(x = space)
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A Letter Came from Ephesus
(1 Corinthians 1:3)
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Grace
Hopes and maybe wishes
The visiting
And writing evangelist
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We can ask
Any, all
And sometimes ask aright
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C L Couch
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Photo by Mihai Moisa on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Cenobite
(last ice age or next one)
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I need food
I need drink
That’s primal
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Since the world has iced over,
I have nearly nothing now
She should have told the hermits
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I haven’t seen siblings for days
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We always pray
But without tools
And a bigger fire,
We shall dry like
Animal meat, which is
All we’ll leave behind
Surrounded by charcoaled pages
As a testament
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What shall I leave as last words?
That it was too thick,
That I could not break through?
That the storm ruined my fire,
Even inside the cave?
x
That I still believe?
That my supplication
Is to receive my soul?
x
I do believe
Yet wish I had a follower,
Someone come from town
To bring me coals and kindling,
Water and a pike whose metal tip
Could break through ice
To running water far below
Though I haven’t heard it
Seems for an age
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I might be addled
Or unfaithful,
But I could go for bread and
Cheese as well and wine,
Though I’ve tried to make the
Bitter ale I have last for a while
(nearly gone, now)
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And candlelight
I miss candlelight
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My head hurts,
My body weakens
I don’t know if I’ll die
In night or day
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It’s hard to tell
Anymore
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C L Couch
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Photo by Shannon McInnes on Unsplash
On an off chance we found ourselves needing to drive from Inuvik to Tuktoyuktuk, Northwest Territories, Canada, which was only accessible by ice road at the time. It took us about three hours driving on the ice to reach Tuktoyuktuk, which sits on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. This is what you see when you step out and look down. Taken during the last weeks of the ice road before it permanently closed. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-highway-challenges-1.4398726
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There was an ice age in the Middle Ages. The next one might be caused by global warming.
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(x = space)
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Clusters
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I sigh and sip
the morning is progressing
I have an artificial breeze
a measure for tinnitus
while outside, the tarn effect
persists
another day in more or less
a string of days
x
I’m clustering my thoughts
until one group of them take over
travels on its own and further
a thesis for a theme
process and product
you know
x
and hopefully approve
because I’ll be doing this tomorrow
until the cows come home
or other herded things
within which are groups of one
like thoughts
there you are in your thinking
hi
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C L Couch
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Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash
Love Letters
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(x = space)
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Neighborly
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I’ve just read a story
About a neighbor,
No one I know,
Living in Florida
(I’m in Pennsylvania);
He was accosted
Just the other night;
Someone stood outside
His door, trying to
Bash it in; he broke
The door but did not get
Inside; the neighbor
Had a gun but did not
Want to use it, and
He didn’t; well, 911 was
Called, and here’s
The shameful part—police
Came and waited
Some distance away;
They didn’t get involved
Until the perpetrator
Came up to them,
Which seems to me
Lucky and convenient
Law enforcement;
x
As you can imagine,
An official line is
Spun from the department
While the incident
Is under investigation;
My neighbor and his
Neighbors now
Live knowing nothing
Happened that was
Helpful, not by the
Police; and the first
Person, my neighbor
(I do not know him)
Must was his dog
While keeping pocketed
His gun, should inaction
Require shooting
On his part
The next time
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C L Couch
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‘Sheriff, hurry up please.’ Disabled man battles intruder as cops wait down the street
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Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash
Spotted
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(x = space)
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Be Serious
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I should say something about God,
because I like God
though I wonder how God likes me.
x
Love and like,
like the basis
For a friendship.
And Jesus is our friend,
a revelation given when they met
for supper one last time.
x
So if Jesus likes me,
which has been the implication
then somehow, in some way
I must be likable.
x
I know God is all-giving
and all patience
with everything that’s perfect,
and my regard hardly necessary.
x
And I suppose
friendship must be doctrine
in this tradition, anyway,
though we switch it to indifference
when we think we might,
x
when we want to forget
until outside the booth
that God was there
in everything,
made complicit by us followers.
x
We are reverse claustrophobes
on Earth—we want to tunnel in
where we might take the rocks
and build small tyrannies,
x
which is not friendly action,
though if God is removed
by our convenience, how easily
each other?
x
Friendship with God,
a treat by Christian doctrine, I
suppose,
while others don’t forget
the awesomeness of God
and that awe means fear;
x
we could stand some friendly fear,
for it is God who loves
and calls us loves even from
prophets and lawgivers.
x
Jesus as our pal?
