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The Word for Forest

(x = space)

x

x

The Word for Forest

(for Ursula K. Le Guin)

x

We need something that is lasting

Like air

That hasn’t been ruined,

Where a tally of the molecules is useless

Because our calculators break

In the process

A world that is a forest

As in a story I read a while ago

Where the inhabitants cannot perceive

The sense

In wrecking air

And everything life-giving

Breaking a circle they took part in

For ages,

x

For what is profit if not that

A world that has trust in them

The smart ones on the planet

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C L Couch

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Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

Bad Pyrmont, Deutschland

x

3

Narratology

Narratology

 

Intermission

 

It’s a new gray day

We had a thunderstorm last night

Hard to tell from the second floor,

Which is too bad

Because I like watching rain

It wasn’t the kind that cleans out

The humidity

More like a tropical experience

Hot and humid for the next spate

Of days, our daily rainfall

Followed by more closeness

In the air

Sigh

Keep the breathing on the inside

And hope the air-conditioner

Holds out

 

Interaction

 

The headaches are a little less

I feel more like

Talking with people

Or a pet

A quiet day

But not silent

Though once again

The mean noise from upstairs

Continues

I have to get out of here

I looked at a place last week

A garret, I could call it

To be romantic

But I expect higher ceilings

Wider windows

In my life of La Bohème

More importantly

And to the point or searching,

I need these

The claustrophobe inside

Requires them

More sighing for a disappointment

This time as much

In myself

 

Intercession

 

The world is still on fire

If only it were a matter

Of volcanoes*

Bad enough, though we could

Work on them together

There are the metaphoric fires

That are deadly, too

The kind we set

In a plan

To burn up each other

 

My dear world is on fire

Why must we do this?

Calling it a crime is not enough

When enforcement is

In question, too

I used to think the cops

Were on my side

I still do

As for other people,

There are all kinds

Some see a protest

As an opportunity for

Stealing so much more than

Civil attention

 

And there are guns

So many guns

All around

Without the trained sense

To use them

Much less over-use them

So people die

On all sides

How many didn’t have to?

 

Let’s not leave it with a question

Let’s answer them

In memory

To bring the count down

And then out upon the canvas

In this case,

The opposite of conscious

I know I preach

But there it is

I want my world better

It want to leave it better

Than I found it

You should, too

So should we all

 

Ask for this

Ask for peace

Then let us make it happen

 

Shooting something’s easy

Keeping a farm

Mining a mine

Building a rocket**

Assembly in a factory

That’s hard

You want a challenge?

Try building something

Raise a barn

A house

A cabin in the woods

Make art for many to love

Compose an inspiration

Maybe on a page

In a mural

Or a house

Or in fixing the plumbing

Anything can be

Larger than it is

Convenience

Comfort

These can be inspiration, too

Or simply means for

A good conversation on a Sunday afternoon

(there should be peace in that)

Voting is an inspiration, too

Don’t forget

Or take the government you get

(cheating nationwide and

in the world notwithstanding)

Talk out the world

Talk out the trouble

Better yet, listen

And fix the plumbing

 

Feed everyone around you,

If you can

And if you can’t, then enjoy

What is given

Or otherwise provided

Maybe a pot-luck

Like the kind at church

Maybe a pot-luck for the world

 

That is my intercession

Feed the world

Provide safety in the water

Make good wine

In memory of Cana

Or don’t, if it’s not

Your disposition

There are problems

Hear them

Then get help in fixing them

 

There are problems

We have a way to go

To have the world

Better than we found it

 

C L Couch

 

 

*I looked up the plural spelling of volcano.  (Once-and-future English teacher.)  Some say the spelling’s interchangeable with the e.  Volcanoes (with the e) seems more traditional and typical.  Also the e in interchangeable.

**I was watching October Sky over the weekend.

 

Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash

(there was no note, but I believe the bridge is in the Netherlands)

 

4

Summation of the Heart

Summation of the Heart

 

Whites kill blacks

Sometimes blacks

Even the score

But when it’s four centuries

In one place

(there are other ages,

other places),

How can the pit be cleared

And turned over when

What we fill

Never bury

Is horror for horror?

