Earth-Talk
The sun is knocking,
Asking to come in
Can you imagine?
The sun, huge and glorious
And powerful, asking
To come in?
But on this pale-gray day, the Earth
Seems to be withholding
Tiny planet, fending off
The sun
What is just but to give
The smaller thing its due?
It’s here, too, after all
And what is mercy
But to wait upon
Its waiting?
C L Couch
Photo by Fabian Struwe on Unsplash
It Happens to Be Now
It isn’t often to my eyes when
The light is pink outside
Not with drama or ensemble
But an even tone, the sky all its own
And, yes, it’s daybreak
I turned hot water on, and at first there was
Not steam but a film across my vision,
Vague and even
This is the start of an unspecial day
It’s 23 November
Day after JFK, C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley
(many more we cannot name)
Nothing new but its own time
Prepossessing seconds to release
Like dropping jewels from a story-pirate’s chest
Upon the Earth in outside, mortal time
Profundity in kind
Wisdom at the ready for, well,
Yes, anyone
C L Couch
Photo by Max Ostrozhinskiy on Unsplash
What Do You Say, Dear?
Sometimes in weariness we wander
While we stay inside, trying to take in
The world about
How much sense we can make with
What immediate surrounds us
We don’t know,
Certainly
We can open a book of the paper
Or electric kind, and we should
Where do answer lie?
Like asking of the hills to bring our help
Or something in a psalm
We don’t need a tube (that
Kind of lumen, as I understand it)
We can read
We can listen, better
(though we listen to the reading words, I’m sure)
More directly,
We can have an understanding
With all atoms we encounter
We can be grateful
A moment of small noise in which
We utter some
Thanksgiving
And with an attitude re-enter everything
C L Couch
What Do You Say, Dear? is a delightful and wise book by Sesyle Joslin, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash
Lumen
And if there might be something brief
Through which some color, texture pique
Something that says, let’s hope awhile
Let’s take the light
Whate’er we can
Let fire our receptors to
Ignite incumbent senses and
Help those withal
We have our space and time
And time to find inside
And when we can no longer bear
The creature in the garden will return
To make it right
At last
With everything contracted in
First promises
First days
C L Couch
Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash
Driving through the tunnel, the lights alongside, guiding our path beckoned me.
You and Me, Sister
There are all around us
Words, voices, noises all
That tell us how to live
What to buy
How to vote
How to understand the righteous way
To have our way
And somehow please the gods, made
Masks of self-will
And agenda
The presupposed mighty
Who believe this
Heavy understanding
As in labored, rasping breathing
Weighted with the chains of Ebenezer
Leaden steps to its own ruin of
The truth, the peace, the joy
Held captive in
The castle of the rich
Where it gets out as planned,
God is chained or
Does not exist
Whichever muttering in shadows works
For the next parched day
But there are shadows within shadows
Truth in chains
There are prophecies about antitheses
There are always prophecies
The magi before Herod
Nathan before David
Elijah and the attitude of Jezebel
Defeat of those who take and hold
For now
The gold crust of Earth
Annihilation of the profits (this kind,
please note)
In a pit and everything
That has propelled the wrong kind of
Dragon, not the jeweled interest bred in stories
But the beast, the pet, the ruler of rust
And melted riches
There are always prophecies
We need them
They stock our campaign
Give us words for songs
And dimensional conversation
To march us on the plain
Toward pointed everything
The real change that prophecy intrigues
The reason why the thing slouching
Toward Megiddo
Can be mocked, if not ignored
The devil’s own soft points
Paranoia, riled into defeat
We win
C L Couch
Image by Manuela Milani from Pixabay
Feet, Do Your Thing
We have enough to do
It’s good—work a job, earn money
Make a home
Have a way to get around
Have life
I don’t mean to say that it’s enough
For now or for a few
Or for a multitude
There should be more
We know that
Take a breath
Inhale, then remember to exhale
Let something out that’s maybe been kept
Inside too long
Now, something more
Service is good
What we can do, we should
I’ll take an open door, a meal hosted
By a friend
Growth through a colleague
Or a stranger encountered
These are by someone else
By my own hand if not design,
I can listen
By hearing with all senses
I can send a message
To encourage
Like first valentines
For love of those held down
A martyr in a cell
I feel just a little rested
I’m still poor in most things
But I can do
When there’s gas in the car,
Give a ride
Level up the change at the store
As a donation to a cause
No one takes issue with
(or maybe takes, so what)
Take a walk and smile a little to the world
Is that hoke?
I should take my chances
C L Couch
Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash
the title, I keep thinking–I know (now) there is a song with it in the title; but I think I heard it in a cartoon or an old movie
Mischief Intercession
(not my place)
I hope she is okay
I pray she is okay
Like victims from a fire
That was our time together
I bear what I should bear
And should know more
I should not take the lead
Unless it’s time
That is the bearing of our time
Now fluid and porous
Like a dam built by fish
Whose instinct is to do another
I suppose out of desperate
Ignorance, they could simply
Swim into the opening
Thus making something,
Knowing from a spirit
(even zeitgeist)
That something has to change
I should have given more over to
Sacrifice
We both could have followed service
Better than the pronouns
We kept separate
As in a box that will not open
Forget the need for opening to pleasure
And pleasure’s change,
Inspiration
Well, this was a prayer
Still is
I hope she’s okay
I pray she is
C L Couch
Photo by Bryan Garces on Unsplash
Don’t Mind Me
Oh, Christopher
Christophoros
So you’re nothing
Nothing’s good
The mystics would be envious
I don’t mean annihilation
That would be bad
But death to self is something else,
I think
Because you do not go away
As if there were nothing left of you
You are woke into a different place
With people you might know
Some kind of belonging
We might call it a heavenly host
But you are retained as you
You are even loved
Now and you know before
As it may have happened, then
The death to self is prayer
So cleansed and clean
As to have nothing left but righteous intercession
Something to be gained
Such a death to self so that
There is only prayer for others
Disinterest in agenda
But the willingness to bleed some more
If like a transfusion
It might bring some living to another
This is sacrifice
Not immolation but
A gift of love
From which nothing will be returned
A love I do not understand, for now
Or the peace that passes it
C L Couch
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash
A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.
a wintry morning
early in parts for winter
here and say morning
souls are trapped on Earth
not wanting release because
we like the cages
I’ll have Dylan rage
I will fight it ‘til I know
only relent’s left
C L Couch
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Half Moon Bay Golf Club, Yorkeys Knob, Australia
A Crimson Finch has found a nice perch and does not want to share it!
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