Search

clcouch123

I talk you talk we'll talk

Open Search
Category

Uncategorized

A Now That Must Also Look Ahead

A Now That Must Also Look Ahead

 

It’s Tuesday

It’s a nuthin’ day

A sick day

Among sick days

The novelty’s worn off

Some learning’s needed

With the cooking

And the cleaning

The boxing

(of both kinds)

All the games that

Walls and cyber-walls allow

Thank goodness, we can

Look outside and go there

 

There’s real talking, too

In many ways

A face to face

That’s a comfort

And we learn from this

A different kind

Of schooling, maybe

There are books

Paper and pencil, too

Or let them be totems for

Pens or the electron kind,

What it all might represent

The faces

All the forms

 

We can through this, now

Until the angel passes

Our own kind of rite

The Jewish own so well

 

Singing for pass-over

Blood upon the lintel

Chair for the prophet, should

The prophet come to call

Food, some of it with bitter herbs

But everything we need

For the journey

Into such desert and

At last

A homeland

 

The Passover is family

Each tradition has its form

And if we have none,

What better time than pandemic’s

For making something new?

For the world needs cleaning

Not a purging

But a dusting off

Soap and water

Disinfectant for the worst

While we wait

Research

And wait

With everything that passes over

 

Having something of the new

Inside,

Maybe inexorably, ineffably

Once shared,

New ritual

Based on care for what we’ve learned

Of who we’ve been

And who we are

Again and for the first time

 

As for death and mourning,

Each tradition knows that well

And those without

However we might feel

I don’t know how to count

While others do

Remember, in the future,

It was this kind of plague

I might not be here

Or another witness

Closer and more qualified

You’ll have to have a story

Back to learning, again

Sad lessons

And tragic

And a void

We learn this other kind of life

Lived through emptiness

It is time for a wake, the Irish say

(who also know bread

and bitter herbs for sin and hope,

Irish Jews more so)

Though this party if too big

Too many coffins to line up

Along the bar

What the dead drink

Will do nothing for a tab

Only take coins in readiness for

Ferry pilots

Announced by banshees

 

These groups I know a little of

You have your own

And stories

Set them down and tell them

Try not to worry about variants

They happen

There is a narrative here

Part of the story of the Earth

If we tell it well,

The Earth might weep

For us

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David T on Unsplash

Serifos, Greece

 

Holey Week 3

 

0

One More

One More

 

Some might say

Since we are ash

At the end, then

Let us burn now

 

They are wrong

Enough goes up

In flame, not the

Good kind, either

Not the sun

That through the

Ozone give us

Life, that lights up

The moon for our

Remembrance

 

The flame that

Takes, we understand

As Pogo says, this

Enemy is us

 

And yet the comic

Character is funny;

My dad read him

Later quoted him

Year in, year out

 

And he is right:

We know the enemy,

And it is funny

Laughter, sardonic,

Otherwise, does

Drive the devil

Mad, so much so

There’s a rule,

No jokes in hell

 

So breathe and

Do not breathe for

Burning—there

Is more water,

Sometimes with a

Kick, always more

Until the barkeep

Calls last call,

 

There having been

Enough, even if

We are left, human

Will in strange

Partnership with

Eternity, wanting

While we’re here

One more

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Chronis Yan on Unsplash

 

“We have met the enemy and he is us” is a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)#%22We_have_met_the_enemy_and_he_is_us.%22

 

Holey Week 2

 

1

We’ll Burn the Palms for Next Year’s Ash

We’ll Burn the Palms for Next Year’s Ash

 

Today is Palm Sunday.  I recall this because I saw,

just now, an image with two pieces of wood, tied and

at an angle.  I suppose many are celebrating—feasting,

in fact, since it is the end of Lent—the way I am but

with honest hearts.

 

Lent is done, although the days of ash continue.  Nothing

new for planet Earth and the people of it.  What do we

know of ash but that it’s final in remembrance?

We might take the stuff and try to rework it, but what it means

remains the same.  We are of ash.  We’ve tasted it.

