Book of Hours
There’s dawn
It comes on gradually
With time to say
Hello, new day
I appreciate the civility
Dawn is polite
A spot of deeper yellow
Almost orange
With pale light on top
Kind tones of gray
On the other side
Maybe this is why
The sun is our brother,
Moon our sister
The sky offers sibling intimacy
Closeness with Earth
Is promised
Lessons in real hours
Given
C L Couch
Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash
Saxon Switzerland sunrise
Toast
(lids on hot food for now)
I woke up with a cold
I don’t care
I have this hour
And a day that could go twenty-four
Or become an age
As in day of the dinosaur,
Which is a really long day
You woke up this day with what you have
I hope it’s good
And if it’s not,
I hope it gets good and even better
For the hardship
We are awake
We have today
There’s sunshine somewhere
And out there the stars are turning
Movement proves life
Be easy
Or be crazy
Have a thought for someone else
And what she’s going through
We’ll see each other soon
Dancing in the skies
The circle won’t be broken or
Truth made out of lies
Now thinking-reverie must pause
Because there’s food and drink somewhere
And labor must be easy for a time
I hope we find the feast
Thank the host
Thank the guest
Hang on, if we must
Go in, because we can
C L Couch
Photo by Mark Cruz on Unsplash
The Noise
I think I hear street-sweeping
Wrong day
No, it’s a plane
The noise is now stentorian
Now it’s Doppler-fading
A truck going through town?
No follow-up
Wet tires, maybe
On other cars
Scattered showers were predicted
C L Couch
Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash
Old Times There
It’s an unordained day
Unornamented, too
Too soon for everything like that
Late November, cold and chilly
Sky flat with pale gray,
Everything else dark against it
A perfect day for candlelight, I think
Maybe pretend it is an older time
When caves were justified
Along with houses
And people might keep moving for
A life
A livelihood as tinkers, fighting
For hire, or maybe storytelling
In a common room
Manor or pub
(I don’t think churches or temples
were lent out)
Small town, desert place,
Or greater city
Told, though I think sung
Maybe couplets, maybe rhymes
A language we will never speak again
Food and drink for fees,
Maybe coins
A night to sleep inside
Up and out next day
To travel to whatever
In an older age provides
C L Couch
Photo by Moodywalk on Unsplash
Some magic is happening in every moment, have a close look.
a cycle with some silliness
Late Fall in the Hall
There is a little mouse who comes to call
And I don’t mind at all
Sometimes it brings a little ball
I don’t know where it lives
Inside the wall
Toothynessnessness
He has a toothy grin
He is on TV
I think maybe Andy Griffith had one, too,
With which he meted justice from
Atop Mount Airy
There are many such white soldiers
In a line
But I mean
The grin that’s broad and happy
To meet us
With a couple of the sentries
Maybe a little out of line
(too tired from the night before,
these guards)
I like teeth
I know we need them
Maybe in the next round of adapting
Not so much
The tearing of
What was foraged in the wilderness
They don’t need to be bright
The face together is
More important
They should remember that
Chomp away and like the riddle
Champ
Have fun with
What you have
Enjoy the need
It’s Time, I Need to Practice
There is a tune in my head
Oh no, it’s a Christmas song
I think
A new tune, I don’t know the words
Woe is me for falling
And in ignorance
Moreover
I can’t sing along
C L Couch
Photo by Duffy Brook on Unsplash
This with the other two shots with Santa hats on puppies is from a shoot I did to promote a local puppy rescue organization: lisaparkerspuppies.com. We’ve fostered over 30 puppies with LPP. The pups inspire me to get out and take pics! Remember to adopt—don’t buy your next best friend.
sorry, dog (for the hat—maybe you like it—nah)
but Duffy’s right—the message is not silly
Earth-Talk
The sun is knocking,
Asking to come in
Can you imagine?
The sun, huge and glorious
And powerful, asking
To come in?
But on this pale-gray day, the Earth
Seems to be withholding
Tiny planet, fending off
The sun
What is just but to give
The smaller thing its due?
It’s here, too, after all
And what is mercy
But to wait upon
Its waiting?
C L Couch
Photo by Fabian Struwe on Unsplash
It Happens to Be Now
It isn’t often to my eyes when
The light is pink outside
Not with drama or ensemble
But an even tone, the sky all its own
And, yes, it’s daybreak
I turned hot water on, and at first there was
Not steam but a film across my vision,
Vague and even
This is the start of an unspecial day
It’s 23 November
Day after JFK, C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley
(many more we cannot name)
Nothing new but its own time
Prepossessing seconds to release
Like dropping jewels from a story-pirate’s chest
Upon the Earth in outside, mortal time
Profundity in kind
Wisdom at the ready for, well,
Yes, anyone
C L Couch
Photo by Max Ostrozhinskiy on Unsplash
What Do You Say, Dear?
Sometimes in weariness we wander
While we stay inside, trying to take in
The world about
How much sense we can make with
What immediate surrounds us
We don’t know,
Certainly
We can open a book of the paper
Or electric kind, and we should
Where do answer lie?
Like asking of the hills to bring our help
Or something in a psalm
We don’t need a tube (that
Kind of lumen, as I understand it)
We can read
We can listen, better
(though we listen to the reading words, I’m sure)
More directly,
We can have an understanding
With all atoms we encounter
We can be grateful
A moment of small noise in which
We utter some
Thanksgiving
And with an attitude re-enter everything
C L Couch
What Do You Say, Dear? is a delightful and wise book by Sesyle Joslin, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash
Lumen
And if there might be something brief
Through which some color, texture pique
Something that says, let’s hope awhile
Let’s take the light
Whate’er we can
Let fire our receptors to
Ignite incumbent senses and
Help those withal
We have our space and time
And time to find inside
And when we can no longer bear
The creature in the garden will return
To make it right
At last
With everything contracted in
First promises
First days
C L Couch
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
Driving through the tunnel, the lights alongside, guiding our path beckoned me.
clcouch123 
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