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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.

‘Til the End of Time

‘Til the End of Time

(Ireland forever, as it’s said)

 

My, it’s a grim day outside

There may have been fog

That is yet lifting

All I see is white and gray

It’s unsettling, first thing

To look outside

Today’s the day for green and

Orange

Remembering all the snakes

Driven out of Éire without

Wondering where they went

Well, Guinness is dark

And celebratory

So despite the virus going ‘round

I should perk up a peg or two

Remember the McAnallys

Look for some colors, since

The Irish own the rainbow

If not the gold where

The magic arc

Must someday land

All are Irish?  I don’t think so

But all are welcome

Into the saint’s day

A saint who wasn’t Irish, either

But came to own the land

In spiritual ways

Who is remembered for all

Intents and purposes

As a native

Might we remembered, too,

For something spiritual

And native

Created beings of earth and air

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

Saltee Island Great, Ireland

 

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The Sun’s Indigenous

The Sun’s Indigenous

 

A treat

The coffee

I don’t have to load it

In my buckboard

Like a settler come to town

On Saturday for supplies

Too easy to fantasize

My house on the prairie

Or my split-level

In the east

How much did others pay

For dreaming?

I don’t mean pioneers

Though for their dreaming

They gave much

I mean those who dreamed

Of earthen wisdom,

Already here for centuries

Imperfect

But here first

First people

 

In the world, we don’t respect

Indigenous save for study

(bless the anthropologists

in situ)

The land is there

Just needs some brutal scrubbing

Clear it out for destiny

That we own

 

I’m white

I don’t mind being white

I rarely have to

I rarely have to think of it,

Unless I want to

Call me a lover of dark skin

I am

I have no way to understand reparation

Except that it’s a worthy thought

At least to seek forgiveness

Knowing that each people

Have done each other

That is no excuse for us

Or anyone

To pick up the rope, the chain,

The sword

To take over for intrafamily rivalry

And sin of war that way

Theirs in the first,

Ours in the last

 

I think that colors merge into the sun

I think that I’m idealist

And most likely, oh, so naïve

But I’ll take it for my vision

Keeping in the daylight

Dreaming of at night

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Drop the Label Movement on Unsplash

Azukar Coffee, Phoenix, United States

The subject of this photo, Hannah, radiates authenticity, joy, and beauty in her jean jacket laced with various pins and buttons. This photo of Hannah was captured by Idara Ekpoh in south Phoenix, Arizona, at Azukar Coffee Shop.

 

3

Eccentric Season

Eccentric Season

 

A loud single song out the window

For a second day I’m greeted this way

Whom is it calling?

I’d like to think it was me, but it must be

Another creature

Singing to to say hello, come over here

There’s a divot-space next to the air-conditioner

Might make a nice place for a nest

 

I guess this because it’s happened

More than once

That through the panel I can see bird-shadows

Moving

They come and go for a while

I should worry, and I do, that all goes well

While there is waiting for small, gray life

To emerge—

Usually, they’re gray—

To add their greetings to the day

And the days ahead

 

I think maybe I shouldn’t look through

The window, down so much at what’s going on

I can listen to some small cacophony

Instead

 

Life will emerge, and then the nest becomes

Useless, falls apart, not fit

For a sparrow

My odd season with the nesting birds is over

I’ll clear out what remains, maybe there’s

A crack of egg to see

I tried to bring the rounded twigs inside one time,

But they fell apart too easily

A sparrow wouldn’t want it

Such a fragile operation, all this is

To make more birds

Especially in a small space on the window sill

 

And my own sign in parts that at last the weather’s

Turned into a fecund opportunity

As the planted fields around the town

Will also show, certainly in

Wider, columned ways

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash

Hong Kong

 

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The Quandry of Quarantine

How to live through self-imposed quarantine. Her takes on everything are sound!

Trinity's avatarStephanie Huesler

T Rex Wahing Hands

There’s been a lot of talk about the Corona Virus; in fact, that seems to be the only topic in the news right now; and while I rarely go onto social media sites, I was curious about what’s circulating there, and so I went on yesterday. While I agree that misinformation and scare-mongering are never helpful (and those both seem to abound in social media, like a wildfire virus) I disagree with people’s faulty conclusion that there must, therefore, be no danger of coming into contact with the disease or with the disease itself.

My husband and I have been cautious, we’ve been washing our hands and keeping a distance between ourselves and others, but the fact is, we all come in contact with things that have been in contact with others every day: The coins you use, the door handles you turn, the shopping cart you push, the food…

View original post 672 more words

2

Heard Outside the Window

Heard Outside the Window

 

Town birds call each other early

For the farmer’s market

In the square

Come on!  They drop the good stuff

All morning long!

