let’s say a year
a year
let’s say a year
a year of peace on Earth
to try
then come back
in a year
to talk about
how it went
how it goes
we might learn
say
that war
is bad for the economy
though the bullet-
and missile-
manufacturers
might disagree
we mean learn
that keeping up
our homes
is better
when our homes
are actually
up
we might enjoy
green spaces
beneath unimpeded
blue
or we might
work so very hard
on the other things
that worry
us
(like wool)
and sometimes destroy us
parts of us
all of us
we might make safer airplanes
and what goes
on the road
we might go
on the roads ourselves
to seek a peaceful journey
match the tone
of the time
set down what we
hear and see and smell and taste
and touch
set something down
to share
via the summit
later
we might learn
that we like this state
and that we like
this place
this way
we might go for
another year
or let explode
all things behind the barriers
that could explode
explode
and go to war
in small
destroying ways
like infiltrating
toadstools
or have an armageddon
between nations
letting in
militias
and weaponed gangs
as well
and fight officially
or with a sense
of random
‘til it all be done
except
it’s never done
or
as was said
we could go for
a second year
of peace
and in that time
upbuild
the rest
but for now
how about
a year
let’s go for a year
c l couch
photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Exiled
x
Oh
God
Shall we have
A good season
Together
The year has started
And now
Another season
x
Intentions
Overlap
You come into the world
And you are here
The Earth tilts
And always
Has
Far as we know
x
Turns
Like a top
A toy to such as you
Though you
Are not a giant god
That way
x
You play
But not with us as
Playthings
Upon the Earth
An unrolled
Plastic battlefield
x
We toy each other
Which is
An eldritch lesson
We came up with
On our own
x
Objectify
‘Til someone doesn’t matter
Like Cain
Like everyone in western Asia
Like anyone who’s different
Over here
x
We need a season
Need the time
But shall we be reborn
With remembrance
Of a real birth
To save the nations
Ransom
Captive Israel
Then all the rest
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Lean To
x
Tomorrow is the solstice
Light a fire
At least inside
To illuminate
The difference should
We notice
The Earth
Starting to lean
The other way
x
Toward spring
But through the winter
First
At least in this
Our half the sphere
With summer
To the south
Where
Who might also wonder
What we’re doing
Upside-down
x
A fire
To light up
To redefine the shadows
Make them sharper
And more welcoming
For shadow-beings
And the
Shadow parts of us
x
The Earth should turn
All worlds should turn
Since
In turning
There is gravity
And life
And with so many
Moving
Lights
Boundaried by dark
So that both
May show the way
x
Through the seasons
Of the cosmos
Back to our minds
For reasoning
And imagining
Our place
Ringed inside everything
And the part
We cannot contain
Even inside ourselves
Because the abstract
Hook
Containers
With the infinite
For reason
And imagination
x
Rendering all borders
Malleable
If not changeable
The way the seasons
Change
Yet look
To stay the same
x
We are changeable
Unchangeable
Like Earth
And everything we lean on
While it leans
Like an invitation
To try something
Maybe straight
Like equinoxes
Maybe bent
Like the invitation
In the solstices
And all the life
Moving foundation
As it were
For the inventing
Co-creation
Inside
In between
All the round
Seasons
Leaned into
Also
Broken
Wondrously by
New days
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Sarah Tona on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Unthinkable Think Think Unthinkable
x
God help Lewiston
And Israel
And Ukraine
(and more
always more)
Settings for
What we’d like to think
Unthinkable
x
I care about
Don’t care about
The sides
I care about the living
Suffering
About the dead who died
Suffering
x
About the living
Who remain
To bend
In mourning
And those who rise
In fear
x
There is anger
War is angry
I imagine
Shooting someone else
Is angry
x
Anger the mask
For fear
Fear the mask
For sin
Maybe we could sin less
With our devices
And machines
Pick up each other
Donate
Through the screens
And if on site
Somehow
Watch out for each other
Get physically involved
(and also hide
when needed)
to hide)
Which can be dangerous
I know
Though everything
Might be endangered
Now
Or anytime
We do more
To resist the devil
Having released itself
Out of hell
Upon our world
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Napendra Singh on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Sizable Gratitude for Small
x
That’s it
I guess
I have something to share
Maybe kind of usual
For trope
If not cliché
I even mention weather
