clcouch123

The News

(for those for whom there’s something new)

 

Are the fires out?

Where are new ones rising?

We could say vigilance

But not, I think, so much

Against our own

It is democracy, still

When there are good decisions

Made (listen,

politicians)

And we should listen to

Our neighbors

Excusing ourselves not

To talk so much

 

There is freedom

To be rung

If all the bells are silent,

Now

There is a time to mourn

A time to repair

A time to do things better

And to celebrate

Memory is fine

Remember them

Who died, and we

Are here

 

We have the present to repair

With children to look after

Teens to slide into involvement

Or-and they’ll do it,

Anyway

And should—though they

Should also be allowed to

Adolesce

That’s natural

 

Do you camp

And leave it better than you found?

Try doing that with Earth

And all the parts we tread

And take

There is a future

Or there better be

 

Earth-crimes against children

You don’t think the cosmos

Is keeping track?

It is,

And before there’s heaven

With a judgment,

There will be accounting

From all things behind the sky

A reckoning for all

Materials lost,

Lives wasted by other lives,

A universe securing

All there is

From what we had

From what we thought we owned

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash