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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.

Psalm 11, a song of innocence

Psalm 11
a song of innocence

Lord, I do not understand
Certain paradoxes of the world

Why such terror and so much
Wrong must persist in a
World of our choosing

Why can we not do better?

Why can we not use what we
Have to further human cause
To improve the life on
Our troubled, turning sphere

Make life not only better
But, in fact, a triumph in the living?

Can we not do better than fear
And making a market of that?

Might we not do better than taking
Base desire, such as purchasing
Destruction, to barter in a
Hidden marketplace?

The challenges of life would still
Remain, if we choose differently

Responding to severities of
Nature, discovering redresses
From disease, the right for each
To grow and thrive, even the finding
Of new worlds

We’d still have much to do
If we choose differently

And our accomplishment would
Be of the lasting kind

A legacy of gain
And, from that better living, new
Kinds of profit for all of us

0

Writing Prompt: Describe your worst ever Thanksgiving meal.

while wrestling with recall, it turns out what should have been the worst day turned out not so bad–a terrible time, a moment of grace

Cathartic Thanksgiving Day

My worst Thanksgiving ever. Hmm, I can’t recall. Not that Thanksgivings were always grand. But they tended to be good. The years my mom was dying from cancer. I can’t imagine those Thanksgivings were good. I was trying to visit her in the hospital each day or taking care of her when home, trying to take care of the house, trying to work a job across the city.

But I think for the holidays my siblings came to town, and I had a holiday of sorts unto myself. I didn’t cook or do much of anything except sit still. And Thanksgiving Day was peaceful. Same thing at Christmas.

I probably felt tired and numb at heart. The constant pace of covering everything increasingly took its toll by coring out my spirit of enthusiasm, which I then learned to manufacture. I felt bound to provide for my mother and others, though more and more I felt little else. But it seems that in my memory of mind (though I wouldn’t trust myself to be my own life’s reliable narrator), I can recall the long table in the dining room space, all around the table the folk that I’m related to. Lots of containers filled with many things, turkey in the center, carved. Glasses we could make sing by rubbing fingers around the rim, which always bothered someone (I can’t recall whom). A hum of conversation with a layer of laughter on the top, like whipped topping on the pie. (Always more than one actual pie.)

A good day in a miasma of sad and difficult time. An anodyne. Better yet, a day of grace.

There would have been two such Thanksgiving days while my mom was sick. The third year I think maybe there was little celebrate or nothing at all. And within a year or so, I moved out, as everyone had gone before over several years’ time. Leaving my dad who later left on his own, too.

C L Couch

image from http://www.kutkupret.com and Google Images

not dissimilar from our actual table; even the chandelier looks right, though our walls were white

now off to make a turkey sandwich

1

Psalm 10, a song of love and wandering

Psalm 10
a song of love and wandering

Lord, the pain is great
But you are good
You are not safe, as
The beavers said of
Aslan, but you are good

You have all power
Lent to each of us for a time

You have all knowledge
And give to us
The freedom to find and
To decide

You are all love
So why is there, our
Perfect love, such evil?

We may question
You, forsake you

Try to understand you

We might do this
While you remain
Who you are

Lord, help us understand
Who you are and who you’re not
Even as we try with the skills
Now lent to us

Toward ending aberrant pain
Toward even ending evil

0

The Dessert that Never Was, a response to a Jacki K prompt

The Dessert that Never Was

a response to a Jacki K prompt

I think my favorite Thanksgiving dessert—and I believe my siblings will concur—is the dessert that never happened. While growing up in Pittsburgh, we had the annual Thanksgiving feast, of course. We also invited over the two women, mother and daughter, who lived next door. They were delightful company (all year), and for Thanksgiving always offered to bring the pumpkin pie.

One year they were late. Late enough to make me wonder if something had happened to the mother who, naturally enough, was on in years. But they both showed up, chagrined and with a story to tell. They had baked the pie, as they had each year, with everything whipped up by them and typically starting in the morning. As the day progressed and with that the pie in the oven, something smelled not right to them. And when they pulled out the pie and looked around their kitchen, they discovered what they forgot to put in the pie.

The pumpkin part.

So they baked another pie and brought it over late. So embarrassed were they, they only brought the good pie over. But I guess we made them feel at ease enough about making a mistake that anybody could make (well, not anybody) that they brought us over later to view a pumpkin pie without the pumpkin. As I recall, it was a round brown mess, sunken into the pie plate.