x
Well
I’m sipping
And I feel kind of easy
I know God is here
And maybe
My near angel
x
The hall is quiet
For a change
Our small humanity
Easy
Too
Or absent
x
I’m breathing easier
Might be the new
Medication
Or-and
The added rest
I got this morning
After waking up
The first time
x
I don’t know
I’m drinking water
When I cough
I hope that’s smart enough
Because I want
To feel grateful
For the smallest
Better changes
In this day
x
coda
x
And
Yes
I know
This is not the day
That others have the day
x
Wounded by so many
Things that wound
x
There’s even terror
Too much
In too many places
Great
Or small
Letting the first page show
The way
x
For our remembrance
Supplication
Specific
Book-driven
Petitioning
To love our neighbors
And ourselves
When either needs a dire prayer
For safety
And for healing
For reckoning
Still decency
Still
In the world
Great or
In spite of intimate abdications
The smaller things we lose
In wider things
x
As some have tried
Aberrantly
To move the world
Another way
In spite of natural paths
Natural gains and losses
We must expect
Along the way
x
Pray for the world
Frankly
Lord
That we snap-to like soldiers
Even minutely
x
Only immediately
Waking up
To start to change
The errors
In certain plans
To raise up
And take care of
Real need instead
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
Greetings from Earth with All Things Earthly
x
So what’s new
The day is new
It’s re-creation
Isn’t it
x
Some would say
The day’s the day
It’s yesterday’s day
Redone
And nothing new
Same sets of compounds
To have earth and sea
And sky
And we are nothing new
x
But cells are sloughed
There is room for change
There is age
There might be new growth
From where our cells
Land
Like the sower’s seeds
Some on good soil
x
There is a thought
That built on yesterday’s
And does that count
As old or new
x
How shall we measure
Ongoing
Something old
Something new
Something borrowed
Something blue
Here meaning
Blue for calm
Thankful for
The return of sky
x
And as for borrowed
It’s all borrowed
After all
We own our souls
We should own our skins
On Earth
Our thoughts
And our discoveries
To have
To share
x
Should be no fear
Rather with impunity
Or the fear of loss
Unrecompensed
x
So here’s
To a new day
It is founded
It is its own
It is tomorrow realized
It archives yesterday
As for what’s new to argue
Let’s first be
Thankful for the having
Then appreciate the cells
That change
The thoughts that build
That what we thought as next
Is now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Dancers
x
(x = space)
x
x
Arborism
x
What will God tell us
To do good
x
Well, to do good
x
What if we’re feeling
Old and sick
x
And virtue
Seems too hard
x
After surgery and all
Or simply years
Of needing the investment
To get by
x
I don’t want excuses
Or to have them
Excused
I want resources
Energy
And time
x
Great things to consider
Though not so much when
We have them
We complain
We grow complacent
We choose bored
x
We all have something
For the whining
A tonic
Say
Say
Reality
Sometimes admittedly
A herculean lifting
Of a desert screen or
Something we believe
Might be on
Fire
To keep it there
Like Atlas with the world
Or the elephant upon
The wheel
Upon the turtle
x
Balancing
Then yes
With risk
Reaching under
That heavy
Skim
Detritus and illusion
To deal in the truth
To clear the roots
Spruce up
Our perception
Look at
What’s holding up
The holding up
And what is healthy
What needs
Pruning
What needs sliding off the top
For good
x
Maybe we leave the balance
Then
Clear roots
Above which
Sits our world
Our own
If there is something
x
A little easier
Or at least more visible
Atlas might not shrug so much
But smile
(the turtle, too)
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Clint McKoy on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Consider It All Joy
x
Let the outside
Be awful
If it must
For princes of the world
Might have their own way
There
(not letting
princesses rise
by the way)
If only
There
x
Be good on the inside
Your own realm
Where you have willed
Let in
Avowed
God to rule
While you serve God
Servant
Steward before monarch
Even when pressed
Persecuted
Outside
Sigh
Sometimes devilishly
On the inside, too
x
Consider it all joy
The paradox of life and death
And resurrection
Final joy
Complete
And unrelenting
Even
In new tasks
Assignments from
A celestial magisterium
Or shall we say
The will beneath the crown
Of the Lord
x
Doing what God says
Because
The glass is clear and
We can hear
x
x
Consider it all joy when we must have trials, knowing that this testing of our faith makes endurance. And let endurance be complete even by trials so that we are whole, lacking nothing that we really need especially inside.
