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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.

An Insignificant Response

An Insignificant Response

 

I think I heard on the local news

That some of us are going

In addition to the national aid

That I hope is on its way

The UN and EU are already there

With the UK and Russia

The numbers keep increasing

The dead and wounded

Hospitals, themselves damaged,

Are working at more-than-full

Capacity

There is broken glass and blood

All over the city

Like a shining sheet, say

Those who are there

Many miles away,

The blast was heard

Followed by a sonic wave that

Literally knocked people

From a standing posture down

 

It was a mushroom cloud

For a non-nuclear blast

A little prophecy at work

There are protests

In anger at what happened

Drawing police with tear gas

And rubber bullets

I used to think that could only happen

In another nation from people who

Fear their grip on power

But we have followed precedent

In self-styled, hoped-for despotism

So that

Everything that’s helpful is delayed

Well, we’ll get there, too

 

And I hope we stay there for a while

To help, most of all

Maybe to learn something, too

About our global neighbors

About the sheen of darkened glass

That covers us

Dusting by laying dust

Over our light

An experiment in democracy

For a few centuries, now

That can’t help but be a model

One way or another

 

Pray, help Lebanon

Let your angels work in Beirut

It is a sectarian

Sometimes the Christian fight the Muslims

Sometimes it goes the other way

Now, it should not matter

And, inshallah, it should not matter

Ever again

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Oren Rozen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92908578

Tel Aviv City Hall, 5 August

 

8

Wishing in Retrograde

Wishing in Retrograde

(after which the planet does return)

 

I don’t know

Everything seems stupid

What I’m writing, the images I’m

Looking for to go with it

(my looking, not the image-making)

If an apology will do,

I’m sorry I don’t have something better

And I want everyone to have

A good weekend

A safe weekend

In my nation, we’re expressing a split mind

On the one hand, everything is opening

On the other, the disease is worse than ever

Cases are spiking

Like a medieval mace in a museum

We’re number one for sickness,

Loss of life in the world

Like my state being first

For the worst roads

 

Is it any wonder

Other lands are barring us?

I wouldn’t want me, either

There are stories of break-ins into Canada

From the USA

Clearly, the wall is put up along the

Wrong direction

Having me think the purpose will be turned

Around, and from everywhere

We won’t be walling others out

But others wanting us walled in

 

Which isn’t everything, by far

The world is suffering

We should take a chance to help

Maybe our help would be accepted

You know, the WHO

And UN take us back

Maybe after Monday

In January 2021

The world will have us back

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

 

 

 

13

Field Manual for Seasons

Field Manual for Seasons

 

Blue peeks through

Green netting

On a midsummer day

Maybe it’s high summer, now

A timetable is needed

Not for tides

But for the broader reaches

Of the seasons

 

Something to say

These are dog days

Tell the dogs, they’ll want to know

When are cat days?

Silly humans, cats say,

Every day

Give dogs a few

 

It could also be a time

For field mice

Chipmunks, squirrels

All creatures seem to know

The seasons,

When to bury food

When to look for it again

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jonnelle Yankovich on Unsplash

Chassell, MI, USA

instagram: @jey__photography

 

10

The Original Series

The Original Series

 

There will come a time

When I won’t know myself

The old one from the young

One that becomes

Maybe a mask for Hallowe’en

 

I wonder if I’ll put up

The barricade between me

And young (in years) people

Forget that I was one

And used to see me then and there

And here for a long time

 

And will I talk of them

As if they had just landed

From Spain or from

Another planet

And will I rail about

Their demon music

And wonder where their generation’s going

While mine was worse about direction

Or destination

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by shawn henry on Unsplash

 

5

Timing Isn’t Everything

Timing Isn’t Everything

 

When we pray

There is listening

Because God is infinite,

Which means

There’s plenty of time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by June O on Unsplash

 

9

Finite

Finite

 

