(x = space)
x
x
An Excuse Not to Ask Directions
(you know electrics fail from time to time)
x
Back roads are best
They still need
Paving
Until I get
My Jeep or an ATV
x
State routes are
Good
Try Route 8 in
Western Pennsylvania or
Route 22, across
x
Or any road
Inviting small adventure
Maybe there are
Trees
Or a turn,
The end of which
We cannot espy
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Adam Thomas on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Wounding Time
x
Hot, rainy day
I could be in Brazil
Except for lack of
Verdure
Did you know that the
Big mark of the equator
In Ecuador
Is wrong?
There is another line,
A smaller line,
A ways away
x
I’ve never been
To Greenwich,
And I don’t know
What might be wrong
There
Or in Geneva
x
In the planetarium
When I was young
(it has been
moved),
There was
A Foucault pendulum
Enormous,
Knocking down pegs
So faithfully
Marking through collapse
The hours in the day
x
Atomic clock?
I’ll take a sundial
But then
I don’t need
Tactical precision
In my day
Microseconds for transactions
Bids and buys for Wall Street
Testy parents
Watching watches
x
Olympics
Boats skimming water
Shoes on tracks
So many things need
Measurement
Of time
I’m sure
I hope
The athletes have joy
In their work
Pleasure in the wind
Running under the sun
x
There is a tower
Somewhere,
Where four faces are
Four clocks
Each clock noting time
Each clock a little off in minutes
From the other
So that
When people meet
There,
No one is late
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Goodwood Festival Of Speed , Chichester , U.K.
x
(x = space)
x
x
There’s a Story at the End
x
I don’t know what to say.
I need the birds to
dance across the
page
with their feet dipped in ink.
It’s a medieval riddle’s
answer,
though it would be cruel
to force birds’ feet
into wells.
x
I guess we take their feathers,
turn them into quills;
maybe we could wait
to find quills
inside forests:
gifts from the sources of stories
and the desert
and the sky
and moving waters
taking the shape
of earth below.
That’s what I want to tell,
a story!
Something for everyone. And
is there such a thing?
x
Once there was a child
in a forest
Who came upon a grown-up
clearly starving.
The child gave the grown-up
the only piece of
bread
in the child’s bag.
The adult rose up and thanked
the child.
Then they noticed that
the child’s bag
had a hole through which
crumbs had fallen—and through
forest-magic
had not been eaten
by birds or other creatures!
x
They knew certainly where the
crumbs
would take them,
so they went home
where everyone was
known,
because everyone was
home.
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Uncertainty Principle
x
God,
We have the day
And I’m thankful
x
Things must make
You thankful, too
x
Not surprises, I suppose
Though in Christ
It’s said that you are human
x
So maybe you can
Be taken in
By something that we choose
To say or do
x
Free will
Would be really free
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Katie Gerrard on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Victory at Sea
x
The sadness
That so much is done,
So much never started
But then I’d want
Eternity here and now
Everything
All possibilities
From which to choose
And choose again
To get it right
x
Would that Earth
Could turn peacefully
So that choices might
Be made from
Wisdom and from joy
x
But too many
Steal podiums to say
Beat the other side,
Don’t hesitate
To shoot
x
The second problem is
That hate will shoot back,
And when our
Magazines are empty
There is only peace
In death, that is,
Lives taken
x
Sibling murder
We pretend the other
Is not human
But a target for our rage,
For demon-stoked
Disapproval
x
This is so the world is mine,
Rendered in my own image
With death the medium
x
Would that
Famous people
Would shut up
And listen to the Earth
For a while
Then listen to us,
Which is nearly all of us
x
Pain, thirst
All kinds of ideas
And agendas
Find them
Find the stories
Hear them
x
Let change happen
Speak to it
Let peace prevail
And every other goodness
x
Favorite recipes
Homemade holidays
Comfortable shoes
Barefoot where the Earth
Is welcoming
x
We welcome each other
Sparing the lives that only
Insanity demands
And criminality
x
There is little more to say
Stop destroying
Leave self-righteousness to God
From whom we can learn about
Justice
And safe water
And living as if everything
Is home
For everyone
x
C L Couch
x
The title is taken from a TV series about bravery in war. Music by Richard Rodgers.
To be at sea also means to be adrift. Wanting to head for home.
(Not that the ship in the image is adrift, as in having no control. I don’t know. The ship looks lonely, though.)
x
Photo by Javier Balseiro on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Ancient Chores
x
I imagine
Standing vigil
Is no fun
To be a soldier
On the wall
Even with peers
And a fire
In a brazier
Now and then
x
Maybe we
Call out the hours,
Which could keep
Us alert
In counting time
And I guess
The fires should be
Shielded away
From away
So that we might
Look out upon the field
To suss what
Might be stirring
x
But then
Comes the dawn
We are there
For the arrival,
Change in shift
Maybe change in orders
x
And is this
Holy, set apart
For godly purposes?
Does God arrive
In the dawn,
Apollo in a chariot
As our neighbor
Greeks might say?
x
Well, I should
Head back to
The space in which
I live
When I’m at home
x
This duty’s
Not so bad
Even as I wonder
Where is God
If in the sun
Or the chill wind
That blows
As if
Another wind
Had never
Crossed the yard
Before
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Alex Plesovskich on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Crime
x
Someone
Went up to her,
Threw acid in her face
Then ran away
x
He is at large
To coin a phrase
x
Her contact lenses
Melted into her eyes
x
She’s nearly blind
x
She breathed the acid in
And cannot eat
Solid food
x
There is burned flesh
On her face
x
What kind of criminal
Would do this?
x
I don’t know
x
Was it because she is Muslim?
x
Hate crime
Is another phrase to coin,
Though as with things we repeat
And render trite,
There is meaning here
x
She cannot be the same
x
There is pain
x
There will be healing
And there will be healing
That can never happen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Nafiak Ikram and her mom were getting out of the car at their home when a man rushed up to her, threw a caustic liquid at her face and ran off.
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“My whole life changed in a matter of five minutes,” the Hofstra University student said in an interview with WCBS-TV. “We don’t realize what we have until it’s gone.”
“. . . what could I have possibly done to somebody?”
x
Photo by Vadim Sadovski on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Earth Day
(2021)
x
And
With Earthlings there
Is a relationship
Dysfunctional and thus
Destructive,
So say
All the tops of trees
Burned
By acid rain
x
Earth survives
As it may
And sometimes must
Fight back
x
We’re only guessing
But with all the metal satellites
Surrounding,
You’d think we’d know
Earth better than
To ruin it
x
Yet we must ask
Victims of hurricanes:
The storm,
The flood that
Take one’s own
x
Earth was no friend,
And who is with them
Now?
Earth and Earthers,
I can only hope
x
Source of pleasure
Source of pain
(source of profit)
It is our world,
Though we eye another
It is our microcosm
And an old,
Old story
x
Moon who watches,
Heaven beyond,
Hell below,
Ten circles in the center
x
Everything we know
In the
Cosmic narrative
x
Maybe it’s time
To release Cartesian
Orientation,
Since lines really
Do not hold down anything
And are twisted when
New encounters
Overthrow
The old
(which is
discovery)
x
Time
To like the Earth
Again and like it better
We should know how
By now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Satellite over the coast.
x
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