 

We try to contain it, though it’s mischievous in

blowing around.  Where does that wind come from?

“Dust in the wind.” “Turn, turn, turn.”  Every generation asks

the question, needs an answer, doesn’t get one.

There is ash.  It’s everywhere.  We think it’s dust, though we’ll never

clear it out.  We can’t.  As I say with all the singers,

 

it is us.  We are ash.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Niklas Tidbury on Unsplash

This was a picture I took just for fun. One of those “that would look cool”-moments. I only realised the contrast between the new, fresh, ready-to-burn wood and the spent ashes of a campfire, like the wood was ready to meet its maker. Kinda sad actually.

 

This begins a week-long devotional, “Holey Week.”  The title is intentionally spelled.

 

6

Modern Times

Modern Times

 

We’re wearing down

The machine is tired of its gears

And certain teeth are broken

Threatening the sprockets

We’re not talking factories

They can belch forever,

So it seems

It’s our industry that’s on the line

The kind that makes relationships

With flesh and with metal

That makes our efforts viable

 

It takes fuel, cereal in the morning

Tea in the afternoon

Sympathy for sibling feelings

Openness for a surprise

Should evening come

With newness in the night

 

It isn’t entropy, just yet

We still have flesh

And boundaries

The universe isn’t done with us

It expands but is so far from

Dissolution

 

Find a reason, then

To keep it going,

The cosmos for a day

With our place inside

 

C L Couch

 

 

Modern Times is a 1936 American silent comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world.

(Wikipedia)

 

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

 

 

0

Crazy Boy

Crazy Boy

(get cool)

 

Cattails

One word

Cat tails

Two words

When referring to the actual

Cat’s tail

Don’t pull at it

Cattails might not hit back

Cats with tails do

They should

 

That’s as much advice

As I have for you

My head hurts

And my nose

Yippee-allergens

I know they could be the other thing

I’m hot from moving things around

And I wish I had all my pills

In this uncertain time

 

There’s sun today

I hear the virus doesn’t like the sun

If it had preferences

But also doesn’t like cool weather

So my MidAtlantic spring might be

Salubrious for a time

 

Cool, sunny days?

I could wish them ‘round the world

For health’s sake

Light for buoyancy

Of skin and spirit

Enough cold, not too much,

To relax our ninety-eight degrees or so

Inside

 

C L Couch

 

 

recently, I read about the sun and about cold air in two different places where I think crazy people do not write or otherwise contribute

I am not a doctor and don’t play one on television

 

“Cool” by Leonard Bernstein

 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Fenton, United States

 

3

This Is Our Story

This Is Our Story

 

Finally, there’s wind

The static air can move at last

It could be a carrier

Or a cleansing thing

But with sunshine christening

We’re hopeful it’s the latter

We need good days

 

And how idle does that sound

Imagining the waiting rooms

The wards, the angled beds

All the suffering from symptoms

It is a ministry of comfort

Nothing more though that is great

For now

And perilous

 

The problem with the anodyne

Is that it’s ancient hope

And little more

There is no easy cure

And for now there is not an uneasy one

Our prayers and thoughts

Seem not enough

Not to mention less than nothing from

Ones who utter them through angry

Or indifferent mouths

 

Against instead the real need

Some liquid in a tube

Delivered by a needle, disassembling

The cohorts of the virus

Well, we can think and pray for this

And these

With others or the silence

Of our closets

Asking to bless

All workers who pursue the

Necessary, healing good

 

There seems little else to say

No other topic pressing

It is a time of plague

Optimism notwithstanding

On all our houses

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Tom Rumble on Unsplash

Melbourne, Australia

The light was fading as I was flying the Mavic back from another shoot and the symmetry of these streets caught my eye. Love me some long afternoon shadows.