 

Charity

Forgiveness

May we start again?

Will blacks offer it?

Will whites accept?

There are more races

Hatred, fear, and anger poured

Into pale ears

And, yes, sometimes in sable

By a devil poisoning

Thought,

The varied arts in creation

Rather making a mob

(this is not protest)

That has no sight

Or strategy

 

Asian, African,

Australian, Caribbean,

Flesh from Europe’s people

Not white enough, the

Subcontinent

First people in America,

Australia

Any native people whom

Developers have eyed

And power-mongers

Calculated

This is race

The human race

Racing humans

 

There is crime

Sometimes it’s organized

Maybe it’s exciting

To put one’s life on the edge

Of a knife

And live along mortality

Easy money, maybe

For a life

For a life

 

There is disease

The flu, Ebola, AIDS

The virus we have crowned

There is no treatment

No vaccine

There are measures

People are tired of following

Them

So don’t, and the sickness

Spikes again

We cannot learn

We cannot go back

All we want to do

Is go back

 

The children of the world

The world that is our child

Those of us in charge

Fully grown in measure

Also charged

To leave a planet

To the generations after

Who watch us now

Who see corruption, profiteering

(another word for politics)

Cutting, razing everything

 

We should retire

Giving them a chance

With all shame in leaving them

A world they saw us taking down

Our best option

Waiting for another

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Lara Puscas on Unsplash

281 – ATOMIUM, 1020 Bruxelles, Belgium, Bruxelles

The Atomium

 

15

And Can It Be

And Can It Be

 

And can it be

That on a day when the sun

Shines somewhere behind clouds

Basking indifferently above horizons

That the industrious

And inventive

Will find a way

So that, as she says,

All shall be well

 

The hazelnut she sees as the world

Will crack, the softness inside

Exuding into earth

To make the world anew

Two parts come together, then

 

Nature and ourselves

Nature and nature

We could be allies

We could protect each other

Let air

And ground,

Let blue and green,

Let wildness and cultivation be

 

Admit mistakes on all affected sides

Find solutions that

Don’t kill but use the planet well,

First things first

But never only

I wish it could be a simple song

But the harmony must be

Complex,

Composition worked out carefully

Remembering to consult

With the conductor

 

It is a vision

That can happen

She saw this

The touchstones matter

We can find our own

Use our words

Apply our talents well

So that all, as she ways,

Shall be well

 

And can it be

A healthy alliance with the cosmos

And productive

I believe you know

It must be

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

 

3

Shouting Match

Shouting Match

 

A man

I think it was a man

Was on the sidewalk somewhere

Outside, screaming about something

Early this morning

It might have been about the

Lord

Who will give him understanding

It’s quiet now; I saw no flashes from

Police cars

There is a religious group next door

Maybe some of that group came out to

Attend to him

Maybe not

Maybe they called on everyone’s behalf

There has been silence for a while

I could have been

In a city where

Such happenings are commonplace

But it was here in the center of

Our borough, small Mechanicsburg

Not Queens or Brooklyn

Nowhere near Manhattan

Not even Harrisburg

Across the river

I’m not feeling guilty so much

Nor do I dissemble

I am one

Who else could there be unless the

Dissolution in the building be resolved

Next door they are several

They take up the parking with

Their cars from out of state

The violence was verbal

And, yes, I know, it is an insane world

Proved by this part of it

Raving where there was no crowd

For hearing or responding

Small repentance, if there should be any

Did he think himself

The voice in the wilderness?

A prophet by the Jordan for our time?

