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to readers, then a poem

I hope it is a holiday of blessings for you, regardless of tradition or having no tradition.  It’s a time when at least we speak to peace on Earth, which means more people think about it, if only in reaction.  And reactive thought can realized in action.

I’m still dealing with new pain, and I hardly sleep at night (from old pain and the new).  I’m sorry, this makes me less communicative than I’d so much like to be.  I’m trying some new medication.  Maybe that will provide enough amelioration.

I wish and pray for you a Merry Christmas, leading to the start of what will be a Happy New Year.

Christopher

 

Let Earth

(end of Advent, Christmas Eve or Christmas day, or, you know, anytime)

 

And where is joy?

It’s here

 

Depending on your mood

Or how you’re treated

How you treat someone else

You may not see it

The wrong ones will not pay attention

The ones who are wronged will

Because they must

It often goes this way

With wisdom to

Make a choice,

A pledge to difference

 

If you can,

In all moods choose joy

If you can’t, maybe joy will find you

If not, we’ll have to wait

Endure

‘Til there is allowance

And recourse

 

Sorry if that’s hollow

Everything cannot be fixed

In a day

A year

And not a moment

But where is joy?

It’s here

If within opacity like crystals in

The tube of a kaleidoscope

But made of a magic kind of gem that

Someday must crash through

 

Into release

A new promise of day

Without involvement of the persecutor

With unbound chances

To live openly and well

 

A day of birth

Such as this one

 

C L Couch

 

Larisa-K / 471 images

https://pixabay.com/en/winter-patterns-freezes-design-20135/

 

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As We Are, No Other

As We Are, No Other

(Christmas Eve, anytime)

 

This is a good surprise

We are invited to a dance

And we don’t have to know

Anything about steps or rhythm

Or the key of the orchestra

 

It’s a party, too

All we have to do to respond

Is see the card

In leaves or

Hear the invitation in the branches’

Song to sky

 

It’s for a birthday, yes

Don’t worry about timing

The child knows of better things

And will manage precision for you

 

We have this chance

Will it come again?

Yes, I think so

But we have it

Why not take part now?

 

Mister Dickens claimed

A few pounds make us happy

So Fezziwig will close the shop

And take the silent cost

In that

And pay for decorations, too

 

We might have to be our own accountants

White elephants might attend

(maybe black cats

zebras to negotiate)

There might be stone soup for supper

Served in lucky pots

Hey, but it’s a party

 

And if we own nothing

All the better for arriving

What do newborns have,

And how welcome are they?

 

It’s a party without consequences,

Because we will behave

Enjoying the relief of good, clean fun,

Everyone welcome

 

The birds will sing

If we don’t want to

And sing, anyway

Nature speaks in volumes

It’s miracle

We could provide the miracle in

Listening

 

Enjoy it all

Bring what you have

Or nothing

Remembering that at this kind of

Festival,

We are the gifts

 

C L Couch

 

 

note

White elephant is a metaphor from the USA and Britain, based on Asian custom (with real elephants).

 

cocoparisienne / 2607 images

https://pixabay.com/en/elephant-skin-elephant-245071/

 

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All at Once Everywhere

All at Once Everywhere

(for Christmas day, anytime)

 

It’s a holiday everywhere

Except where it’s not

Sometimes in some places that

Is normal

Some places not so much

 

Where there is suffering

Where there is illness without comfort

Where there is nothing but alone

 

And, you know,

Christ came for these

An infant will grow up into infinity

We will treat him horribly

He will return, because he loves us

More than that

He is here

He is with us, now

And all the angels

With the saints

That’s us

 

C L Couch

 

 

suesnyder722 / 8 images

https://pixabay.com/en/frost-winter-morning-snow-season-633826/

 

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Agapāte

Agapāte

 

Yesterday was a pretty day, you know

I took a step outside and breathed

The air was warm and cool and good

My neighbor passed by,

And we talked about the start of winter,

Which might have been at that moment

It could stay this way, we posited

With no power over seasons

 

In the south, I know it’s summer

We might think that’s wrongway

 

From there, we are the backward time

Turvy-topsy, as it were

I hope it’s a good summer

I hope we have a decent winter

In all the midland places

And extremes

I have no idea what we deserve

Thank goodness better love

Doesn’t count that way

 

C L Couch

 

 

Wild0ne / 269 images

https://pixabay.com/en/drop-wet-h2o-icicle-clean-cold-3065629/

 

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Do We Know

Do We Know

(Advent, anyone’s time this time of year)

 

I’m up early for the solstice

Don’t mean to be

Insomnia (tinnitus)

But there are those for whom

It’s important to be ready

The Earth will lean the other way

And in the north it will be cold

But days will be creeping longer

Into spring

We’ll have winter first

It starts today

Things juxtapose

Solstice (winter’s own)

Saturnalia

Birth of Mithra

And a few more days ‘til Christmas

Sometime between now and then

Depending on the lore

It’s New Year’s

 

