The Tell

(x = space)

x

x

The Tell

x

Another dark day

Good for hiding dust

No doubt the motes are flying, still

Informing the dust bunnies

Where to warren

Why not dust cats or

Dust crocodiles, I do not know

But we may delight

In invisible inhabitants,

All the same

The pixies that our cultures tell us

Do and don’t exist

The magic inside

Each of our stories, especially

Once shared

x

Pull up some chairs, the four of us

Let’s play some cards

And, please, let’s talk

It isn’t tourney play, you know

Let’s show something of

Ourselves besides

The tells

We don’t think we have

x

C L Couch

x

x

photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

playing cards in a bar-room near Reserve, Louisiana

x

Laid Up

(x = space)

x

x

Laid Up

x

There are stories

There are stories

I’d like to hear one story more

It need not be fantastic

Save for telling of the human will

In wisdom or in folly

In virtue or in vanity

x

What I’m saying is

Make it a human story

Though we might truck with gods,

It seems most days it’s only us

Our gods so far away

Perhaps not to hear,

Maybe not to care

Certainly not

Mortal evidence discloses

To attend our

Perilous half-moments

x

It isn’t this way

God doesn’t have an unmoving face

But tell it to the storm

That seems to bear God’s enmity

In visage

And the promise of

A curse upon our gentler feelings

God is there,

But in the curse of human will

Must relegate our drama

Mostly to ourselves,

According to the action and the lore

The machinery of God

Last act upon the stage

Notwithstanding

x

But I’m sorry,

You weren’t asking for

A negative apology

And I was asking for a story

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Olesia Misty on Unsplash

x

The Tell

The Tell

 

In the future, should we have it

We might gather into upper rooms

Keepers of technology

With those of bread

To tell a story of

What was lost, was kept

Not forgetting that we write

New chapters in

Our saga

 

Rising, falling passages like

Exploration of an ocean

Something like discovery

Reconquest when we call for it

Removing home

 

There is a center with

A monument to keeping

We gave away so much

Forsaking clarity

We held too closely, crushed it

Everything that was a gift

Finding we had no real talent in

Adding to creation

When there could have been alliances

 

Finally, nothing’s lost

If it must change again

And we with it

We’ll have what we have

In keeping up with prophecy

Fields we didn’t have to fight. for

Nature in benevolence to share

 

Partnership with

The ground at last,

The sea and all its colonies

We have a place, if regulated

By our betters whom we knew

And would not recognize

And the better us

In time for staying

And for leaving

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Touann Gatouillat Vergos on Unsplash

Lake Louise, AB, Canada

On the ice. Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/touann.gv/