I doubt I’ll ever know

I guess I could be

Shaken just a little

I’ll have some coffee now

Then take my pills

I wish I hadn’t used up the bread I had

For toast

Something nice for breakfast

Might be appropriate

A small salve

For a scratched place on my soul

The cause of fear from confrontation

Or maybe

A caution of indifference

 

An hour later

A touch jumpy, mostly sad

Fifteen minutes more

Now I’m teary

When I think about

The man in the world

All his wilderness

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

Melbourne VIC, Australia

 

4

Tontines

Tontines

 

If there is a God

And sorry if there’s not

(there is—

there, you have the ending

of the story)

Then I wish God to do

A better job of it

For all the dreadful things

That happen

Not to me

(though, yes, there’s that)

But to all the people

Who are burned in fire

Felled into the earth

Killed because smooth steel

And lead pellets seemed

Good inventions at the time

And since

(we can beat them all down

anytime, pleading a case for

ploughshares)

God, can you not stop

All the measures that hide empire

Except where vanity

Vaingloriousness

Must break through

The offices and the meeting rooms

Sending, allowing

Hurt into the battlefields?

Naturally and practically, you can

Though there is that stone so

Heavy that you cannot lift

You made it out of will

And set it spinning

42, the Earth

It is a kind of comedy

The classic kind, pray please

In which through funny means

(grim humor in grim times)

The community is healed

Better than restored,

Renewed

And we have a forest for a world

Near the city of perfection

Feasts, cominglings, promises

Of weddings

‘Round fires tamed by angels

The marriage of harrowed hell

And heaven

New heaven partners with

New world, finally the right kind:

Just

And which

To mitigate with love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Richard Cordones on Unsplash

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Looking Forward

 

7

And Welcome to It

And Welcome to It

 

I wake up half in pain

My neck is sore, my head full

Maybe I simply didn’t sleep

Enough

The car is at the shop

I’m nervous about that

It could be totaled, technically

I’d go without until

Something else could be arranged

Besides, I like my car

I have to park it on the street

Where someone else could hit it

And she did

I say she to be accurate

A he could have hit it just as well

And added male ego to it

I have a nice, new rental in an alley

And took collision out for it

I know, it’s money sucked into a vacuum

Of a service that will go unused

A gimmick of the company

But at the moment I’m gun-shy,

Which is why the new car

And it’s new

Will be at rest a ways away

I’ll take a walk to and fro,

Which been my week so far

I hope yours is easier

I do have food and a water filter

Fall is on the way

And it is trite and true

That things are tough all over

My world of one, as

It’s one, is not singly terrible, while

On a world of nine billion

It is worse

And it is glorious

Elsewhere

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash

Wales, United Kingdom

A 360 panorama stitched and warped to create the tiny planet effect. Image sequence taken by drone above a community field in Wales.

 

0

God Loves Ewe

There are harsher things to write about today.  Maybe tomorrow.

As I was working, the song came to mind “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”  I imagine the song will be with me for a while.

 

 

God Loves Ewe

 

God loves the lamb, the ram, the llama, and alpaca

All the cats and dogs

Chickens, too

The duck-billed platypus (is there another kind of platypus?)

Angel Falls

And the Panama Canal

New York City, Moscow, Beijing

Alice Springs, Nazca, Tecate, and Palikir on the island of Pohnpei

Midway Island

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

 

God loved the dinosaurs

And maybe somewhere loves them still

God loves everyone who’s come before

Who will arrive today

And go home tomorrow

 

God loves the ewe

And God loves you

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Om Prakash Sethia on Unsplash

Bhubaneswar, India

“Her life lines.”

 

0

IWD ‘19

IWD ‘19

 

Today has been (to

announce it)

International Women’s Day,

And in my country

Women have said they

Own the responsibility

For women’s status not only here

But also in the world

 

To me, this is amazing

It’s sisterhood

(you decide how to say this—)

 

Yeah, it is

 

C L Couch

 

 

Public Domain

With nearly 1000 [African-American] women employed as burners, welders, scalers, and in other capacities at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California, women war workers played an important part in the construction of the Liberty Ship SS George Washington Carver, launched on May 7th, 1943. Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens plies her trade on the ship.

 

Huffington Post

Most U.S. women see gender equality around the world as their shared responsibility.

 

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