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What We Will

(x = space)

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What We Will

(6 January)

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I don’t have anything

For you, but

There is this:

There is a story

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It is winter, now;

We have passed Twelfth Night,

The yule log is expiring

In the manor home,

Epiphany will have

Its celebrations;

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Winter, then, will be

Full upon us

In the north;

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And it will be, between

Any festivals, such a

Good time for stories

And storytellers

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Who should be invited

Then blessed on their way

To comfort others in

diverse ways.

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Should there be no tellers

At hand, then we must

Become them—every group

Has a story,

After all;

And if yours has none to tell,

Then write it

(there will be a text

for now, for later on)

And then tell it:

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Hear it, everyone!

In the north, it is

Such a good time for this.

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C L Couch

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Photo by Lance Anderson on Unsplash

Akron, United States

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Nowhere People

(x = space)

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Nowhere People

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I rock sometimes,

Seated cross-legged here

Between bouts of writing;

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It works out my lower back

And keeps me in motion,

Which seems important

In the smaller ways

To do so;

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I might like the rocking chair,

I don’t know;

There is an association

That could be revised:

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Saving the rocking chair for age,

For those still in motion

Not going anywhere

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C L Couch

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Photo by Morgan Vander Hart on Unsplash

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The Arrival

(x = space)

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The Arrival

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My people don’t believe

In me,

And I am sad

And I am vengeful—the

Only thing allowed to be

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I shall find them In their lairs

And look for justice,

Any sign of righteousness

Because

I am all mercy as well

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I stay my hand

And also bring it down

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I’d rather they live in paucity

And peace with Earth

And each other,

Leaving the world no worse,

If not better,

When a generation’s

Done with it

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Creation is renewable

As it is sustainable,

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But I have other children;

Here,

I have placed a point

In time

For an arrival

And the last catastrophes

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I wish they would be good,

I wish they would believe,

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I wish that judgment

Perfect in me

Could be a happy process

When all of us are here

At last

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C L Couch

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Photo by HKTreks on Unsplash

Comet NEOWISE

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Just-So Story

(x = space)

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Just-So Story

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God is like dust upon the floor,

Too easily swept up,

Cast out, forgotten ‘til it

Appears again

And we take it as

Nuisance

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No, it is not God

(bits of God’s creation)

But a metaphor,

Since we so easily ignore something

That is everywhere

So easily ignored

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And move to name detritus,

An inconvenience to

Our just-so lives,

Just so

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 C L Couch

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Rudyard Kipling wrote Just So Stories.  Note from an English teacher.

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photo by Chalaphan Mathong on Unsplash

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Quasi una Fantasia

(x = space)

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Quasi una Fantasia

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More gray skies—

I know the sun is healthier

But the gray doesn’t show

The dust bunnies in

Their warrens, which

Creatures I’ve

Discovered like to roam

The place at night,

Which is why there are

So many new signs

In the morning

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Like gray skies, I’ve come

To like dust bunnies;

They do not eat real carrots,

And the only thing

Like pellets is

More dust upon the floor

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C L Couch

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Photo by Mattia Astorino on Unsplash

Riserva Naturale Torbiere del Sebino d’ Iseo, Corte Franca, Italia

I see you

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Inaugurations

(x = space)

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Inaugurations

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January enters

Like a wet

Dog,

Poor dog

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Winter is

Allowed

But the ground

In PA is

Spring or

Fall swamp-like

Instead with

Additional on the

Way (which

means more

rain)

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Four-year change

Is coming, not

A holiday

I wonder

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But something

In the USA

We do so that

Change

Keeps things

The same

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Not that we

Are the

Exemplar

We believe we are

Or

Should be

To the world

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What do you know?

A real dog is

Barking, below

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Go inside,

Dog,

Go

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Leave certain

Things

Outside to

The oath-owners

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C L Couch

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Go, Dog, Go is a story (about dogs) written by P. D. Eastman.

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Photo by Victoria Palacios on Unsplash

Sequoia National Forest, United States

Glory and wonder here on little old earth. This shot is from a particularly magical hike through the Sequoia National Forest. We were so up high in the mountains that the clouds decided to settle around us and create a mystical fog all around us.