Our buddy at the bar?
It’s fun to think that way
(I think so),
x
though Jesus of creation
and of Sinai,
of Golgotha and victory
in hell—how trivially
is made up by us;
x
but God is always God
who cries, who creates,
who sacrifices—maybe, then,
deserving of
an attitude of more.
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C L Couch
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(x = space)
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Invitation from Earth and Sky
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Briefly then,
There are good things
On the earth
And inside sky
And inside far below
We can ask for
Closeness to good things,
And we should:
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For good warmth
From the sky,
Good feeling in our bodies,
Good reason for
Decision-making
x
The substance of the
Asking might be
Prayer of a kind of
Cosmic negotiating
For agnostics
x
Either way
Or with simpler hope,
We can let goodness
Have its way
With core and crust
And breathy atmosphere
x
Inhale, exhale—
Walk to stretch things out
x
Extend our fingers,
Reach out with our palms,
And turn our wrists
x
The cosmos will
Appreciate our reaching out
So and more so
Would the mortals
And the ineffable
x
Let all mortal flesh keep silent
And in fear and trembling stand
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Each year there is an advent
And most days,
Our response invited
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Our planet awaits
As does everything beyond
The sky that our shiny satellites
Detect, now draw from
For extraterrestrial
(extra-lunar)
Samples
x
The maker awaits
Here and there as well,
Inviting us inside
Community, one by one
And altogether
To believe
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash
Strong wind, frost and rays of sunlight created this wonderful pattern on my windshield.
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“Let All Mortal Flesh” is an old hymn out of the Christian tradition.
A newer hymn, “Earth and All Stars,” also comes to mind.
x
(x = space)
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Good One
(in pandemic time)
x
Watch the game
Through the phone
Or tablet
Or computer
x
Eat with the group you know
And keep it small
A family parameter is fine
If not the number that
You’re used to
x
Eat
Laugh
Play games
Clean up
x
Pretty good, overall
Thanksgiving Day
Reborn in the USA
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C L Couch
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Photo by Anastasiya Romanova on Unsplash
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(x = space)
x
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Chocolate Milk
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I used to like
To mix in Nestle’s Quik
Sold by a rabbit
x
It was powder then,
And I was not good
With the result
x
Little globs of wet
Powder on the surface
Of the milk
x
But I liked the process,
Spinning the Quik around
Making a maelstrom
In the center of it all
x
I don’t know if
I had been in the southern world
Would I have stirred it
The other way
x
I’m drinking coffee
From a glass just now
(it’s customized),
And everything is smoother
x
I’m grown up
x
But the stirring
Just this morning
Reminded me of
Turning galaxies
In my child’s glass
Of milk and Nestle’s Quik
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C L Couch
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Photo by Arnaud Mariat on Unsplash
Far away Andromeda galaxy, or M31, in deep space.
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(x = space)
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Reading Lists
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Adrienne Rich
Wrote about Aunt Jennifer’s
Rings and tigers on screens
And diving into a wreck
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These were the poems
We interns were assigned
To read and teach,
And that was all right
x
But reading on one’s own
With no one’s rubric but
One’s own
Is so much better;
I’m sure we were supposed
To instill some kind of
Critical process regarding
Life and reading in it
x
But I’m not sure
How well that worked,
What kind of processes
We might have instilled,
What seeds grown,
What personal
Allegiances to one’s own
Mind and heart
x
So was a new generation of
New readers of poetry
Begun? Has it flourished?
Are they among the ones who
Turn to poetry when there’s
A tragedy?
x
(read up how we
took to verse after the
Towers fell)
x
I like Rich, though that
Would not be enough
In that we were serving
A learning process
x
It was a small, state school;
I never heard from anyone
Again, though nothing and
No one is due me
x
A state away and many
Years, I wish us well
And to take up small books
Of miracles from time to time;
I do this, Mary Oliver’s
Most recently
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C L Couch
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Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
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