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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

Shadrach

Shadrach

 

They traded in vacated virtue

What was left of righteousness

 

Goodness rusted through,

Only a thin semblance, molecules-narrow perhaps,

Which was all right

They decided who could touch them

And how deep

They wouldn’t let me rest a finger

Tied my hands away

And bound my feet

Blindfolded me as well

And did so in a way that, while I could no longer

Move, I still thought I was free

 

I had no skill

I simply wanted to live

God gave me something, maybe

But a yen for freedom is what mattered most

God hurt those who bend the youth inside,

Who masquerade as truth

But mentor lies

 

But, worse, I must ask

That God judge

In perfect love

Remembering all parables

All messages and motives

Manifest

God judge me, too

For collaboration

And anger when the mask burned off

 

C L Couch

 

 

File:Fiery Furnace, Arches National Park.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

 

0

Too-Young Good-Bye

Too-Young Good-Bye

(youth, adults—the Humboldt team and friends)

 

In Canada

In Nipawin,

Youth and hockey

Care and safety

And something else transpires

Coaches and sponsors

Everyone does a job

And something else transpires

A bus and a truck tall and wide collide

And that’s it

There it is

An explosion perhaps not

In fiery effect

But of life regardless

And too terribly

I’ve been in vehicle crashes

So are many others

A truck crashed once into my car

I was sprayed with glass

And there was no question

The family station wagon would

Be replaced

People have been hurt in wrecks

This is what I know

Those who are close to this

Know so much more

And horrible

There are

Those who left

Pulled mortally from here,

The here and now we

Have

Those who remain

What shall be done

 

Too many must heal,

And we must return

To take each one gone

A gift

Of flesh and soul

And in quiet, be thankful he

Was with us

For a time—then

For each one still in sight,

Perception

 

All-gendered victims now

All ages then and since

All places

All relations

Thoughts and prayers are tired

Though we will inhale and

Pray for real, again

For faith however tried

And for answers that like deer

Are nimble and grace-filled

 

Look for authenticity

In choices of

Our love

Good-bye too soon

 

Each one

Not from eternal reach,

But the for hours we must count

‘Til heaven says all counting’s gone

Together

In a redemptive now

Always beginning

 

C L Couch

 

 

image above from Pinterest

image below from http://www.tripmondo.com/canada/saskatchewan/nipawin/

Nipawin deer

 

0

To Parkland Youth

To Parkland Youth

(Florida, USA)

 

I’ve worked with teenagers forever

So it seems

And I’m glad

 

I like precocity

 

The plain way teens tend to speak

Reminding me of why I like to walk

The streets of Pittsburgh, for

Pittsburgh people speak their minds with

Measures of respect with

Arrowed expression

 

And when I’m with youth, to say

Don’t forget to be fifteen,

Sensing some relief

All around

 

Being teen is good, and acting real is

Good

There are things you don’t have to

Own because you’re not there,

And this is good

 

Which is not to put you down but to raise up

All the growth that

Happens

In delight, frustration, error, joy

 

You should be free to

Know what to leave and what

To take with you

 

Should not be a thing for you

That we can’t let you finish adolescence

And so enter

The rest of the world

 

You have to step in now

And you shouldn’t have to

 

You have to act as two generations

And there it is

And for all I like you

And because,

This is not right

 

C L Couch

 

5

Burying the Unknown Dead

Burying the Unknown Dead

A ministry, non-sectarian, in
Boston

Students from a private
School—senior-students
From a private school

Attend to one, an unknown
Man, somewhere with a
Name but no one to claim
And care for his mortal
Remains

“But today we are his family,
We are here as his sons . . .”

Pallbearers, recitations of
Free and liturgical verse—
These youth provide all

To bear the body and,
Finally, kindly lay with
Loving intention into the
City’s yard and ground

In Boston, it’s a frozen
Day, yet there is some light

Because hope of all kinds
And times and mortal or
Immortal prophecies—

Hope blazes here

(reported at npr.org for
25 January, “Today We
Are . . .” by Arun Rath)

2

Psalm 15, a song of youth

Psalm 15
a song of youth

I am young
I have strength
But not enough ideas

I am not stupid
I am normal, speaking to
A median

I learn, I grow
There is much I
Need to figure out

I often don’t know how to
Ask for help, though it’s
Natural that I need it

If I ask, will
You hear me?

Can you see me
Look through my
Fears I sometimes
Mask with

Something hard or difficult?

Listen to me, please
Try

Hear us
Even when we don’t know
How to ask

We are young, after all
We usually like the edge of it
Though sometimes we fall

3

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