Take It Outside

(x = space)

x

x

Take It Outside

x

Here it’s raining

There might be

Snow and sleet around

This is a strange place

For weather

x

I’m used to weather

From the west

Occasionally, from north

Or south

Because Canada or the tropics

Has something to say

To us

x

Here and now

It comes from all directions

I mean it

All the winds

In all their courses

Everything that’s brought with them

Or left here in stillness

When they’ve gone

Or turned away

As if we could conjure

As is conjured, somehow

Rain from anywhere

The denseness in the air

Anything

The comes

And we oblige

By working through it

Who can change it?

Well, I think we better

Not this

From all directions

In our days

Eccentric seasons

But overall

x

Experts

Not deny-ers

Who have no expertise

But go for easy

Ignorance

But experts say

The world has changed

And so has living here

Everywhere

For all

x

Don’t trust science?

Go outside

And move around

Through currents

In the water

Overland

And in the air

See broken ice

Too much

And drowning islands

New channels

We have lived without

x

Take back the Northwest Passage

Keep it blocked

With righteous cold

x

Right now feel the heat

You can

It should be cool

Where is the cool?

Maybe the ozone hole

Is taking it

x

But if it’s not conspiracy

It isn’t

Not this way

Then we may say

That we have done this

And should fix it

Which doesn’t have to be extraordinary

Not perforce

And unsure seeding clouds

Or oceans

Or burning what

We don’t like

(also bears a chance)

Or firing beams

Or changing the base chemistry

Of anything

x

We simply stop

Doing certain things

And use what we know

What Earth has taught us

To fix things

Replant, feed again

In everything

Let it grow

Let Earth grow

The goodness in four elements

And if there’s

A fifth element

(you know)

Maybe it’s

Our exchange

Stupidity for sense

The right to cool

Our rightly angered children

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Javier Miranda on Unsplash

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two poems for young people

(x = space)

x

x

two poems for young people

x

x

Youth

x

They (you) look so young

Not like those near altars

Of antiquity

Who are forever beautiful

But cannot move

x

These might be cared for carefully

That youth might be preserved

Youth cannot be preserved

x

Youth might invest their own

(your own)

So that the coming days

Are rich

With age and wisdom,

Maybe things put by

x

But (you) run without avarice

Or even long ambition

Become parts of a transitory mural

That is bright

All colors

Shapes

At least three dimensions,

Which will have no museum

Save in memory

x

x

Locksmithing

x

Who holds the keys?

Why are there keys?

Why are their locks?

What is kept?

What must be freed

Up with which

From being locked?

x

Behind the door

Once opened

Nothing might be withheld

But secrets of the arrogance

The avarice in

Withholding

Private parties

Boring,

Frightening without joy

From the absconded powerful

x

There might be secrets

For the young to own

(they, you

should have mentors)

If taught or teach themselves

(yourselves)

How to

Break out

x

This is the story

Of the end of age’s

Generation

The beginning of another

An ownership

That could calcify

So-called in privilege

Or turn around

Turn everything around

Toward all the growth

In revelation

And unwithheld resources

For life

With invention

Food, that is, and challenge

x

Keeping democracy

(boo say some, but)

We need it

x

x

C L Couch

x

x

Burned Out at the Salton Sea

Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash

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