Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Author

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.

For


For

June is
For
The end of spring
The summer of surprise

June is for
Berries

For first imagining
Of an adventure
All again
In green

C L Couch
(MidAtlantic USA—you could write where and how it is for you)


Photo by Julie Blake Edison on Unsplash

0

Wondrous


Wondrous

I love you
Says the Lord
Which is

Why
I made you a world
With stars around it

And isn’t it
Grand
The starlight

To give you something
Wonderful
To dream

C L Couch


Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

0

Kind Brief Invocation


Kind Brief Invocation

O God
Be our Tuesday help
Forgive us our
Mistakes
Our other-side-of
Edenness

‘Cause
Sometimes
We let fall
Or we forget
Without malice
But our flaws
Pervade

There is
The Kintsugi of wisdom
Help us fix
And even beautify
The scars
By
Gold understanding

C L Couch


Photo by Brian Pappel on Unsplash 
[sun and dew transform—goldify, as it were]

0

(maybe) it’s not that easy


(maybe) it’s not that easy

we find
an abstract
verdant image

is it a meadow
or a forest of 
a hemisphere's summer
(someone) looking
up

or
(more) fancifully
is it the capillary network
in a frog

sometimes it isn’t easy
being green

sometimes with any number of
means
by interests
it’s easy
(well
if) with being hard

having green
lives
hale
on green worlds

c l couch


there is referenced the song “Bein’ Green” by Joseph G. Raposo, famously sung by Kermit the (green) Frog

photo by Artur Łuczka on Unsplash

1

2 poems about presence


2 poems about presence


Quantum Theory

God
You are around
Visiting nuclei
Somehow
Also gliding with
The quanta
Inside
Colliders

In the air
Presentable
In earth and sea
All the igneous
Layers
Of creation

Riding the rings
And showing where they meet
Between
Well
Galaxies
Connected by comets
As Hermes runners
With
You know
Cosmic messages

We’re still
Trying
To interpret
So that one day
We might message back


Words that Rise

I am alive
So are you
You might be reading on my shoulder
Waiting for the final words
To calculate
And then
More importantly
Go outside to play

Then later on
More words
Inexorable
For you
Inexorable
A readership
A friend
A nemesis
When
Necessary in revision

Or keep it
To yourself
And we’ll discuss
The other things
Inside
Or outside
Should it be
A fall day
Accommodating
Certain kinds
Of ease
Enough
Between us


C L Couch


Photo by NASA on Unsplash 
Jupiter as Seen from the Hubble Space Telescope

0

Salvation Chair


Salvation Chair

Really
Now
And should the Spirit
Come to call
After the dancing
For the sky
After all the lights released
Half
A world on
That’s felt
One’s own half of the world

After ingesting
All petitions
In all the other continents
Even on the
Needful
Melting fields
To the south
And north

Between the poles
It stops
To dwell a while
In my
Clay house
And maybe find a room
For me
In a truly quiet hour
While I give all the rest over
To
Possession
And renewal

At the same time with
All other crises
And the stretched-out needs
So
Casually asked
Sometimes

Please
Sit
Have something
While I work out with you
How to have
My own
On both sides of enigma
That is
Mystery
Of faith
That is
Saved
When given over

C L Couch


Anne Bradstreet, a prominent Puritan poet, employed the “clay house” metaphor in her work. In her poem “As Weary Pilgrim,” she reflects on the impermanence of the physical body and the longing for spiritual rest. Here are some lines from that poem:
     A pilgrim I, on earth, perplext
     wth sinns wth cares and sorrows vext
     By age and paines brought to decay
     and my Clay house mouldring away
     Oh how I long to be at rest
     and soare on high among the blest.
https://www.poetry.com/poem/3075/as-weary-pilgrim,-now-at-rest
(the note before the excerpt by Copilot)


Photo by Asim Hamid on Unsplash

0

inexactitude


inexactitude

1
first full day of summer
the solstice
slides around
though it’s our calendars
you know

and the inexact nature
of the world
as is
and maybe as should be
as
you know
the foundation
of everything

our math is built on pi
our philosophy
inexactitude

uncertainty
plussed or minused
into everything

we cannot count
without
knowing there’s less or more
the rings of everything
aren’t worried
about the x and y and
z axes
shall work
in angling somehow
off other

they work
it works
we work
and that is
all we know
and all we really need to know

2
who came up with this
uncertainty
some might say
the devil
though I think it was
the Lord

everything
a thing
and everything in motion
all the time

we measure
we presume to stop the thing for
numbers
but the thing keeps moving
everything keeps moving

so what can we know
okay
okay
well
maybe enough
for jazz

here is the formula we made
plus or minus jazz

3
the glory
by the way
that jazz is

a syncopated tribute
to creation
in a day
of
twenty-three hours
fifty-six minutes
plus seconds
for change

or the day
of an age
say
the jazz age
or how about
a day
as in the day
of thunder-lizards
or the day
of Arthur
of Morgaine

c l couch


photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

1

Blameless Solstice


Blameless Solstice

Sun
With clouds
And lightning
Animate the forecast map
At noon
And I’m thinking
On line

These are the days
Of our lives
To come
Starting
Tomorrow
While today is
Simply hot
Well
“Steamy”
In the Southern
Or the tropical
Way

That is the grid
For the next week
Or so

We’re sliding
Into summer

So we might
Wonder
What is next
In our
Region
Relative
To the world

C L Couch


Photo by USGS on Unsplash 
Maur Adrar Desert
(we might become a colorful desert, too)


written on the occasion of--well, yes--the heat but also a local town that declared a drought emergency today; what's ironic to me is that the town is set where a wide creek pours into a wide river (always strikes me odd when that happens)


1

Montage


Montage
(well, a little one)



[haiku]

a blossomed morning
so many beautiful things
Juneteenth celebrates



Time Like

An ever-rolling stream
That
If we’re walking
We cannot step in
Twice
The same experience

Same water
But a new thing
Every time
So said
The pre-Socratic
For a thing
To teach

A lesson in
Immutability
And that there is none
While the water
Rolls
And we approach it
For whatever reason
Not for
The same thing
Every time

Change is natural
Therefore
Whether by the
Evolution water
We prepare
To swim
Or hand up our lyres

We might know
And like the health
Of a source
That’s moving
And meaning
Altogether
Change
With unchange

C L Couch


(Heraclitus and a hymn and a psalm and, you know, hopefully some inspiration)



Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash 
Forest River & Waterfall


shall we gather

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