Were these competing claims

To take these days into one’s own

A hut, a tent, a town

A castle, or an empire

And who wants them now

No one except those who think they should

Own time in the way that no one gets to

 

What we have is mishmash

I have a cousin who has her birthday on

The twenty-fifth

 

Thanksgiving

End of term

A press of selling and of buying

Saint Nicholas, Santa Lucia

Christkindl

And Druids, styled or otherwise, will

Light bonfires against the

Darkness toward a

Surrogate promise

Of good seasons

 

All the festivals in my ignorance

I don’t know of

All to say

Something’s coming

Someone

Do you have a name

I think I do

 

C L Couch

 

 

“The Giant Sundial of Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India, also known as the Samrat Yantra (The Supreme Instrument), stands 27m tall. Its shadow moves visibly at 1 mm per second, or roughly a hand’s breadth (6 cm) every minute.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sundials

 

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The Skiff

The Skiff

(Advent, anytime)

 

It’s the twentieth

Now we count for real

 

Will we have peace—

Will Bethlehem be accessible

This year

 

Peace in the heart

Might be all that’s left

Sometimes it must feel that way

And, honestly, it’s a good place

To start

 

Accent on the time

To find the quiet

Or stop the world another way

Pause it now and then

 

Five days

For remembrance

Make it our own liturgy of

Supplication

Over whatever waters we might have,

Still or stormy

 

Reaching for, and as,

A beacon through the mist

That’s joy

 

C L Couch

 

 

By laszlo-photo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/110887318/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5948809

In the early morning, a fishing skiff remains docked on the waters of Santa Marta Bai near Soto, Curacao (Netherland Antilles).

 

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Advent at 1806 President Drive

Advent at 1806 President Drive

(Advent, maybe anytime)

 

I don’t know the count

Of Advent, anymore

I’m tired

And the days don’t match the dates

This is why we have the calendars,

I guess

Except they count out December

Their Advents always twenty-five

 

Ours had images

Years later I found out about the chocolate

But, you know,

I rather like the pictures

(there was chocolate, anyway

and cookies, cookies, cookies)

The last portrait was Santa

In a kind of glory of arrival

And within the dates somewhere

There was the holy family

 

Hey, we got these at the mall

They taught us anticipation

Maybe not well

(considering the clientele)

But with persistence

 

Each day was in a tiny box

With perforated shutters

I think the five of us took turns

In trying to pierce

And leave the day intact

 

Hard for impatience

The season’s and the child’s

But we made it

Our little house inside

The bigger house,

Our fortunes read each day

For Christmas

Yes, it was suburban

There were snow days, too

Chains on the tires of the family car

Fluffed, cottony bunting

On which my mother placed

Plastic sleigh, plastic reindeer, plastic Santa

I remember these fondly

All atop

The console of

Our first color television

 

Oh, my

 

C L Couch

 

 

Gellinger / 3272 images

https://pixabay.com/en/advent-calendar-christmas-2941998/

 

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Night in a Small Town in Western Asia

Night in a Small Town in Western Asia

(Advent, anytime)

 

We think of Jesus born at night

Though he might have happened

Any time of day

But we carry into our services

The scene of nighttime

With the shepherds

 

It’s good

It is romantic

And nearly always it is quiet

As the time of birth is recalled, near

 

We pray

We sing

We watch the candles in the room

And, if a flame is passed,

For hair that might be singed

 

In the afternoon inside the stable

Before angels appear

Declaring peace

With a call for good will,

 

The parents must be tired

Mary must recover

Their shelter is so rude,

Would they welcome visitors?

 

Maybe the shepherds could

Be all right

They are simpler, frankly most likely unrefined

More importantly, they have

Traversed in fear and

Aspect of wonder

 

I recall the gifts from shepherds

In the mystery play

Have a bob of cherries

Offers one of them

To the child who is a savior

Who says they don’t know

The true nature of majesty?

 

Then the sky is unveiled, and angels turn

Like diamonds in a jeweler’s light

 

coda

 

Isn’t there something that happens to us

Sometimes

That puts the rest into perspective

If only briefly?

 

For a moment, the created universe made sense

It had been fashioned for perfection

For the joy of seasons

Provision unrelenting

Delight in foraging each day

For new phenomena to complete the senses

 

In this night,

It was returned

A promise announced in the sky

An old one, a new one

Everything at first and last as it should be

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Robert Stinnett from Boonville, MO, USA – Small town Friday night, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69141495

 

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Something for Tomorrow

Something for Tomorrow

 

Some things are pithy

Some things are brazen

Some things are refined

Some wisdom is succinct

(though philosophy is not)

 

Don’t cry into your beer

Unless you want the taste;

Spitting into the wind

(as Croce advises)

Has the same problem with

A taste of something awry

(and maybe disgusting)

 

Love as if it were tomorrow

A gift set on your step today;

Find the joy,

If any joy be had

 

Endurance, if that’s all there is to have

Time is a possibility

(and love always a reminder)

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://pxhere.com/en/photo/789929

CC Public Domain

 

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