(x = space)

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The Agenda in the Storm

(having gathered)

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New York was hit

Awfully bad

It’s moving north and east

The fires out west are also

Famously terrible

And there are storms

And floods and fires

Elsewhere

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It is bad in Kabul,

Too,

The President asking for

More planes from non-military

Sources

And we can’t compare

This to Saigon, because

The fighting isn’t over

There’s a force ready

To fight the Taliban

Will North America and Europe

Recognize this group

To send them aid,

If an irony of aid

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And there are other groups

In prisons and dealing

With worse persecution

(another irony)

On the outside

These groups are in Myanmar

And China

And northeastern Africa

And in North America,

Native Americans

And First Families

And do we want to keep the

Border nonporous to the south

Because we want to contain

Mexicans for being

Mexican?

And blacks and whites

Where are we now?

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These are the ethnic

Fires and the flood of hate

And fear;

In the USA, we once liked

The melting pot

Though now it seems a crucible

To separate us and to test us

Then we might go back

To melting

In that first, patriotic pot

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There’s climate

And still too much unchecking

You know, there’s a town

In Ohio that found natural gas

In a parochial way

And burned it all,

Frankly, excessively

Until there was none left

I don’t want to blame them

For excitement

Or working out technologies

At large, we need to do that,

Too

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But I suppose there’s a lesson

In there, somewhere

And we have so much to learn

And do

To stop the fires,

Contain the floods

Mine in every way

Our minerals well

Maintain both poles

Step in, step out

So there might be

Peace in western Asia

And elsewhere

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And then there’s hate

And fear behind the hate

That’s for our dealing,

Too,

To have a planet that we’re

Fond of and it shows

It breathes, it smells,

It tastes, it sounds, it feels,

It looks

Grand as canyons,

Vast as deserts,

Cold as frozen,

Hot as eruptions,

Living as oceans,

Deep as thought

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C L Couch

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The Gathering Storm by Winston Churchill is alluded to, above.

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Photo by Kevin Grieve on Unsplash

Trafalgar Square, London, UK

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