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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.

These Are the Voyages (28 January 1986)

These Are the Voyages
(28 January 1986)

Thirty years ago and less or
More, there was Apollo 1,
Challenger, and Columbia

Source and cause of death
In rising through the skies;
Reluctant, stubborn loss in

Exploration—first mission
To the Moon, first teacher
Into pace, and a flight we’d

Grown too used to thinking
Ordinary—limited and limitless,
We were reminded; now in

Vision foresworn and sworn
Again, these guard our flights
On toward all our heavens,

Treasuring what in dreams
Will be manifest—we in faith,
Voyagers relentless, we

Travel closer to our God of
Discovery, all of us tied now
In tribute sentinel sacrifice

 
(Note. Remember the first USA
Space shuttle? It was Enterprise)

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First Words Depending on Where Refugees Arrive

(response to Denmark’s new law)

 

First Words Depending on Where Refugees Arrive

Welcome to our nation
Give us everything you have

Welcome to our nation
We need to assay all you own

Welcome to our nation
How will you contribute?

Welcome to our nation
We have to screen you first

Welcome to your nation
Let’s get you settled here

4

Psalm 25, a song of after-celebration

Psalm 25
a song of after-celebration

It’s not Sunday, no
Official day of rest

But unofficially we
At home are done with
Formal celebration

Unusually fine food,
Goods in boxes wrapped
Just-so, paper, sticky
Tape, silk ribbons—all
Now vestiges

All the tries at sweeping
Up glitter and confetti,
Finished for a time

(Glitter on a surface
Somewhere, somewhen,
A sparkling moment of
Quiet surprise to come)

Cups are filled with
Plain coffee now

The dogs and other
Pets are tired, next
To us and at peace

We enjoy a holiday
Without the holiday

Happy and less-sated,
Gazing at our decorations
Also now at rest

Sipping our hot morning
Drinks (or cool), looking
Out glass panels upon a
Sun-lit, dampened yard

Lord, please pardon, if this
Is for us the better
Holiday after-day

 

0

Psalm 24, a song of in-between

Psalm 24
a song of in-between

What do we do on an in-between
Day? How might we please
You, Lord, on this kind of day?

If we do small things—speak
More softly and with civility
To those we know and those
Whom we encounter;

If we see the grey wash of
Sky and appreciate that it
Is not a sky of harsher conflict;

If we enjoy the colors, textures
That we have (even awash) and
Simple meals within our means

To have three times—post-dawn,
At midday, and again in twilight;

If we choose to look at harmony
And listen to the view—if

We accomplish these diminutive
Tasks, maybe without thinking,
Might we still please you? We

Do hope so and so we pledge,
Even if all around us is
An indifferent age

8

Psalm 23, a song of ancient assurance

Psalm 23
a song of ancient assurance

The shepherd psalm
If you’ve read in Old Testament
Then you, I think, know this

If your holy scripture is not
Divided so or does not
Contain this at all, I will tell
You this numbered psalm
Is well-known in metaphor
Of shepherding

(Genders of the shepherds?
They have been both when
Keeping sheep and will
Go on this way)

There is a rod and staff
Tools of the shepherd’s will
They don’t sound so good
To modern me, but I

Understand these somehow
Mean comfort and provide
There are still waters, too
These are clean, and we are
Led beside maybe because
We are so tired by then
That breezes off the water
Soothe us all

We are anointed—rite
Religiously special
And there is a feast

Our enemies are at table
But not served—Awkward?
Maybe, though I think it’s
An unworldly sign of triumph

Earned somehow, not
Simply out of injustice
We might have endured
But because, at last, victims
Are honor-placed

There are more promises
Finally, a place in heaven,
There to dwell with God

This song sings an invitation
Anyone might answer, go
Have coolness in the water,

Oil and banquet celebration,
Finally our home within
Forever

All in accepting
Shepherd’s care

Heaven once the peril’s
Done when, as tired
And need-starved beats,
We are carried home

5

Claustrophobe

Claustrophobe

Am I trapped on
the second floor?
My town for now
has the greater
accumulation,

And I realize this
is maybe too much.
I look out:

all I see are shapes
of indistinction;
I can’t even see
that well for
vapor pushing
up against my
window, making
visual barriers
in condensation.

The storm is Jonas;
that’s fine. If you
can escape the
hunt of God by

living for days in
a great fish—before
being retrieved by
hunter’s hand (let’s
say)—then I not
hunted by the
divine with the
exception to be
loved,

then I can weather
this—well, you
know–weather.

4

Re: Terror Cuts Pay

Re: Terror Cuts Pay

Slices pay in two

A secret ISIS memo
Leaked (I guess that
Phrase defines itself)
About paid staff
Losing half its pay

Benefits might be
Halved as well, at
Least from the neck up

Since ISIS wants a
State and hates the
Past (destroying
Ancient Arabian and
Asian works and the
Scientists who work
To preserve these), then
A state might be
Provided for the

Group, since there
Are uninhabited islands
In, say, Pacific waters
(Ironic), where UN

Patrols would sail
Sentinel so that an
Island of hate might be
Appropriately (by
Itself) preserved

0

Psalm 22, a song about God calling

Psalm 22
a song about God calling

Did you ask me something,
Lord—and did I not hear?
How do I know it’s you
Speaking (when no one
Else is in the room) and
Not the voice of another

Or simply my invention?—I
Hope I apprehend when
You might speak, especially
When you have something
To tell me to do

You would not ask of me
Destructive or demented
Activity. Then, Lord, and
Anytime, let me do
What you request, even
When I might (guaranteed)
Hear imperfectly from you.

7

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter (prose poem)

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter
(prose poem)

So my friend calls from Indiana. I tell her of my sister’s new job. I am relieved and happy, because my friend’s been struggling with sufferings that would drive me mad. She sounds well and has a chance to tell me some about her family on her way to church to help lead (in technical matters) a Bible study there. It is cold here. It is colder there (single-digit degrees for many days). When she must ring off, she does. I am at the coffeemaker and place the backside of the phone on a spiral burner on the stovetop (everything turned off). While the coffee’s cooking, I clean out some plastic bottles into which I put tap water to drink throughout the day. Not thinking at first, I place the cleaned-out bottles just outside the burner circle set upon the stove. When I’ve done this four times, I have four empty bottles cornering a phone set on a burner plate of labyrinthine form. I’m sure there is a deity for winter (generally, Persephone, though I’m thinking there’s one for winter only), and have I not built a small, strange contemporary altar to her. A narrow receiver (wireless) offered up inside four plastic monoliths keeping in their stillness their own kind of sentinel watching. Is this supplication? I want my friend to be well. I want her husband to enjoy retirement and her daughter have success at school. I want the cold to move on, over there, though for a Midwest winter season, I guess what is endured is rather normal. (Still too cold.) My temps in southern Pennsylvania still have two digits. But we are called to be ourselves storm-ready against a coming, miles-wide soon-arriving gale. It smacks the South and later rounds out to sea—on the way releasing slivering ice and snow and the season’s other dangers onto our regional metropoles: D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. And in my small town? I pray for navigable roads. In my small place, I pray for electricity’s constancy—that it might faithfully provide sufficient heat in rapport with the thermostat. And now I guess I wait. We wait. I clear the stove and leave on the burner now a single cup, ready for coffee. The empty ceramic vessel a suburban symbol of encouragement and also, I think, of supplication.

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