 

10

And Can It Be

And Can It Be

 

And can it be

That on a day when the sun

Shines somewhere behind clouds

Basking indifferently above horizons

That the industrious

And inventive

Will find a way

So that, as she says,

All shall be well

 

The hazelnut she sees as the world

Will crack, the softness inside

Exuding into earth

To make the world anew

Two parts come together, then

 

Nature and ourselves

Nature and nature

We could be allies

We could protect each other

Let air

And ground,

Let blue and green,

Let wildness and cultivation be

 

Admit mistakes on all affected sides

Find solutions that

Don’t kill but use the planet well,

First things first

But never only

I wish it could be a simple song

But the harmony must be

Complex,

Composition worked out carefully

Remembering to consult

With the conductor

 

It is a vision

That can happen

She saw this

The touchstones matter

We can find our own

Use our words

Apply our talents well

So that all, as she ways,

Shall be well

 

And can it be

A healthy alliance with the cosmos

And productive

I believe you know

It must be

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

 

3

Consider Morning

Consider Morning

 

Through closed eyes

There is a day unfolding

The sky is gray, turning pale blue

Maybe the misty parts will

Burn off

The street is dry

 

Opening the eyes

Brings out

A different contemplation

Now objects are seen

In pale light and shadow

Lights left on, under shades

Burnish everything

That is illuminated

 

There is burping from

The coffeemaker, while bread sits out

For the toaster

In the world that strangely has no time

For now, whenever these are served

As much as anything

More than clocks

Begins the day

 

It’s real, it’s not

It’s what there is

Uncertain muscles stretch

Brain cells don’t know yet

Which way to go

Feeling this in modern times when

The world has gone to war

The anxiety is different now

Because the enemy is inside

Not in conspiracy but

Atomic fact

With atoms making molecules and cells

With certain ones, too many, at

War with each other

 

These are the trenches

And the foxholes, now

 

There are those, bravely

On the front line of defense

First responding, second following through

With finding beds and

Other care

Third, treating symptoms where there is

No cure but creative treatment

With logistics

The next line, also at risk,

Who must be brave

Are those who fight the war at home, who

Hold together, maybe where there

Is no thread beyond connection

 

There is a layer in-between

Call it the community

That tries to stem the hoarding,

Who in company

And companies

Makes supplies to go up those lines,

Like rolling bandages

In past time

Maybe rolling them, too, just now

 

Then there are those who bunker-hide,

Meaning beyond reason, who

Make statements from the back

As if

It were the front

Who’ve never read “The Masque”

Or, reading it, forget

The lesson that, like fog inside a city,

Anyone or everyone might

Be touched by this,

Which means all are connected

 

Mere bellicosity never having won

A day much less the cause

 

Love will win with reason,

As it always does

Every time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Rathmannsdorf, Saxony, Germany

spruce trees in heavy fog

 

3

Benevolence in Apocalypse

Benevolence in Apocalypse

(4 parts)

 

1

 

God,

I wish you’d take us out of this

The way you took us out of Eden

Bring us back

But all of us, please

No one on the world’s side of the gate

Except maybe so many angels

Restoring everything

To where it was

No, where it will be

 

2

 

Maybe it happens every age

A garden and a promise of plenty

And forever,

Then we ruin it

Because will is more important than

Whole people

Eden is closed off again

The angel with the flaming sword returns

While we are exiled

On the other side

‘Til in the next era, Eden is offered yet again

While human discretion

With all good and bad proclivities

Cannot work it out

Especially in numbers

We are cast out again

 

3

 

Comes an age, there must

When human will

Becomes a complement, at last

We understand we have a place

It is not owning everything,

Which is too jarring on creation

And creation will,

As it does,

Push back

But we knew we are a part,

It is sufficient, and there’s always room

To have what we should have

And to grow

Throughout the age so that

There is no need for the next one

All will not burn in fire

Or die upon the ice

We will have instead

The drama of a fitting universe

With enough unknown to hold us

Wrapped-up wondering inside

 

4

 

And should there still be

Curiosities, even evil, out there

Should we be surprised?

There was a war in heaven, after all

Maybe it will not have been worked out

Everywhere we go

Meaning pre-heaven we will have

Important things to do

Discoveries to make

Victims to rescue

Cosmos, maybe cosmoses, to save

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by JR Korpa on Unsplash

scratching the sky

 

3

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