on

North through

Eastern USA

 

River-rise in Paris

Art treasures

Moved toward

More-protected

Ground

 

Certain seasons

Start all over (as

In again and

Everywhere)

 

In nature’s timing

And all storms’

Discretion

 

Selfishly, I am

Well above brick

Walkways and

Macadam streets

 

I have electric

In safe measure—

Mostly, though

Not always:

A tree smashed

Into the house

Not so long ago

 

A favorite book,

The Mighty Acts

Of God, a

Faithful book

 

Nature is God’s,

And the Christian

Claim is God is

Love

 

So what is the

Love here?  It

Id that God loves

Us and leaves

Us the means—even

In, and as, a fallen

World

 

Our part to start

Redress is to resolve

To do so

 

That’s it: resolve

 

(The rest follows)

 

5

Scribbling Sensations

Scribbling Sensations

 

When I turn other things off,

I hear the air-conditioner hum with tiny teeth

 

I hear assurance from the fan beside my bed

 

I see the vertical textures in the lampshade of

The lamp that doesn’t work

 

I see a hat, purchased for walking, set cockeyed upon

The corner of a vintage-mirror frame

 

I feel soft touches as I type;

I hear the tapping of the keys upon the board,

Like Poe’s raven upon my chamber door

 

While my nose is in it, I smell and taste the coffee,

Hot enough for its vapor mildly to campaign

With warmth through my sinuses

 

I feel pain—more intense without distraction

 

I blink: I cannot hear it, though I know the upper lid

Has fallen on the lower (which will give a little)

and will rise and fall again

 

While other things are off,

I sense the world anew;

 

And, largely—like Genesis and Weldon Johnson’s

Work—I think it’s good

6

Toll-Taking

Toll-Taking

 

Death at UCLA, teacher

And then shooter, then

 

Spouse found, murdered

Before

 

Death-number increases

Of soldiers lost to flood

At Fort Hood in Texas

 

Migrants’ lives lost

Beyond counting, since

Too many die unknown

 

In Mediterranean waters

Or on western Asian

Battlefields

 

Nigerian school children

Lives erased, such is the

The plan of those who

Took them

 

And these are in the

Process of becoming old

Well-worn news, such is

Our way

 

Though beyond blame

Is the stress of bearing

Our world, a planet of

Dying

 

And of sorrow

 

Atlas shrugged, the novel

Claims?  Atlas should

Have wept

 

Charon demands gold

For passage, though the

Real currency is life

8

Sunset Ramadan

Sunset Ramadan

(5 June 2016)

 

I have memories

Of a Ramadan, a

Rosh Hashanah, too

 

I like the Christian

Holidays, but others

From these faiths

Invited me

 

To ritual and cuisine

And, best of all,

Community

 

Love permeates

Actions when they

Are in spirit

Inch’Allah

 

And our God is

Pleased when we

Are one

Shalom

14

Harambe

Harambe

 

Hold anger around

Visit with the silverbacks

To promise mourning

6

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

 

Because one is still

 

Does not mean that one is safe—

Life in one cell is open to

Mutation, loss of parts, disease;

 

Life within a prison cell

Suffers from same dangers

 

In detention and in

Isolation

(Even with others in proximity),

 

Under death-order and maybe death-

Watch;

 

How,

 

Fixed under a demon’s yoke

Whose cause is politics,

Who for an idea

 

Has been taken out

Of actual existence?

 

Toward the Southern Pole

(Closer than most of us will

Get), there is a Russian Orthodox

Church—

 

Ten bodies with ten souls within

May worship;

 

The rest know that the church is

There:

 

Triptychs of spirit and of hope

Inside

At the end of the world,

 

Where there is likelihood

Of living through oppression

 

Wrought by nature or assignment.

 

What sanctuary in the prison cell,

Where trapped mind and abandoned

Spirit are closed maybe for a

Final time,

 

Where fear

The only inner company?

 

Andy awaits

Release of one kind or

Another.

 

 

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/23100

Kidnapped Briton spends 700th day in illegal detention

A British man who is held under sentence of death in Ethiopia has spent his 700th day in unlawful detention, after he was kidnapped and rendered to the country by Ethiopian forces in 2014.

0

Promise to Tame and Wild

Promise to Tame and Wild

 

The manatee, the tapir,

And the platypus are

Abducted

 

The black-and-white

Ursus of China cannot

Find bamboo to eat

 

And the smaller one

Inhabiting wild Australia

Needs eucalyptus more

And more from us

 

What are we doing?

 

We make captive that

Which impulsively is

Unaware of borders

Save maybe the divine

 

We slew the passenger

Birds that only send

Messages now as

Phantoms (I’ve seen

The statue)

 

We tame, we kill—a

Time for everything

 

The brave dog who

Saved the children of

Nome (I’ve seen that

Statue, too)

 

How about time for

Leaving what’s created

 

Not by us in better

Care, surrendering

Our Eden-promise, if

Need be,

 

Rather to leave alone

What we cannot care

For with respect for

Great and small

4

Ask Any Soldier

Ask Any Soldier

 

“When your friend

Gets killed, part of you

Gets killed”

 

A testimony and

Remembrance for

USA Memorial Day

 

Which I can only

Guess is right since

I have friends gone

In other ways, and

They and those parts

Of me yet feel lost

 

To lose through war

When targets seem

A random strategy:

 

Colors, shapes, tribes

On a map or guessed

At over a hill

 

Loss of life or partial

Life must feel

 

The height of

Unselected cruelty

On a pillar of

Senselessness

 

If a citizen salute

Might count, then

Listen to one

 

Expressing in

Tribute to

Patriot sacrifice

And personal

Complexity in

Service

 

Thanks is not enough,

So memory is offered

 

And legacy of

Better nations

 

C L Couch

 

(quotation from the AHC channel)

8

Neighbor House Afire

Neighbor House Afire

 

I saw the newspaper article:

It looked like someone else’s

News

 

But it happened to them

 

Before newspaper-reading,

I received the message;

Something caught fire in

Their garage then, needing

Room, the fire flexed

 

Garage gone now—the car,

Too, the house and who

Knows what else damaged

 

Fire out, three days now

 

Insurance is good, my friends

Tell me

 

All are well; the cats were

Rescued first by the one

Human who was home

 

Now in alternative shelter,

Plans by all in unison are

Made (except the cats who

Make their own), even while

Breathing takes over again

 

Pray for my friends—they’re

Raw in crisis

 

And I won’t presume to know

All that they need

5

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