(x = space)

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something small series

(three parts, that is, three poems)

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For What We Are About to Receive

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Thank you

God

For what is small

For what is easy

To see

To hear

To guess a touch

A taste

And what is left

A smell

In likelihood

Or gentle appreciation

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Flower

Bird

Child

Not to touch

But to leave alone

Unless the touch be necessary

Or requested

Of the thing

Not my agenda

Or the world’s

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Leave the flowers grow

And the birds

And the children

Provide

Teach

Enhance

The opportunities

Hold them

When our own

Release them

To their own

Be thankful for the borrowing

Even beholding

As a work

Of yours

In a museum

Without walls

With working space

And fields for play

The sunshine and the wind

To enhance

The experience

All experience

That’s human

Sanctioned by divine

In the making

And the giving

Thank you

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The Open Gift

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Thank God for something small

Seemingly

Seemingly

Easy to love

As if we had received a gift

For our delight

The flower

Or the bird

Or a child

Given in labor

Pain

And innocence

Returning both perhaps

Charged to our keeping

But here is the gift

A moment for the beauty

And the truth

In our beholding

In what is revealed

From the force

Behind all forces

The presence

We may guess at

And not know

For sure

Thought we know

This moment with

The flower

Bird

Or child

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They are not avatars

They are their own

They are not agendas

Though they are

Naïve messages

Of innocence

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Realistic purity

On Earth

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(part 2 of something small a series)

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The Final Solution

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And now

Praise God

For something small

With song

In appreciation

To adore

Creator

In creation

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For all there is

And isn’t

And should be

(the Quixotic dream)

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Take in the leave

Take in the wind

Take in a stranger

Passing by

In New York City

Millions

Not to see again

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Until our sight

Be perfect

And unbidden

Sighting love

In focus

Blissfully

Agenda-free

Sinless

Indiscriminate

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Find something small

To love it

Even a molecule

Considered

The illustration

From a textbook

Or a website

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Thanks God for protons

And electrons

Neutrons

That have meaning

Though they seem

Without an interest

Of their own

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But they are here

And all the rest

To bind

In gravity

Of love

And willingness

For unity

And one’s own identity

Everything shared

Nothing lost

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Praise God

For something small

That’s you

And me

When you

Love of self

And the other

We delightfully have both

And all the time

One by one

Small part by small part

A miniature greatness

That is set

And to combine

To form out of apocrypha

Or apocalypse

The real thing

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We’ll be there

Won’t we

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(part 3 and probably enough of the something small series)

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C L Couch

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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