James 1:2-4 (paraphrased a little)
x
Photo by Sam Mgrdichian on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Day before Tomorrow
x
Last day in Advent
Made it
Whew
Rain, snow
Overwhelming cold
We should be postal carriers
To endure
It all
Strange meeting place
This junction of
The Northeast, MidAtlantic
The weather comes
From north or south
Or east or west
I’m trying
To get used to that
It’s only taken
Twenty years so far
There are forecasts
But better to wait
To know what happens
Though encounter
x
How to plan a picnic
Must be an undertaking,
Strategy
Requiring options
(bring the ants)
Sometimes the living
Is absurd
If not cartoonish
But these are the days we have
And the environs
Those who stayed
Or passed back through
Appalachia
To stay
x
And all the world has
Its places
Its challenges
Its practices
x
And now (among
the practices)
It’s Christmas Eve
And there are days in Hanukkah
This year correlating
Come
To light our way
The world could breathe easier
Except in Ukraine
In Myanmar and Yemen,
Oppressive parts of China
And of Russia
And in the manipulative
Shadowed corners
Of the USA
All the places where we watch
For detonation
Also the human heart
The battlefield it remains
x
Sin and virtue
Pounding and pushing
Pulling circulation
Strain
(Sturm and Drang),
The devils on the inside
On the outside
Rendering Christmastide
So perilous
x
And yet we sing into
A night
We wish were silent
Save for children’s cries
For all the reasons
Children cry
Among them to receive
First oxygen and hope
Into the world
x
Render the night
Impossible in virtue
We’ll sing it,
Anyway
We’ll kneel
We’ll try to light our way
We’ll quietly acknowledge
Neighbors
Some will party
And some will do nothing,
I suppose
Though the world is affected
By what we do this night
And for a thousand years
And in the time
Remember birth and
Death
And everything
That circulates a world
Keeps it moving
In the spirit
In the flesh
x
Though maybe for an hour
Let all mortal flesh
Keep silent
And in fear and trembling
Stand
To receive
To hope for blessing
In the night
x
Let fighter planes
Fly so carefully
Perforce keep watch
Like shepherds
Over continents
And there might be songs
At crowded borders
And the lines
Kept distant
From welcome
Because mines have barred the way
x
Peace on Earth
The ersatz wish
Some must believe
(yet some must believe),
Withholding war
The practice
That must be enough
For now
x
Into the world
The child comes
The children come
And everyone
And everything
Now have responsibilities
To keep it together,
To throw
And try to seal patches
The worn places
And to keep watch
For the tearing places
On the outside of Earth
And, you know,
On the inside
Heaven
And hell
The human heart
x
Anxieties may end
Because it’s here
Our plans are done
And in place as they are
Out of necessity
Of time
As chronos
So might we have
Christmas
For a day
Twelve years
Perhaps a brief era
If only hours
x
A spiritual time
A cultural invention
Arms reach out for a change
Hand in hand
In brave hope
To sing a silent night
To sing in glory
Once the vigil is completed
And there is indeed
There really is
A dawn of hope
x
Glory and hope
Amazing
Because a child is born
That for a time
Affects the government
In minds
As well as capitals
Until when all time is done
And in a kairos of eternity
It’s Christmas day
And all the other graceful days
Together
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Monisha Selvakumar on Unsplash
x
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