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clcouch123

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clcouch123

In conversation, I prefer Christopher. My mom named me after Christopher Robin, after all. In writing, I use “C L Couch” (or, more simply, “c l couch”) because the form is genderless and also frankly easier to use. I have awful writer’s cramp. I am an educator more or less retired, more or less due to disability. At present, I live in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania (USA). My writing here I mean to be occasional and also devotional. Either or both. The banner and profile photographs are by my friend and peer Debra Danielson. More of Debbie’s work to be enjoyed is at debradanielson.org. Thanks to each of you and both and all for coming to my blog.

Easy Therapy

(x = space)

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Easy Therapy

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Laughter’s good

Not the grim kind

But the kind that takes you

By surprise

The lungs get some exercise

Brain cells some extra

Charge

The mouth, it smiles

As if it had

Needed some dusting off

Some oil

Before cracking

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There’s mischief in the world,

We know

Sometimes devastation

Human or mineral

But don’t we need the laughter

For our health?

The kind that honestly

Erupts and might be shared

All around

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C L Couch

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Photo by Sithamshu Manoj on Unsplash

Bengaluru, India

Catching Smiles

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Petition

(x = space)

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Petition

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God is good

(it’s how we start

a certain prayer)

And God must bear

What’s evil

Not for lack of love

But for the gift of will

That was

A gift of love

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We think angels

Don’t have it

Yet there was a war

In heaven

They will match up

At Armageddon,

The last ranks

And those who last

Will join us in

New heaven

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Creation is broken

We have stories

We can mend it now

Imperfectly

But make a circle

Others know how

And would show us

If we bring down

The barriers

Yes, the real walls

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There is legacy

In circles

Protection, celebration

The will to live

Because there’s love

Unashamed

Enduring

Persisting when

That’s all there is

Because the rest

Feels on fire

If only for a time

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Wait as in be patient

Wait as in attend

But we have one gift to give

Give it now

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C L Couch

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Photo by Buzz Andersen on Unsplash

Kalapana, United States

I was visiting the Big Island of Hawaii with some friends and family, and my brother convinced the group to take a lava tour by boat. I always kind of balk a little bit at overtly touristy stuff like that, but I think everyone was a pretty shocked when we got our first look at the Kalapana Lava Flow after about a half hour boat trip down the coast. It’s such an awesome, phantasmagorical sight and, since they actually get surprisingly close to the spots where the rivers of lava meet the ocean and throw up sulfurous steam clouds, also a pretty visceral sensory experience.

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The Tell

(x = space)

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The Tell

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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

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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

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C L Couch

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photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

playing cards in a bar-room near Reserve, Louisiana

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Not a Game Day

(x = space)

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Not a Game Day

(maybe another day)

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We’ve had dark days

(two days’ packed clouds

and rain)

And that’s all right

We don’t soothsay

The weather, anymore

Storms are a nuisance

Comets intriguing

Too many withering days

Does not mean

God is judging us, though

God might have another

Idea, not about

Judging us through

Weather (God might be

glad we’ve outgrown that)

But keeping count

Regardless over

How we’re doing with

Created places

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There could be a book

Maybe a computer bank

Maybe angels tasked with

Keeping score

Except there are too many

Teams to count

And Earth and each day

Is not a game

(sorry)

Most of the time

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C L Couch

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Photo by Zhu Hongzhi on Unsplash

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Multi-Universing

(x = space)

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Multi-Universing

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You know,

With one mistyping

It becomes the thirty-ninth of August

While maybe

On another world that

Tilts only a little differently,

It is that day

For real

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And our two worlds will need

Adjusting, once

Interstellar communion

Has begun

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For now, inside out heads,

Where we travel and negotiate

Our future

Planet-faring selves,

We might make welcome places

For all we may discover

That will change us

In good ways if we’re ready and

Thankfully

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coda

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We can go

If we send our best

And a moral code

I don’t mean a crazy code

I don’t mean a conservative code

I don’t mean a liberal code

I mean a human code

Inspired by what we understand

As loving and wise divinity

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You think practicality

Will take us, and it won’t

For we all know that machines

Of all kinds

Work fine

Until they don’t

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C L Couch

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Photo by Frank Eiffert on Unsplash

Schloß Dyck, Jüchen, Deutschland

Castle Dyck, Germany, October 2013

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Laid Up

(x = space)

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Laid Up

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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

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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

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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

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But I’m sorry,

You weren’t asking for

A negative apology

And I was asking for a story

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C L Couch

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Photo by Olesia Misty on Unsplash

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Dedication

(x = space, when not indicating treasure)

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Dedication

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There are clues

That God is there

Look to wonder

But it’s not a trick

It’s not allowed to be

If there are patterns

Or intelligence

Or anything that says

There is an origin

To the question

For skepticism

Even for lack of faith

And these are good pursuits

Because there is

An answer, maybe like

A hidden treasure

Through more like

A clarity for what has been

There all the time

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C L Couch

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Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

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The Word for Forest

(x = space)

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The Word for Forest

(for Ursula K. Le Guin)

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We need something that is lasting

Like air

That hasn’t been ruined,

Where a tally of the molecules is useless

Because our calculators break

In the process

A world that is a forest

As in a story I read a while ago

Where the inhabitants cannot perceive

The sense

In wrecking air

And everything life-giving

Breaking a circle they took part in

For ages,

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For what is profit if not that

A world that has trust in them

The smart ones on the planet

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C L Couch

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Photo by Sebastian Unrau on Unsplash

Bad Pyrmont, Deutschland

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Yawnism

I lost some electronics last week; the Verizon person replaced big parts.  The new WordPress editor is unwieldy.  I’ve had extra headaches and added issues in the building.  Sleeping has been harder.  I’ve fallen behind and feel sorry for that.

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Yawnism

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When we’re tired

When we need an extra breath

Impulsive

Expresses boredom,

I suppose

If we could do it on cue

Mainly,

I think it says

It’s time for something new

Getting up or sitting down

Moving

Or less movement

The diaphragm needs to

Push on the lungs

And now;

Waiting would not be prudent

As trying to suppress it shows

Like most activities,

It is a process

Animals, we may believe,

Do it not for show

But smoothly

And in purity,

For real

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Ingenuous about offense

(or is it ingenious?),

We could follow them

Meaning to signal

Nothing more

(to take away)

Than

Everyone wears out

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C L Couch

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Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash

Mexico City, CDMX, México

Cat yawning on blue bed.

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