Ciara
From the news, I wanted to get
The hometown right
Of the murdered girl
The search yielded a
Thoughtful, pretty image
Of the twelve-year-old
I’ll take it down, but for now
I fear to remove her from the
Screen—
As if saying good-bye
This way
Will make death, already decided,
Somehow more deeply
Done
Vaccines
(a polio center bombed in
Pakistan, because of
serving)
I lived in the cities where
Salk and Sabin worked
Which does not matter
As much as the reality of
Vaccines
Diphtheria, polio, small
Pox, and malaria;
Millions—millions—died
From Spanish Flu in
The last (twentieth)
Century
These diseases are now
Resolved and most are gone
With vaccines and other
Helps except for those
Ravages that were not
Cured except through time,
For we hadn’t means to
Cure
We still look at this
Challenge, though it
Seems we’re getting
Better
I don’t know how those
Against vaccination really
Feel, maybe because I’ve
Only experienced the
Good
I’ve had mild symptoms
Of that for which I’ve
Been given shots—that’s
In the nature of vaccines—but
I’ve not suffered fully from
Diseases or conditions
Against which I’m
Protected
Now, due to a condition (not
Vaccine-related), I’m toward
The top of the list of those
Who should receive flu
Shots
Any reservations
Notwithstanding, I get the
Shot
Those who refuse risk
Infecting others, though
I respect the hesitation
If I cannot ally the
Principle
Yet those who turn down
And those who protest this
Medical opportunity are
Not bombing doctors’ offices
Or clinics where these
Serve
Though, I must say, that in
This free land, some
Take issues to extremes
To destroy clinics of
Another medical kind thus
Surrender being human in
Becoming the extreme and little
More
But on a day in Pakistan
I’ve read further in the news
About
Bombing a polio clinic
Addressing a disease that
Can be veritably
Eradicated
If this terroristic vision
(An irony of shots)
Could be realized, then there
Would be outbreaks of laming
And of crippling infection
Without recourse except
The best (the worst) of
Luck
When we can cure, we
Are at our best;
What can be said for
Those who hunt down
All those who can and
Now must more bravely
Cure
History of Terrorism
(after bombings in Istanbul,
killing ten so far, wounding fifteen)
“What impresses your most about terrorists?”
“Their hundred-percent failure.”
I heard something like this in a television
Show, well-written show, an episode
First broadcast in the wake of 911
Now we have murder in Istanbul by a
Suicide bomber, so it appears, maybe in
Fearful avenging Turkish strikes against IS
Is ISIS going to have a state? Will the world
Allow that? Explosions, shootings,
Destroying lives with bodies strapped
With bombs: do these all realize such
A difference? Only in wasting, it seems—in
Exploitation and in scorn and in the
World’s resolve to stand together and against
Not a rising storm but rather in a lower
Continuity of tries at terror and of terror
Acts filled with, terribly and finally—you
Know, Macbeth’s signifying sound and fury
Us Icarus
Oops Icarus,
An all-too-fine conviction
Of the troubled ones who
Try too high to fly
And those of us who
Thus fall
I wonder if it helps
That the parent in the
Mythic flight is older
And designer
Of the task ahead
If we learn to fly
Study something of
The design and
Making
Of the wings
Might our take-off
End in a landing that
Makes our flying
Success as well as
Joy
C L Couch
(inspired by Jacki Kellum’s compelling thoughts on balance, https://jackikellum.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/a-case-for-balance-recalling-the-myth-of-icarus-and-daedalus/)
(North Korea wants an H-bomb–why, I do not know)
What I Feared
What I feared was
Looking up into the sky
Where the blue became white
And out of parallel lines
That could be clouds or
Contrails, something silver
Falls
And everything becomes white
And I am gone with everyone
And everything I know.
Or, worse, that I live
To face oncoming nuclear winter.
My fears, while a child living
In an early nuclear age in a
War that was too cold.
Not No Guns
Why not make it harder
As in better
To get guns?
Harder meaning safer
Better checks
Shared accountability
If you are a crazy person
Then I apologize
But you should not have a gun
You need better aid
Than that
Guns will not be your help
Epiphany
Epiphany. Twelfth Night. The magi come upon the infant Jesus at his family’s home. They are amazed. They give gifts. A tribute.
Epiphany means discovery. An ordinary act that brings new insight to life. The magi, I imagine, were not ordinary people, though what they did was hardly unusual. Many traveled land to land and town to town back when. The caravans were living roads to make trade and civilization possible.
They are not the only ones who had read and studied the stars to find alternative direction. Astrology, astronomy. They were blurred pursuits in this region of the past. There was meaning in the sky. The seasons brought us learning there. We looked for all these.
But when these magic persons, in their learn(ed) wisdom of the world, travel west at last to find this child at home, sameness leaves their lives and all the worlds’. Forever.
What did they discover? What was realized? They beheld a person who meant change.
How so? Two thousand years and some, we still ask.
Receipts
I’ll keep these for a time
Since they mark and note
The trip I took not so far
Away or so long ago
Pay slips from the turnpike
To represent my drives
Out and back, a map of
A town back home I found
At a station kiosk—sometimes
These are surprise-filled
Documents, even for a
Place I know
Coffee receipts out, those
For sandwiches on the
Way back in
Business card for a city
Place, the kind of which
We do not have in my
Small town, but at which
I had lunch with my family
Saint Vincent de Paul, whose
Thrift store I visited with my
Sister, where I bought a small
Piece of clear-black glass
An olive oil store—a
Festive, promising
New niche place—I
Got a narrow bottle of
Honey-serrano vinegar
For my brother-in-law
Who cooks a lot
Purchase record for a
Calendar I bought
On sale and then the
Best—a paper testimony
From a local bookstore
How I wish there were
More like this! I had gift
Card, it had the books
There are other neighbor
Places to support—those
Selling food and clothing and
Art-expression pieces from
Those makers starting out
Close by
But these books will do
They were my part in
My going, my time away, and
My returning afterward
My small trip—for
Now, a small-documented
Odyssey
Pilgrim Path
Someday I’d love to walk
The path to Compostela, Spain
The pilgrimage of Saint
James and to his honor
Legacy, the pilgrim trail
I’d like to walk with company
I hear folk band together
On the way
The pilgrim path need not
Be done by one to count
God counts the pilgrim
In the heart, where the
Real path of challenges is trod
clcouch123 
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