None of us is in that neighborhood now, and we are scattered some. But in our respective homes we tend to tell that story every year. And, while all of us were at one home and our neighbors continued coming over, we’d tell that story and laugh—together—every shared Thanksgiving day.

(Cue image of empty pie plate.)

C L Couch

for the image, http://www.wanelo.com (from Google Images)

3

Psalm 9, a song about how to move

Psalm 9
a song about how to move

we move on from terror
and crime except we don’t
a year from now the shock will
only start for some

there are new moves to make
to help, to heal, to redress, to
dedicate newborn or re-newborn effort
since this anonymity, the cruelty
of this war began

no, we won’t move on
but we’ll move with

2

Jacki K’s Free Writing Prompt—What Makes You Grateful?

A Free Writing Prompt for You: What makes you grateful? How do you say, “Thanks”?

from Jacki K

response and illustration

Is that free writing or freewriting? I’ll probably respond to both. And with.  Okay, I start.

Finding something lost makes me feel grateful. And I say thanks. To hear good news from family makes me feel grateful, too.

Longer time on earth—and I like being here, by the way—means loss. Someone dying is not about me, but I can’t help but take it personally. I think we’re supposed to, actually. After all, after death the issues are for those us remaining.

With losses that are severe—yes, loss of life but also loss or lessening of health and means and prospects—the small things to be thankful for mean more. I mean, I suppose losses in life could lead to bitterness, though as a lifestyle I try to move myself away from that. Maybe when I’m old and all alone, I’ll give in.

So lost keys, then. And that one piece of paper with information on it that I need. Sleeping a number of hours without obvious break. A day of color, whatever the season. Which would include a cardinal on the snow. Something new and interesting I see when I drive by. A new-to-me old building to admire or a community announcement that shows the town alive. Remembering to have grabbed exactly what I needed on my way outside the door.

There are many things. Imagine yours.

I do say thank-you and perform small courtesies in kind. Whatever the reaction is matters, though not so much. The joy is in the giving. And so is thankfulness. Small things to be thankful for are gifts and courtesies. I’m a better person when I know these and acknowledge them.

Aren’t we better people for saying and receiving thanks? Giving or receiving? Both? You’re welcome. And thank you.

C L Couch

for the image, kennethkeiferphotography.zenfolio.com (from Google Images)

4

Psalm 8, a song of sorrow

Psalm 8
a song of sorrow

a tragedy on the news
and it is real
the media gets the message across
this time

a dream of sorrow
after watching, learning of
the tragedies

dreams are real, too
the real development of feeling
so that in the day
we might better understand

there was no sense here
only death

this in two nights’ time of
illumination and subcutaneous
unearthing on what further
deeper
to think and feel

the tragedy is real
the deaths are real
everything is real but the motive
murder needs no motive

not for our knowing and certainly not
for our understanding

on the third day, there is nothing
more to know that will make it

less a millstone
for the living
still to bear

2

for my poem friends, then all the rest

ISIS doesn’t like the arts

The terrorists brought down marvels
in ancient statues and friezes, having
murdered the curator defending these

and having no gun. They fired with guns
into a Paris concert venue, while the music
played and fans were sinuously in

tune, young ones with blissful
countenance and their own song. For this
was Friday night, and love for music

elevates. “They don’t like music,” Bono
claims, and he is right—art and
beauty have no place

in the terrorist agenda. So
dangerous must be the muse’s power
to prod a people into thinking and loving

with all art’s inspiration. So
much is beauty feared in the
mad-monger’s eye that it must be

demolished. And so we must see straight
and straighter. Protect our people, fight
back, and preserve our beloved and unique

intuitions and expressions. We must
remember, too, this is not a war on
Islam, whose tenets teach welcoming

and prayer. But what we make—which
is the poem’s meaning, that is, to
make—is taken now as part of who

we are. Life is better. Yet art moves
the heart, wakes up the mind: opening
our better selves. This terrorizes terror.

3

Psalm 7, a small song of praise

Psalm 7
a small song of praise

Praise you, Lord, for
Three-legged cats that
Are still great birders
And dogs with broken backs
That can still run the length
Of the yard

Praise you for hearts that
Still work, even after surgeries
That won’t fix everything
Completely and forever

Praise you for liberal-arts degrees
And mini-strokes and all
The things that make us strange

Praise you, Lord, for I am strange
And yet you love me, still, and
Maybe even more

2

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