March 2021

Counting

(x = space)

Counting

There was an equinox

The sky returned to balance

While our Earth began to slide

The other way

Into spring here

And winter to the south

We call them snowbirds,

The folk who go to Florida

In January

I’m not sure about the opposite

Those who might want

To travel farther south for winter,

Maybe call them penguins

Puffer people

Magellanics

We wish for a good season

Much to plant

On planet Earth

To hope for green:

Seeds to break

Blades to rise

Life to harvest

Healthy crops of health

C L Couch

Photo by KT on Unsplash

Satay by the Bay, Singapore

Observed this Yellow Bittern for a good 20 minutes. It was trying to find the most comfortable position for its morning food hunt. Photo was taken from the lotus pond at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore.

March 22, 2021 0

Catechesis, Parts 1 and 2

(x = space)

Catechesis, Part 1

questions

I got up in time,

Sort of

How did you do?

Is it a good day?

Are things going well?

I missed my turn at prayer

The group went on

And I hope the quiet praying

Counted

I don’t know the protocols

On Earth, in heaven

So well

I fact,

When I feel my tether pulled,

So to speak,

On Earth or heaven,

I ask, existentially

What do you want of me?

And Who are you?

Asking anything of me

Not that I take it amiss

I have time

Enough lack of direction

That I may respond happily,

Given

Something good to do

Catechesis, Part 2

answers

You are God,

I think,

Maker of all things

That must mean good and bad

Downright evil

Or so frustrating that

Some of us

Might want

To scream and do

So you are the God

Of good things and bad things

And evil things

Supposing the delightful things as well

Spring and picnics in good weather,

Cool water, wine,

And sex

Beside still waters

(metaphorically at least)

You are with us

In all things,

Somehow excused of voyeurism,

Which might be why

The seraphim have so many eyes apiece

So that one eye or another

Might be closed

With no loss to function, overall

Anyway,

You want of us to love

To love you

To accept love from you,

Which isn’t a done deal

You know, during

Those awful times

When so much has been lost

To the dark

Forever night

Without night’s comforts

‘Til a white sun rises over day,

All our empty landscapes

You are there

Maybe we’ll excuse this

One way or the other

C L Couch

Photo by Avery D’Alessandro on Unsplash

Brugge, Belgium

March 21, 2021 0

Ghosts

(x = space)

Ghosts

I don’t mean

The kind that haunt

In stories

You know what I mean

That haunt for different

Reasons, sometimes

Only memory

Without any fright

A different kind of pain

In remembering

Have I lived too long?

I can’t count

The number who have died

I used to know them well

And they are,

You know,

Gone

Holes in my life remain

Small ones that expand

On certain days

I think the question might

Have to do with

How to keep them all

How to bear mortality

As well

So much by default

Makes it happen

All mortality,

And I won’t say I’m ungrateful

I am satisfied to be here

And for you

Some things will come in memory

And when everything wakes up

Greeting begins again

C L Couch

Photo by Nolan Issac on Unsplash

Upstate New York Chapter, Rochester, United States

My best friend and I got some great shots in this abandoned place….I miss her.

March 20, 2021 2

The Listing House

(x = space)

The Listing House

(have fun—it’s Friday)

They’re everywhere

I cannot tell

The open places anymore

For anytime I open something

Door or drawer

I encounter lists

And that’s all

Whenever I come across

The refrigerator handle

(now and then)

I pull and find inside

Only reminders on paper of

What I meant to buy

At the store

There is no desk

Or dresser drawer that’s safe

And sometime the house

Will lean over

Or sink in the center

To greet the ground more closely

Maybe to find what is

Beneath

I know, we have machines

But it’s been so much easier

To find a scrap and use the pen

I carry in my pocket

But here’s the thing:

I make the list

Then leave it behind

Think I will change,

I create then leave another

Now there is no space

For what I’d find

Should I consult the paper,

After all

I think it all will

Weigh out in the middle

The house will fall like Usher’s

Into the tarn of Main Street

And hell for me

Will be an inferno

Constantly

Ignited from

The lists I made in life

C L Couch

Photo by Eniko Polgar on Unsplash

Bodie, United States

Desert Ghost Town

March 19, 2021 1

Istanbul

(x = space)

Istanbul

(Yankee perspective)

How colorful the lamps

For sale in the bazaar

I’m not sure how their talents

Transliterate back home

Where so much

Is right-angled

And pastel

One lamp of these lamps

Could shine over

Our obligatory book of a thousand tales

If not a treatise on the origin

Of mathematics

Or astronomy,

Right knowledge

That made protraction possible

Right angles

As well as acute, obtuse

A world worked out

Until the rough-edged stories

Like the roc that swallows interlopers

In the lore

Come to roost

C L Couch

(Yankee)

March 18, 2021 0

Pádraig

(x = space)

Pádraig

(17 March)

His family lived in France

Kidnapped to Ireland,

He spent sustaining, growing years

The best that can be done

In captivity

One day he was told by God

To leave, to walk down

To the boat

And on the boat

And leave

Once back in France,

Reunited more or less,

He heard the calling to return

Actually, a note

From the bishop

He had no place in mainland

Europe anymore

Where no one knew him

Or his snake-free ways

He evangelized,

And his message

Did not curse

The culture, the truth

And the symbols

In its age

He used what was there,

The shamrock

As Brigid uses straw

Ireland, through

Reason and through art,

Converted

Or co-merged, the ancient

With less ancient

While the bishop

And God smiled

To make arrangements

Somewhere else for what

Might have been

Indigenous serpents

C L Couch

By Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33260482

Tullow Church of the Most Holy Rosary, South Transept Window

Detail of the glass door that extends the stained glass window of the Immaculata above it to the floor, depicting Brigid’s Cross and oak leaves. No signature was found on the window.

March 17, 2021 0