clcouch123

The Tell

The Tell

In the future, should we have it

We might gather into upper rooms

Keepers of technology

With those of bread

To tell a story of

What was lost, was kept

Not forgetting that we write

New chapters in

Our saga

Rising, falling passages like

Exploration of an ocean

Something like discovery

Reconquest when we call for it

Removing home

There is a center with

A monument to keeping

We gave away so much

Forsaking clarity

We held too closely, crushed it

Everything that was a gift

Finding we had no real talent in

Adding to creation

When there could have been alliances

Finally, nothing’s lost

If it must change again

And we with it

We’ll have what we have

In keeping up with prophecy

Fields we didn’t have to fight. for

Nature in benevolence to share

Partnership with

The ground at last,

The sea and all its colonies

We have a place, if regulated

By our betters whom we knew

And would not recognize

And the better us

In time for staying

And for leaving

C L Couch

Photo by Touann Gatouillat Vergos on Unsplash

Lake Louise, AB, Canada

On the ice. Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/touann.gv/

December 18, 2019 8

Breathe Through It

Breathe Through It

What is it but

The wind,

Ruach, pneuma

What is it but breathing

In and out, back in

And back out again

Autonomically, thank goodness

I’d hate to have to think about it

Or blinking

Or a heartbeat

Sometimes we need a push

And then there’s oxygen

In a canister

If it doesn’t seem to work, that can

Be frightening

After a heart attack, when the EMTs

Arrive or at the hospital,

First thing it seems there’s oxygen

Pressed into the nostrils

Good thing, I’m thinking

And typically there’s nitroglycerine

(now there’s an irony in invention)

That eases the chest

And tries to split the head

Into pieces

Imitations of the spirit

All to keep us breathing

I’m thankful

Honestly, for both

The breath that keeps me going,

That takes me home

C L Couch

Photo by Alain Wong on Unsplash

Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard, Canada

December 17, 2019 4

Friday and Saturday Children

Friday and Saturday Children

Writing in a cube

Whose walls are

Translucent

I can make out movement

Maybe I make a noise

You can see enough

To know someone is in here

We’re claustrophobic, so

We can’t stay at this long

How about

We take down the walls

No one sees through, really

Works through, anyway

Maybe we could re-make them into floors

Or doors, the kind that come in

Halves so that there’s a shelf

To lean on

While we converse about

The new day

Invitations follow

C L Couch

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

December 16, 2019 0

Overlooking Darkness

Overlooking Darkness

There is a tradition

That was never mine

That everything be done on Christmas Eve

Tree, decorating (house and tree),

Dealing with presents,

Maybe making special food

All be done that night

Whew, how can that be

Without the help of elves who

Have switched folkloric chores from

Cobbling shoes?

I think maybe it was the way of immigrants

Brought over like so many things we do

In timelines we can’t count

With working families

Whose jobs were not done ‘til then,

Stores would have to have stayed open

Christmas tree lots

Maybe hot-chocolate vendors

With those bags of chestnuts

All to relieve all of the rest, once a year

A whole day off

Maybe the day after

(maybe)

I do remember Jews and Muslims

Seventh-Day Adventists

Atheists, agnostics

Filling in for services

Firetrucks, utilities, hospital needs

So Christians had time off

I remember, looking another way

For wanting all this time

The special lights

To stay

Inside a mind of memory

A human heart of longing

Too sweet to go for, now? in the world

We have,

We might add a little

It could be a gift

C L Couch

Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay

December 15, 2019 3

It Can Be Christmas Now

It Can Be Christmas Now

(for those who might be on to something not to want to wait)

It’s Christmas now

Might as well be

The markets are done

Some are marching on

Like soft-tin soldiers in a toyland

Hoping to go home

For a holiday

(deserved)

The discounts are deepening

But the first great breaths have breathed

And it’s a few to go

Up to the finish line

(God bless them)

It’s Christmas now

It might as well be

The season has a different name

Until the day christens itself a new time

For twelve days

A catechetical song

Says so

It might as well be Christmas

We could breathe into it

How many movies, songs,

And consecrations do we need?

We can have it Christmas

Regardless (and because) of our creed

Right now

C L Couch

Photo by Anton Scherbakov on Unsplash

GUM, Moskva, Russia

I was walking in the center of Moscow through the crowded fair and realized that some decorations look like small beautiful stars in the sky. Don’t you think so? 🙂

December 14, 2019 11

two poems about associating

(drafted today)

Loony Like a Tune

I don’t know much

But I know this

Carson City is the capital of Nevada

Bugs Bunny told me so

I think he was being pressed

By Yosemite Sam

I don’t mean to push a copyright

This was the stuff of childhood

I remember things

Associations

My older brother and I once

Ran around the basement,

Making woop-woop sounds because the

Three Stooges were on TV

And because I read about the Hardy boys

I found something good in reading

Read other things

And became the English teacher

Who owns these associations?

