How We May Live

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How We May Live

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It’s all right

We don’t have to agree

To have a family

Or a nation

The world is filled with

Variance of thought,

And opinions bleed

And stay still

Like colors

And affiliations

Of the rainbow

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Democratic theory says

That you and I

May argue toward no

Solution or a change

Today or ever

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And democratic practice is

Even better,

For you and I may feed the hungry

And encourage those

In all kinds of trouble, all

The same

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We both and together

May fill bags

With sand along

The growling, killing river

As we (after washing) may

Dispense soup

To the rescued

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This is how to live

With variation

And to live with variation

Active in

Needs that are subsuming—those

Of the hungry or the flooded or,

After fire, the singed

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Arguing the other situations

When we may breathe

Again with clarity

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Happy days

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C L Couch

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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Cairns, Australia

Olive oil on water. “Immiscible 1”. The photo is called immiscible because oil and water don’t mix. The background colours come from a painting behind which is titled “Joy” and is itself bubble shapes like balloons of cheerful colours, where I have tried to express the emotion of joy in a painting, much like Mark Rothko.

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Autumning

Autumning

 

On a Sunday night,

we walked some streets in Cambridge.

It was fall.  The streets were wet; the

air was chilled.

We actually found a small place

that served chowder.  It was cheap,

and it was good.  And I

imagined a hundred places like it in

the town.  I think I

was right.

That was my first and so far last trip there,

though she came once to me.  But

at the time, we were set at odds against

each other; there was no way

we could get it right.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Bicycles in the Rain

Mark Hornbuckle

https://www.cambridgema.gov/traffic/Permits/residentparkingpermit/residentpermitphotocontest/2015residentparkingpermitphotocontestalbum

 

Dialogue

Dialogue

 

Atlantis at night must be beautiful:

Lights once-Greek quietly

Illuminate the shores and other surfaces

And textures

Gold outside, silver-lit within;

We make it up, naturally,

Because we need to

Because

We want to wake up tomorrow on

An unknown shore that has

The best of what we are.

 

C L Couch

 

Litany

Litany

 

I speak

Then you speak

It’s good

It’s good for the church

For the service

It’s even better for us

A way to talk that has rhythm and remembrance

Ages-long and fresh each time

You speak

Then I speak

We listen—we don’t forget that part

The service ended,

We go in peace

 

C L Couch