We can watch from wires high above

All the antics

We’ll have all the fun

And be filled

We wake up at dawn, and we’re ready

We serenade the humans,

And they’re soft for us

Why not, we like the singing, too

Fit for forest still

But we’ll stay here for a while

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by raza ali on Unsplash

Karachi, Pakistan

Follow your dreams!

 

4

Not a Poem

Not a Poem

 

This is not a poem:

Poems rhyme

Like using sage in thyme

They make sense

The owl and the pussycat weren’t so tense

The poems have a meter

Ta-dah, ta-dah, ta-dah

Hoorah, hoorah, hoorrah!

Poems are about serious subjects

Racism bleeds the Earth of all its colors

Poems should have long lines

Well, you got me there

 

A poem takes us places

Helps fill in all the spaces

 

So if I want to poem

Just to sho-‘em

I’ll have to change my crafting

Or launch myself upon a rafting

So I might be taken seriously

By those who speak imperiously

I say this with a sigh

The worldly bar is set too high

 

I’ll turn to something else

I have my father’s wrench

Maybe I should try plumbing

(no, for me that would be numbing

maybe you

for a sou?

maybe us–that’s a plus)

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

a poem takes us places

 

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Prismatic

Prismatic

 

How

Is it, God,

That you can love all things?

You can

Your capacity is the ocean

And the stars

With all that swims in both

Your depth is above heaven

Down to hell,

Deeper

We think ourselves so much

We move upon a planet

We are cruel

Sometimes we are kind,

Which shouldn’t have to come

Across

As a surprise

Are you sorry that you gave

The rainbow?

It’s a pledge to keep us here

There might be tests of

Floods, and

Maybe they could tempt you

 

Though I think we have your word,

If anyone

Could keep it

If anyone could stay a hand

Waiting for

What happens next

 

If there’s anything in a

Surprise

 

C L Couch

 

 

photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

created with garden hosepipe

 

3

Ending

Ending

 

Sometimes things end

They really do

My friends have lost a cat

Who died

I knew him, too

 

We say each life is precious

Maybe we meant it when

We say it, too

But we act as if

A lack of consciousness

Has taken over

And nothing counts but what

We want,

A pile of what we want

 

I’m not sure what to do

About flowers

We need them for so many things

Plants, we have to eat them

Life for life?

There is no other way

Until we find the chemicals

That feed us without

Killing the planet

Or our insides

Even then, there will be carbon

The basis for all life

We must consume that, yes?

Then it will be gone until we are gone,

Blended back into the universe

Molecularly speaking

 

There must be an exchange

Small life for bigger life

Plants, maybe fish

Some think chickens are too stupid

To be let go

Maybe we made them that way

 

But there must be endings:

In the living things we eat

In the blood we surrender when

We are wounded

In the life we surrender

Because mortality is limited,

And all things

Might be finite

 

There is sex

That’s an ending, too

Even in release

In order to have life

Other things are ending

Measures of freedom

Money

If a lack can count as something

Lack of responsibility is ending

To have something new

Maybe it’s a cycle

Though miraculous each time

Unique like (and as) a new story

 

So there’s a mystery

Ending life to have life

The seasons teach us

Lessons in the trees

Even evergreens have seasons

Plants that are perennial

Plants that need replanting

New life that is spring

And what is new each day

 

I don’t like endings

The idea,

When it happens

 

Which might be why we

Salute an ending with some alcohol

The deading of some brain cells

So we might get over

Counting out mortality

 

And here’s an ending

Because there has to be one

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Conor Firth on Unsplash

Hayden, CO, USA

 

4

The Best Is Yet to Come

The Best Is Yet to Come

 

The best is yet to come and, babe, won’t it be fine?

 

Dancing, crooning

Love songs

Ties and gowns or overalls and pinafores,

Doesn’t matter

There is glitter in the air

The lights of romance

There’s music from a combo

Ain’t it all fine?

 

There has to be more of this

Not an increase

Or exaggeration

But ongoing

The laughing, dancing, crooning combo

Always at hand

To have and have again

Not a party without end

But reasons to

Celebrate that last

 

The kind of work

(exertion of energy)

That heals

The smiles from musicians, which

Can say

We are free at last

And we love you

And an audience

In equal measure grateful

Taking part

Tomorrow there will be other things

And there will be tomorrow

For now,

There’s confidence

In this place of music

Fancy lights

(not the kind that blind)

Hands clasping on the dancing floor

 

Maybe we’ll go outside

Not because nature is tame

But because

It tames us

With its own lights of night

And gift of rock

For a dancing floor

 

This is a vision

Of necessity

Because the flesh that hears,

Touches, and responds

Should go on in some way

Call it paradise

The life renewed

That hasn’t lost a note or a step

 

C L Couch

 

 

“The Best Is Yet to Come”

written by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie performed and recorded for the album It Might as Well Be Swing (1964) and performed and recorded by many others.

 

photo by Manuel Inglez on Unsplash

Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais, Sintra, Portugal

 

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