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Reading the Sunday Paper

Reading the Sunday Paper

on my First Day (Back) Here

 

I am in the City

Of Bridges, the

Renaissance City,

The Steel city

 

And today I look

At a major

City’s newspaper

 

Horrors and other

Troubles in Brussels,

In Istanbul, and

Syria (reported

From Beirut)

 

Also talk of state

Candidates for the

Fall that in my

State part

I haven’t heard

Of

 

A hopeful market,

This

 

It is a special day,

Which is covered

Through testimony

From leaders

Of movements

In communities

 

Contiguous,

Congealed

 

There is a story

Of architecture here,

Appropriately given

The age and grand

(Sky-scraping) efforts

Of artists and

Builders over

Time

 

The obituary

Section’s long with

Detailed histories told

Of those now

Taken

 

Editorials, reader

Opinions pretty

Well-reasoned

One take arguing

That civility

Itself must rule

Practices in public

Discourse

 

I skipped the ads

And comic stories

(So far) but pore

Through tailored

Regional parts (the

House I visit is in

The west)

 

There are big

Cities over many

Points in our

Compassed globe

 

While enormity

Conveys impersonal

Anxiety

 

There is an appreciable

 

Nexus of talent

Nature-distributed

Urban-planned

And neighborly

Diversity

 

Freedom in

That

 

Inexorable, the

City strives

With many things

 

Challenge

Then to celebrate

5

Passion Play, Act Four

Passion Play

Act Four

 

He is arisen now

Who caused the rising

 

Disciples will say the

Spirit of God breathed

Into his body once

Again

 

So that he might walk

Upon a mortal land

To testify

And heal

 

And more simply to

Take meals with friends

 

7

Unseen

“Nothing mattered now.”

After Aslan is slain in

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

by C. S. Lewis

 

Unseen

 

Christ is dead

Not now but long ago

 

And on the full day in between

(Counting days on calendars)

When the body lay in Joseph’s

Tomb, the movement sleeps

As well

 

Nightmares of capture

And, worse, hopelessness

It is a time for cynical

Reasoning among the

Followers

0

J. R. R. Reading Day (25 March)

J. R. R. Reading Day

25 March

 

(Not that there’s anything to

Mind, but)

How was this decided?

What happens in the story

To commemorate?

What’s in the lore?

 

Having a day made right

For reading about rings

Or the Silmarils

Or ships retiring west to

Middle-Earth’s Elysian

Shores—or imposing corsairs

Creasing through southern

Waters

 

All this is good

If a day to be celebratory

Even better

 

An excuse to wake up our

Hobbit aspects and have

Bilbo’s birthday party, after

Reading, under the great

Shire tree

 

Not having to wait

‘Til 22 September

 

When we can make the party

More fantasy

Officially

Again

0

Parting Storm

Parting Storm

(Good Friday,

while rain falls)

 

Tempests of dread

Over waves or

Maybe upon towns

Or fields or where

Any once had met

 

Storms have many parts

 

Forget the question if

It makes a sound where

There is no one to hear:

Storm sounds

 

(Makes noise,

Goes deep)

 

From the first

Crashing, splitting, thieving

Maddening descent

Of all the elements

 

Calling for chorus

And rebuke

 

Within or under

Land and water, as if

Newly and terribly alive, and

Where both converge

In savage contested

Bordering

 

Dying sets in, life strives

Against

 

Waking day of uncertain

Force, fearing that

Maybe faith no longer

Holds

 

Falling with night

2

Je Suis Brussels

Je Suis Brussels

 

Capital of Belgium

A capital of the European Union

Now where we grieve

 

What else should an explosion do

But separate the living from

The active earth

 

The bombings are insane against

The rights of nature

The bombers invested in

 

Warped thinking about how the

World changes, since most

Of us will crystallize in

 

Opposition to the cause

We will mourn and pray

And, right or wrong, fight back

2

world warring

world warring

 

the President goes

to Cuba with needful

cause death toll in

Syria increases from

Russian airstrikes so

goes the claim

 

North Korea via

Its leadership strives

to move to the front

row of the nuclear

theatre Saudi Arabia

 

executes students

dissidents and (who

knows) POWs they

are held all over Asia

and in parts

 

of Africa I say

parenthetically

because too many

do not see we are

a warring world

nations at nations

forces inside

and in between

 

diplomacy cannot

fail or the impulse

to adapt all our

propensities still in

keeping Edenic

promises making

eccentric community

in spite all the chaos

at Babel

 

maybe a surprise

that we can tilt

and keep our planet

toward the good

2

Burnt Cabins, Pennsylvania

Burnt Cabins,

Pennsylvania

 

We’ve suffered

A local tragedy

That might never

Be explained

Even if a reason’s

Given

 

We have a super

Highway—yes,

America’s

First “super

Highway”—that

Is the Pennsylvania

Turnpike, and

A retired trooper

Of the state

Police tried a

Robbery at one

Of the stations

There

 

Between small

Towns in the

Allegheny Mountains,

Two workers

Are taken, held

By his gun,

Until the truck

Arrives to gather

Monies from the

Turnpike tolls

 

The theft occurs

And fails, the

Captives shot

And killed; the

Officer-now-

Suspect is killed,

Too

 

Serving troopers

Prepared and

assigned, had

Arrived to restore

An aberrant,

Criminal scene

Back to ordinary

 

Nothing ordinary

Anymore here:

With tears, the

Deaths are told

 

Each word

Sounding like

The heavy note

Of a mourning

Bell

 

Sadness ringed

Round sadness,

As voices split

To tell

 

It will be a

Story of

Transgression

And the sorrow

Brought to many

Kinds of

Families, and

It might pass

From focused

Attention

 

But here was a

Neighbor tragedy

On persons who

Will not

Appear in their

Expected places

At work or at

Home

 

And others living

Who will never

Be the same

 

A chance for

Money maybe

Too easy a

Reason for all

That befell

Close by—I

Tend to believe

 

Something else

About surrendering

Life happened

Here

6

Last Winter Sun

Last Winter Sun

 

The sun is wan today,

A last winter sun

 

Spring has been promised

Through the weather

Turns so far

 

And parochial nature

Will not disappoint

A tiding of her own

 

New days come forth

In warming days up north

4

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