Lent 3
Now let’s dive in
The water might not be easy
But it’s time to think
Or swim
What is the season for
It’s for faith
But there are long stretches for
Allowance, I believe
For doubt and all kinds of other
Tugging matters
Pulled up the anchor
Drifting around a while
C L Couch
(Pixabay)
Lent 2
I need to slow down an anxious heart
Place it on the page
Start a new movement,
Lento, lento
Love and loss
I just heard those words
Spoken deeply by a woman
Respected deeply
Her low notes offer an easing of
Fast talking
Fast thinking
I have a whole season for everything
Take time
Forget or shelve at least
What’s too fast
Or bring it along, if that can’t be helped
But try to enter as fairly as possible
Maybe there will be a restful leavetaking
C L Couch
<a href=”https://pixabay.com/photos/turtle-slowly-large-871285/”>Image</a> by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/Pixel-mixer-1197643/”>Pixel-mixer</a> on Pixabay
Living Ashes
(6 March 2019)
Ash Wednesday
Day of ash
Start of Lent
A slowing time
As in lento when the music
Slows
Because it must so that the fullness
Is appreciated
Cigar ash
Ash rising from an evening fire
On the hearth inside
Or ‘round a ring in a sponsored place
Where campers meet
To sing
Or tell stories
All of which, like music,
Can lead the pace as well
Ashen face
Missing blood and signs
Of lively living,
Ash that’s left of things
Incinerated
Blasted in a furnace of white heat
‘Til blood is dried, marrow has cooked
In bones
And inorganic things released
Of familiar substance
Until only unringed nuclei
Are left
A mystery for spectroscopy
Livened ash
We are reminded
Adama
We return to earth
But keep in mind what
We are now
All the substance, all the motion
We can own
C L Couch
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA – NASA Satellite Captures New Russian Volcanic Eruption, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51484278
For the first time in 35 years, the Plosky Tolbachik volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula erupted on Nov. 27, 2012, sending clouds of ash to the height of more than 9,800 feet (3,000 meters).
Care Packaging
I want it all again
Not because it wasn’t enough
But because it wasn’t good enough
I want to smell cut grass
Through open lungs
And run down the yard
As night is falling
And the fireflies and children
Stay out to play
Because it’s summer, and there’s time
I want to fix
I want to be less open to the world of men
(as has been said)
To save some from before and later on
To have the pleasures
Keep some in a pocket
Bring them out when
Other things have clouded over
And too much is not clear
I want to be so much better
In roles, in practice
Satisfying expectations
While keeping something of myself
Small belief
Small hope
I can grow well
Find what it is that stalls regret
Laughs and still has modesty
Cries without fear
Loves well or well enough so that
Injuries inside might breathe in open air
C L Couch
Jin Zan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43789378
How to Say It?
God, it’s Monday
That’s not an interjection
Or some kind of epithet
Though God of Mondays would work
Be a working title,
Certainly
It’s simply a morning greeting;
I hope to say tomorrow
With the meaning
(and the morning)
God, it’s Tuesday
C L Couch
By 歌川広重 – 東京都立図書館, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39086057
Morning Glory by Utagawa Hiroshige, 1866 (Japanese Woodblock print)
Paean
I don’t know what time it is
I mean, it’s mid-morning
Not in an hour of
Dramatic dark or anything
The sky outside’s a wash, in fact
Enough light for movement,
Nothing added
But I have slept, at last
And feel the thankful fullness
That comes and lives inside
For a while,
When the right kind of unconsciousness
Has happened over hours
There are images of nature on TV
Some kind of early-winter story
In March, I can afford
To let it be romantic
All the layers
That they wear
And that nature provides
(later on I look;
it’s ten fifty-nine)
C L Couch
Photo by Jaanus Jagomägi on Unsplash
Blush
The flower is old
Nothing untoward happened
The plant from which the flower droops
Is green and brown and healthy
Seeing into a dappled sky
The pink is down
There are marks and spots
Peer fuchsias don’t look so well, either
It happens, doesn’t it
Little more to say
As day drops toward night
There might be even less tomorrow
Nearby I think there is a bud-in-waiting
To release
Youth into the air
Is there a metaphor—well, there
Really is a flower
I’ve seen it every day for two weeks now
And some
Sure
A figure for something else
Passage of time
Inexorable results
Everything we gain
Bright then slowly fading
I think you can take us through the rest
C L Couch
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Paintings from my [Spiske’s] thirteen year old nephew. Have a look: http://felixspiske.com.
The Cost of Velocity
Wind is all around
Thanks to a machine
I’ll take it
Because sometimes if
We’re lucky, this
Is what we get
Maybe a mountain top would improve
Sensation
But like organic food, so-called
The fashion of the moment
Trips and climbs can’t be
Afforded
Time and money
Abrogated in favor of, you know,
Food (of any kind)
With the need to stay in place
C L Couch
Photo by Amanda Sandlin on Unsplash
in the neighborhood
in the neighborhood of make-believe
it’s always a beautiful day
blue, sunlit (spotlit), houses even
trolley rolls making celestina music
it could not be otherwise, since
it’s make-believe, and we would imagine
only ever placid scenes, i guess
the studio was in pittsburgh, home of
contrary weather, snow, ice, deep
temperatures cold or hot
and much is changeable throughout
the day, though i don’t think this means
dissembling—
after all,
we make this up
for and by our host, the
peaceful man
i might wish for different days,
something cloudy for a change
maybe an unobtrusive rainfall or the
kind of snow just right for angels and
snowpeople or the kind of hot that takes
us joyfully to swimming pools
or inside icecream shops
this would make my make-believe, i guess
different skies for different days
without destruction caused
by anything, and that
would be made-up, indeed
eschewing tempests of reality
taking only friendly patterned skies with us to
meet the king of superstitious days
c l couch
TARS631, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20684319
Linie 43, Wien
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