For All Souls
(2 November)
Rosemary for remembrance
But it will be in Spain and Mexico
USA and other places, as
Candy shaped into skulls,
Bright-color picnics set out at night
With our dead—and many
Kindred flames of candlelight
Yesterday the living church
Today the predeceased who will
Stay a little closer
Families gather ‘round the stones
De abuelos, tíos, quizás los niños
All whose loss is lessened for a
Time as an altogether family
For the feast
C L Couch
Imagine
I heard the song last night
And now read the story in the morning:
Forty percent of vertebrates gone
From planet Earth,
Sixty-six (the number of books
In the Protestant Bible) by
The middle of our new century
Why do these die?
In part, because they do
And in part because we kill them
There are two ways to feel convicted,
Each way requiring a life
Will we let our world live? Will
We let our charges thrive
Or maybe better yet
Simply leave them be?
We have pushed living
Over the cusp of extinction
Pulling back destructive practices
Under the edge again
Might hurt
But it’s pain we’ve earned,
The cost of killing kingdoms
And the genus
Try feeding creature kinds
More like kindred we respect;
Tend if only for a while
Then we might inspire
Conclusions for a future
Place
And process
C L Couch
“Imagine a world without animals. You’ll soon see how much we need them”
Mid-Atlantic States’ Autumn Afternoon
Soon it’s three o’clock:
My favorite hour at this time
of year,
when daylight starts further
to fall, because it’s set to do so
When stark-yellow transports
will go by
smooth and grumbly under
billow-clouds with cotton faces
deepening
They say, laughing while we
run for porches that have
ceilings,
Enjoy this grey day
Its lack of definition presses
romance through everything
beneath
an amber sun
Bread Alone
A crumb set on a windowsill by a wayward mouse
Seen through the dust, returning to grab up
The part of grain
Clever mouse
Hungry mouse
Field mouse—headed back where it belongs
Leave it alone
It’s an old house
We might need an ally
You want to be in the right place, too
C L Couch
Today’s Pain
My eyes hurt. Parts
are swimming.
Parts are dry. Maybe
with more sleep.
Sigh.
C L Couch
Morning Dark
morning dark
it’s longer now
and night arrives
earlier—the
longer time for
black sky to have
its way
and in equinox-
thinking, this is
just
for we should not
fear the dark,
since there is
dreaming there
C L Couch
Trees
(for an October prompt)
Tolkien liked trees
Robin Hood, too;
Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily,
I imagine,
Providing shelter
And playing fields
For lost boys
I like trees
Two of these peaked
High like towers from
The wide suburban plain
Of the backyard,
Splindly reaching toward
A clouded sky on
A Pittsburgh summer day
There was wind
At night, and upon the
Morning in the yard
One tree had fallen
Large across the lawn,
Tall on the ground
Sibling standing over
As if to demonstrate their
Name,
Weeping willow
For many days
I had climbed into the
Guard now dying,
Onto a lumbered platform
That my father built
That lay square among
Round branches
Inside uprooted, plodding
Blocks
Of grass
First time for me
With something monstrous
So close, so wrong
C L Couch
Psalm 51
(one more song)
Create in me
A clean heart,
O God
And renew
A right spirit
Within me
Cast me not
Away from thy
Presence
And take not
Thy holy spirit
From me
Transliteration
And some remembrance
My favorite part
Of psalms
We number at
One hundred fifty,
Paradox in fame
And intimacy
This are teaching,
Which means
Learning
We need God
For new creation
To point to
Art
That in practice
Becomes science
I need God for more
And cannot
Question merit;
Good work matters
But grace invites
Salvation
The chamber
Of my soul
Has many parts
Open for
Parousia
I don’t know how
Spirit of God
Invests
And infiltrates
But my soul will take
Arriving,
When a spark of you
Is born in me
C L Couch
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