Try to Be Still
Try to be still,
Try to be still
To hear the small voice;
That would be fine
Or maybe not to hear anything
For a while,
To nestle in the darkness of
The mind
To listen for the voice before the voice:
The whispering commands
That the angel receives,
The assignment
From God’s ear to mine
C L Couch
www.flickr.com/photos/joshcon/4450007889/in/photostream/
Near-Dead Reckoning
If I had children
To rear (that used to be the proper
Word), I’ve little doubt
I’d treasure some time apart, now
And then
There’s a story of the mother of my
Namesake
She was going to walk
Around the hundred-acre wood
Her son asked to go
And she said no
But when I return
Welcome me
As if I had been gone far
Away for a long time
Nowadays what guilt the mom or dad
Must feel to know
That children are taken from their
Parents with no returning
Promised
The parents now are criminals, they’ll say
Trying to enter by
Liberty’s calling
The children are caged, too
Everyone is guilty, by the way
Not one of us gets off
Unless we’re trying
God will accept a prayer
To bring entire families
Along with sanity
To what has been happening
My father’s people were
Here to tie
Up the ships of all the rest
My mother’s people, there’s a problem
Only a few generations here
So I’ll
Have to take my chances
Warming up to say
That without family
Without the value placed
Up on the shelf in pride of place
That what have we of home
A nation of all promises
Is dust collecting
In an empty place
I don’t have all the answers
I don’t know all the rest
But I think impracticality also
Becomes illicit
When we break the bond
That promises compound reckoning
The nuclei destroyed
Hostility left to orbit like
Errant electrons
Preachy
And sing-songy
Yes, I know
But there it is, I’ll ‘fess up,
And if you’ve come this far
We can go farther
C L Couch
http://www.expatsinvallarta.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Nogales-Tuscon-sign (/jpg)
Ascendant
(believe it or not, for J K Rowling)
Suddenly the steam from
The coffee rises in an eldritch way
Because the cup is now a cauldron and
The liquid is the matter of a
Spell,
Not the dangerous kind
The easy, adolescent kind that only
Causes sit-com harm,
The kind that must be resolved in
A half-hour
And hadn’t hurt that much, to begin with
But rain is coming on
Humidity is high
There is wind high in the trees
The branches dance to universal motion
And I wonder who
Casts such a summer day
As this
C L Couch
Border Talk
I don’t know what to say about
A family torn apart
I never had that feeling
Once I thought I’d lost part of my family in
A famous fire
I was hundreds of miles away
I cried for a day to find
It wasn’t true
C L Couch
http://keranews.org/post/view-border-mcallen-locals-debate-child-immigration-crisis
Made Up
It’s Sunday
Maybe I should think something
Religious
I’m two days behind the Jews
Only one day after
The Adventists
And for those who never keep a sabbath
Why miss out on
The rest
It’s inside-out
Or should be
Take the time to know the heart
Four chambers to walk through
A mind that is a ride
In a synapse car
None of this is religion
But there’s something about
Wonderfully made
That comes to mind, while
I’m on the synapse-ride
In a park with a
Neuron saucer
What would I configure
If I had to make up me
It’s been done with
Someone who has more
Art and skill than
I shall ever have
In fact, the one who
Made the ride to
Set me on this course
C L Couch
Civility
What if the world gathered
In small circles
As it gathers now
But the smaller circles valued
The way they’re not
Not now, given the searches for
Celebrity,
For trending items that for now
Must matter more
What if we enjoy the ones
We really know
And see home places that are
Modest but loved as
Palaces
Not exhaling compromise
But sing a celebration
Often
Of what we have,
We are,
We are
Change to make it better
To hear a crying need
To know who’s next door because
That’s virtue and delight
In community
For all the ones who struggle
To have any
I don’t mean Americana
I mean Earth
All Americas
And every continent
Living
As it were
As we are
At home
C L Couch
http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/women-led-giving-circles-rise/
Peacenik
assertion
I want soft things
To be protected
May we do that
Give puppies homes
And kittens
Take care of children
Until they care for their own
And, who knows, maybe
Us older ones
This leads to causes, I know:
Feeding the hungry
Safe water for all
Shelter especially for the frightened
Though everyone needs a home
Sue for peace
When we don’t have to
Rather than rattling for war
Literacy
And learning
So that all might know how to have
A world
As well as how to hold a job
epilogue
Don’t forget clothing
It doesn’t make a man
A woman or a child
But it makes our bearing in
The world
Wearing a relationship
With custom
Ritual
Work, play, gratitude, reflection of the
Earth
And might we support the artisans
Those who make not only
What we need but
Enliven wisdom, reflection, celebration
Of the materials
We find above or under
Ground,
Inside water or through the air
I mean manufacturing, you know
Not simply things for beauty
Though why we cannot have both, I
Wonder
coda
If you think this is
Impossible,
If you think I am
Maybe you’re right
Curing disease was
Impossible
We simply had to wait for God
Before we knew that God
Was waiting for us
C L Couch
Mystic Island Vol Fire Co Sta 72
The Secret
Shh
I’m hunting wabbits
Quiet in the library, please
I’m on the phone
I’m trying to watch this
Did you hear that?
It’s a secret
You can’t tell
I’ll let you in
Don’t talk about it
Ever
To anyone
Does this sound good
Our own form of gnostic living
Here’s something for a few, well,
Pay your dues
We’ll let you in
We’ll let you in on it
And then you’ll know
You’ll know
Our secret
Handshake
Words to say
Our relics to behold
And then
And then
Well, that’s it—what more
Do you want
You wanted in
You’re in
There’s got to be more
Well, yeah
We’ll keep in touch
And through our symbols
We’ll know one another and
Owe each other favors
Because
Well, because now we know
What it means to carry on
In secret
C L Couch
http://unanything.wikia.com/wiki/File:Infinity
The Formal Feeling
(title from Emily Dickinson)
Catharsis after tragedy
The sad rush we feel, knowing
The experience is over, that we got it
Vicariously,
That it will not happen to us
And by the way
The community depicted now is stronger
It’s after the terrible and blessed
Have both transpired
And watchers leave the scene
(we leave the theatre)
To go home, chastened and relieved
It wasn’t us
They got their due
Their nation will be better
Let’s go home
It’s not closure
(what is)
For a future ticket will bring it all to
Action, opportunity, and desire
For mortal flaws to seed
And then to flourish
And are these analogues for
Life outside
Well, for those who must
Who will not learn
By mastery of organs or
Of language
Who will not hear
And will not heed delaying paradise
So not to have it at all
C L Couch
image from a production of Hamlet, 1899
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