When we exhale

Things go out

We no longer need,

Which is all right because

Parts of the world need them

That, in turn, give up what

We need

And so inhale

To say the least, it’s a good arrangement

We should keep it going

Oxygen doesn’t come from

An artificial tube

We borrow it

And sometimes

Too often, really

Don’t give anything back for it

Let’s not begrudge astronauts

Someday maybe

We’ll make our own sustenance

For breathing

Though really everything we have

Is borrowed, molecules from

Someone else

Call it Mother Nature

Father Time

Or random, hexagonal arrangements

In the universe

Finally, it’s what we’re lent

Of substance and of time with

The energy to use them

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Moses Lee on Unsplash

Richmond, BC, Canada

Comet NEOWISE over Iona Beach through tall grass.

 

11

There Are Way Too Many People Dying

There Are Way Too Many People Dying

 

There are way too many people dying

Yet we, the living, complain

Because we’re still here

With masks and keeping six feet or

Two meters apart

Staying not in a factory or prison

But at home

From where we live and work

Unless you have to go away to work,

And we thank you

And (everyone) get by hopefully without catching

Anything,

Such as the nineteenth COVID virus

 

We have to get outside,

And so we protest in Berlin

And politicians in Ohio

And D.C.

Hawk a malarial that not only

Doesn’t work but harms in other ways

If Madame Cleo came back

And recommended something,

I’d be more inclined to listen

 

This should be the year of doing nothing

I’ve said it elsewhere

I’m saying it again

This should be the year of doing nothing

But getting better

 

Next year we could try it

Without the disease

 

C L Couch

 

 

(image from Unsplash)

United Nations COVID-19 Response

Frontline. Inspired by images of exhausted doctors and nurses. Image created by Kevin Kobsic. Submitted for United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives – help stop the spread of COVID-19.

 

10

Snoopyism

Snoopyism

 

Take out the “stormy” part,

And “It was a dark night”

As most nights are,

When it happened to rain

Snoopy went for this

(the words appear above

his doghouse, when

he’s typing—how does

the typewriter stay perched

along the top

like that?)

But the words were borrowed

From other sources (more

than one writer claims

the cliché!), and we

Smiled, because we were certain

We could do better

It was night; there was rain

Okay, now your turn

 

C L Couch

 

 

(see, Snoopy is a beagle character in the Peanuts comics and cartoons, and Snoopy like to write while on top of his doghouse (Snoopy’s always on top, not in, his doghouse), and the famous words he quotes are “It was a dark and stormy night” that have been used now and then by writers who evidently had nothing else to say

and I keep forgetting that Madeleine L’Engle uses the phrase intentionally (knowing it was cliché) to start her novel A Wrinkle in Time)

 

Photo by Grant Durr on Unsplash

 

8

Sabbathism

Sabbathism

 

Resting is a process

When we’re not exhausted

So that sleep is something like

Unconsciousness

(we might as well have fainted)

Spiritual rest, more so

A process, and there are

Some truly mortal things

We can do

 

Do you have a favorite place?

Something you like to drink

That will enhance

(not abrogate) the experience?

Like violins singing beneath

The piano solo,

Can you wear something comfortable

Or comfortably?

And here it is,

Will you give yourself some time?

 

By doctrine, it’s a whole day

But take what you will give

Half a day, an hour

Twenty minutes, five

Do you need a prescription?

Get someone to write you one

Better yet, write it

Yourself

 

Read something, then and there

Write something

Pray something

Or do next to nothing

But be present

In the moment, as de Caussade

Has recommended

Think things

Feel things through

Decide something, if you must

Though you don’t have to

And it might be better

If you don’t

 

Afterward,

Reach out to someone else

Especially, if you took help

To make sabbath happen

Didn’t I mention getting help?

Well, feel free

Always feel free

 

C L Couch

 

 

(The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade)

 

Photo by Matthew Angus on Unsplash

Jerusalem, Israel

Devotion in prayer.

 

8

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