I have to wonder

We own our minds

In spite of agendas toward dystopia

And sometimes cultic ravings

I think I still need my

Cartoons and my easygoing stories

Found in books with little weight

We never know when a bad,

Mechanistic idea might

Come along

One response

To act like a fourth

Stooge rather than a minion

That last stanza looks like Minnesota

I wonder what cartoons

They need up there

(drafted yesterday, I realize)

Allusion

(an argument I’m never going to have)

You think I do this because

I don’t know enough words

Please

It has meaning

You know this when you use it

Home of the brave

The seventh-inning stretch

Lady Macbeth

She doth protest too much

(who is not that lady)

The referencing ties us all

In ties that bind

Silken cords, I imagine

(and I borrow)

And we refer to Genesis or anything

To say like Whos to Horton,

We are here

C L Couch

Photo by Mark Olsen on Unsplash

Panther Pond, ME

Mother Loon Shakes Off

December 13, 2019 6

Attending Nuclei

Attending Nuclei

The spirit of God

Moves across the water

In the bathtub, not because

It’s trivial but because

It’s everywhere

Breathing, laughing, cajoling

Cleaning

As a spirit of God should

Present at creation, making

Things happen, here

And there

Inside the tree but not the tree

Taking part in everything

That’s made

And with us when

We’re washing dishes

More water

Water and air, we need them

Nothing lives without them

Except maybe anerobic cells

That might still cry out

From time to time

For a sip

Adding a speaker to

The microscope to hear

For all the cells

For all the grocery lists

For prayer at breakfast

For flat tires and new children

New cells on everyone

Everything that every second frames

Here endeth not so much

A lesson;

Here starteth—starts–a

Day of days worth knowing

Because when we want,

We find

The day and knowing it

Astounding

C L Couch

Photo by Camilo Fierro on Unsplash

December 12, 2019 4

Bible Angels

Bible Angels

If I were in a market place

Four thousand years ago

And an angel came to me,

Would I laugh as Sarah laughed?

It would be understandable

We try it now

In comedies

Sometimes in melodrama

But it’s a tragedy of belief to have

The recognition come too late,

And so it never does

Tell Sodom and Gomorrah

And days before the rain

That meant the ark

Must be sealed

I’m sorry, but sometimes

There’s providence in this

But after rain

I have an angel on my shoulder

A miracle in my pocket

And King Jesus is my all

So that when I sing it

Sing it, too

There’s a

Choral host somewhere

Joining in

It was an angel, ordered

Painting red the lintels

Who lived inside the clouds

And pillars of fire by night

They bear news

It isn’t always good

Fear not

Have faith

We are nothing but the thing with feathers

Inside there is nothing but

The will of God

We warred in heaven

Tempered is the remnant

Choice assignments

Sometimes we act with tears

We all know why

There are lamentations

We will cry the end

We’ve been there

And cry once more for joy

In what is found afterward

For our keeping

C L Couch

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul . . .

Emily Dickinson

Photo by Allan Rolim on Unsplash

Paraná, Londrina, Brasil

December 11, 2019 3

Reading the Next Day

Reading the Next Day

Going back to reading what

Was written

Sometimes there’s little sense

Like looking back on doodles

Or freewriting

Looking back on other things

That’s harder

Talking with fewer people in old age

Means less chance for faux pas

Or maybe it’s reclusion

Only

I don’t need a bigger pile

Piling in the in-box

Who does?

I go back to what I read

Having picked it up in the middle of the night

Because I wasn’t sleeping yet

And a story called

(I’m not sure who was more at fault)

When I return

Will I be welcome?

Will I be welcomed again?

I mean, yes, I bought the thing

But there’s more

An invitation

Riding like the girl who

Delivered most of the news

From Paul Revere

The book is here:

Will I take the message?

Will I accept responsibility for

Interpretation, then dissemination

Throughout the land?

You see, clearly there are questions

And there’s pressure

A lady or a tiger

Re-reading yesterday’s

New pages

In new hours

And then there’s what I’ve written

C L Couch

Photo by Prasanna Kumar on Unsplash

Besant nagar beach, Chennai, India

Books, most loyal friends.

If true, Ludington’s story puts Revere’s to shame, writes Valerie DeBenedette for Mental Floss. She “rode twice as far as Revere did, by herself, over bad roads and in an area roamed by outlaws, to raise Patriot troops to fight in the Battle of Danbury and the Battle of Ridgefield in Connecticut,” DeBenedette writes. “And did we mention it was raining?”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/was-there-really-teenage-female-paul-revere-180962993/

December 10, 2019 3