clcouch123


how far
(away)

I love you
I heard on jazz radio
several minutes ago
and
not knowing better
I said
I love you
to the air
while I was driving

I know to whom
I said it
and then wondered how much
and then frankly how much
received
as I drove by churches
Sunday morning
which
I was sure
however wrongly
would not accept me

so how far love
how far until we stretch it thin to break
even
though we say infinity

some would say only so far
as duty is not broken
then
watch out

some would say the width and length
of
a cross

which as a metaphor
and truth
might not be fixed

what are the dimensions of grace
anyway
dispensed by God
and not by
us

and not
to leave the question
but
to leave the question I drove on
to
nowhere in particular

c l couch


photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

red and green on tree
late for fall or early Yule
auguring from leaves

c l couch

photo by Chinnu Indrakumar on Unsplash

(leaves are for illustrative purpose, of course—what I mean to get at is that I don’t know the plant or if its leaves change for fall or it’s another process)

camp song

peace
give I to you

not as the world gives

give I to you

well
that’s how I learned it

I recall the high tones of campers
singing
behind the fire
while I and mine were
on the other side

and it was night
and so
we sang across the flames
while
dark
received peripherally
an antiphon

c l couch

(I couldn’t find the song as I searched on line, though I imagine somewhere in cyberspace the song is cited, if not sung)

photo by Josh Campbell on Unsplash

supernal

rainy day
now how about windy
cold
you know

seasonal
autumnal

the coolness of fall in
the MidAtlantic
leaves trying to turn
but
needing the first frost or
really
just before

cool brilliance
cold
fire colors

dragon’s breath on leaves
they fly by at night
autumnal
serpents
breathing gently
(for
a dragon)
keeping the undersides
dark
scattered stars
the only things
not
to see

then to glide away
so we may warm by sight
and
smell the clarity of morning
with trees burning fall’s
consumption
only

and maybe
as
not
too soon
winter’s investment

c l couch

photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

circumference

things
have happened
I don’t know
we’ve talked about some
but
sometimes
closer in
closer in takes over
and the world might still matter
but for a while is encircled
by
loving arms that
must
then
be letting go

c l couch

photo by De an Sun on Unsplash

reply hazy

I don’t how to respond poetically
to what’s at hand

the day is white and pale
approaching colorless

my place was cleaned for mold
left is the mold in me

and it could rain
and it could be cleansing kind of rain

c l couch

photo by Jonas Thijs on Unsplash

quasi-moon

quasi-romance
I suppose
to look on it from Earth

a companion
for
Artemis
love and hunting

in
need of a new horizon from which
to search the sky maybe with
a plan to take the new step
now
and for a while

so to
rescue the Pleaides
from Orion

then perchance to dance
together
freed in a midnight’s new quasi-lunar
glowing

c l couch

(recent discovery made near Earth, Astronomers Say Earth Has a Newly Discovered 'Quasi-Moon,' a Companion That Shares Its Orbit Around the Sun reported in Smithsonian)

that’s entertainment

funny how when
sick
things for entertainment
don’t work

become annoying really
except
I wouldn’t want the crying quiet
either

c l couch

photo by Robert | Visual Diary | Berlin on Unsplash