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3 brief poems for the new year

3 brief poems for the new year

(x = space)

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May I Sell You a Machine?

(end of December)

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According to commercials

At this time of year,

We should be losing weight

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Grinding on exercise machines,

Finding our food in a box,

Engaging meditation maybe

Thirty seconds, maybe

Less

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I suppose the box companies

Are doing well

And companies that make

Machines—I wonder

That machines are always doing well

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We lose weight,

They weigh us down

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Contemporarities

(2021)

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God, help us in new years

Whenever they begin

In calendars,

In life

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When someone dies,

When someone comes to life

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Because she or he is born,

Because there is a return

To life

After pain, as she says

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When the formal feeling comes

And something after

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Our Sci-Fi Lives

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Now is the science-fiction time,

Far enough into

The twenty-first century

That we may have some expectations

For reverse magnetism

And anti-gravity

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For cities in the air and mining solely

By machines, enough that humans

Have jobs again

In new alliances

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But we know how to fix it, at least

I hope we do,

The Earth that we have harmed;

And when we go, the missions we take

With us will not harm

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C L Couch

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I was a suburban kid but grew up in or near mining and steel-making country.  And our city fell apart when the industries fell apart.  If they could come back in local and safe ways, I should be relieved and very glad.

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After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –

The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’

And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

. . .

Emily Dickinson

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Photo by Fabrício Severo on Unsplash

Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Bishop Street, The Lough, Cork, Irlanda

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A Domesday Counting

(x = space)

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A Domesday Counting

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It’s a count of calendars:

For some, the year

Has started with Advent

Or the solstice

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There is the Jewish calendar

(look at the cornerstones

of buildings),

The Islamic calendar,

And the Chinese calendar

That will incite fireworks

As well

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There are those who count

The days by weather

And the local seasons

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We’ll watch and listen to

The fireworks in Sydney;

We’ll note the islands

Near Fiji where

The dateline says

The new year starts

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All of our computers will

Tell us that it’s started

Not to mention resolutions

And all the sauerkraut

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Which is to say

The new year is relative;

It is traditional

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C L Couch

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Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Year 2021 Is Coming

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Domesday Book : Britain’s finest treasure | The National …

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk › domesday

Domesday [The Domesday Book] is Britain’s earliest public record. It contains the results of a huge survey of land and landholding commissioned by William I in 1085.

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Remembering 28 December

(x = space)

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Remembering 28 December

(in liturgies)

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Yesterday there was a lesser feast about

The slaughter of the innocents

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Frankly, I don’t know how to bring

It up, the murder of many children or

The killing of one child

Two years old or younger

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How does one speak to that?

How does one do it, in the first place?

The answer is, one doesn’t

But tells soldiers and slaves to do it

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The children are only

Targets, after all, unreal as people

If we never look at them

Or what we commanded

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Being Idumean,

Herod might even have considered this

An act of war against

An enemy Jewish people

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But we are right to say

That it was local genocide,

Even of boys the

Killing of a generation

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Foes from which there would be

No reprisal,

No fighting back would be

Expected

And thus a tactically successful

Maneuver and campaign

Designed by a crazy person who

Had the kind of power

Democracy should slay

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God would address the Herods

Later on:

You don’t really think

Herod and his would

Get away with murderous

Abrogations?

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We cannot count the children;

We do not count them now,

Though so many

Live inside danger

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They are not wood or cardboard—they

Are not shades behind

A chain-link fence or

A craftier, a solid-seeming barrier

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They starve, they bleed,

They cry as a divine signal

To the rest of us

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Listen to them, see to them—in this,

The parents are the world—and

Then we can rightly damn

All Herodian kings

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C L Couch

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Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

Saemangeum-ro, Gunsan-si, South Korea

Solar Eclipse

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Matthew 2:16-18

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Acts 12:20-23

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According to documents and legends, Herod the Great and Herod Agrippa (grandson) both died lingering and painful deaths.

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