Here, Good Dog—Here, Sport!
(the only pet my mother let my father name)
Thank goodness, people keep dogs
We brought them into
Our caves
They are our responsibility
In turn, they are our sentinels
Our friends
It’s said they can turn wild
So can we
If you’re reading this and you have a dog, then
Thank you
If you are reading and you are a dog,
Then I’d so much like to meet you
C L Couch
Image by martaposemuckel from Pixabay
Universal Export
(story to relate to)
I was involved in an accident
I wasn’t there for
The car was parked, and someone
Drove into it
Drove into other cars as well
I heard the crash, went outside
There were people, soon there were
Flashing lights
Both ends of the block were closed
A frightened person driving plus
Her children there
(all physically unhurt, thank
goodness)
Who wants to press on that,
On them?
If there was a villain, it was
Distraction
And it fled sometime ago
Now we wait and talk and wait
And talk some more
Now all the procedural stuff begins
My car is gone, as in towed away
For anxiety, I contacted friends
And took a pill
It’s morning now, time to call around
Sigh, sigh, sigh
C L Couch
Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash
Keep It Holy
A life set aside
For a spiritual purpose
Wow, that’s enticing
A ritual for morning
For brushing teeth
(I already have one—ritual,
that is)
For going out into the world
Or staying in
Ever mindful of
The senses, the oxygen
It takes to have them remade
By a Spirit
Not unlike the kind invoked
When first people gather
Smoke, bread, shadow
Gray colors, brown
Small brilliances in flowers
All reminders, lessons
Items on a clipboard
Of discipline
A life by candlelight
By words, by work,
By what we do to have enough
For sustenance and charity
But everything
Every breath is holy
Set aside like taxes
Only next to nothing must be
Rendered to Caesar
Life in a cave above the ground
We could have hours of quiet
We could listen
For and as another way
The ordinary molecules
Upended
Changes we can’t see, though
Sometimes there is a bell
There are other signals, too
That this is a new dedication
Joy and energy
Sister, brother
Mother, father
And all sorts of strangers
This kind of world has a chance
Without a way to count
Expanding or diminishing returns
Wealth of a new kind
Everything is new
For being ancient
Every second, every nanosecond
Not measured
But go as a new kind of priceless
An order an accountant shouldn’t know
Unless she join the order, too
God speaking, whispering, crying
We have attuned our molecules
To hear
Our books are turned into
Absorption unrelenting
To catch
As if it’s tossed to catch
The borning cry, the adolescent rage
And grown-up sorrows (any age)
Newly tuned like any instrument
Invested
We’ll live in an endless sabbath
Abbey, monastery
But really I mean a life
We could really try
(chronos left for kairos)
In which there is no little thing
That goes unnoticed
Every mote transformed
Newly and forever sensed
For the effort and results
This takes
Is why
Prayer has led to bleeding
The world conquered by rebuttal
Because the spiritual life so contrary
A crazy rendering of nuclei
That sometimes
Only makers and comakers
Approve
C L Couch
Photo by Evi Radauscher on Unsplash
Microcosmic
(9/14/19)
I didn’t see the micro-moon
Last night
I think it was too small
I think it was bounced around
The points of stars
Like the silver ball
In an arcade machine
A comet might have caught it
With its tail
And shooed it to
Another side of night
Perhaps the Milky Way gave way
To make a berth of its fluidity
For a small moon to rest
Off the path
The moon must rule at night
That is a cosmic dictum
But every now and then
(it takes an apogee)
There is a smaller size
And there is room among the lesser
Lights
A greater sky-democracy
That gets everything up there
To partner up to grace
‘Round and as
All the spheres
It was cloudy haze and haze of clouds
But it was fun to think another night
C L Couch
Image by esudroff from Pixabay
Prayer of the Lame
Dear Lord
I hope I can do this right
What I have left
To live, to give, to try
I doubt I understand humility
But being filled with nothing but myself
Is no fun, either
How many times have saints
Asked to be emptied of themselves
So that they might be filled
With sanctity, with piety
To serve
I’m sure I can’t go that far
Too many times I’ve lost myself
In other ways
And fear to come near the edge
Of that again
I don’t want to make divinity of will
And, you know, I don’t love myself so much
But there is something
(your fault)
In genesis
In being made and trying to figure out
The puzzle, after
The pieces that we have
Without the border, without corners
Believing, though, there is some shape
Some definition
Of both kinds, shape and meaning
Dear Lord
Please let me have this day
And promise of another
I might work nothing out
But maybe heart
And mind and body, as is (as are)
Have meaning in existing
The energy in pushing blood
In cracking synapse in the brain
In what is known
And unknown
Done and not done
Sin and virtue
Understood, worked out
Correctly, with discretion
For a change
Dear Lord
Help us, not
Know it all
Or even much
But to find the joy and peace
That might
You know
Indeed, pass all our understanding
And come back to live with us
Prodigal salvation
Broken heart
Faith in fractures
As I am
As we are
Old song, missing notes
Still sings
C L Couch
Photo by Alev Takil on Unsplash
9/12
The day after
Tolling bells
Half-mast (extra) flags now
Put away
Speeches back in boxes
For the next time
Normal life
The better victory
Goes on
C L Couch
We shot this in our kitchen a couple of years ago. We are always looking for interesting (and fun) ways to shoot our products.
Shot by Stephen Hocking
Photo by Tracey Hocking on Unsplash
Runnymede
(written by hand in the courthouse)
twelve, I think
peers
a jury of my peers
white male
probably I’ll fit
maybe too well
I hope there’s justice
I hope it’s clear
I’m nervous and already bored
there’s a crowd
I don’t like crowds
I have a book
I have this
C L Couch
The Jurors (2015), an art installation at Runnymede sculpted by Hew Locke to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta.
WyrdLight.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41110769
Idyll
I am half-awake
And, I don’t know,
The part that is asleep
Feels fine
As if all the trouble’s muted
For a while
I don’t have to struggle
Nothing is pressing beyond
Finishing a cup of coffee
Will that wake me up?
Typically, it doesn’t
The branches outside barely move
It is bright green
A late-summer day
Looking hot, though I can
Stay inside, indolent’s agenda
Tomorrow is a waiting story
On-deck as in baseball
Or in a breathing box
(the kind with air holes)
I’ll have to be away
It’s supposed to be the warmest
For the week
I have the quiet of today
And leaving tomorrow
Where it waits
‘Til providence and nature open,
As they do
With or without
My willing participation
Simply a kind of attending
Call it breathing
Then it comes
With a kind of noise
Call it dawn or simply
Night’s-ending
And there it is
I nearly forgot
Sign of a headache that
Will not go away
Idyll’s done
With or without detail that
Painting or other art deserves
C L Couch
Vorfrühling (Schäfer mit seiner Herde im Abendlicht), signiert A. Fink, Öl auf Leinwand, 71 x 104 cm
August Fink – http://www.dorotheum.com/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51036637
Trite-Time Relief
It was a gloomy, humid day
Hot outside, no rain
We could stand
A dark and stormy night
C L Couch
Washington Irving, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Madeleine L’Engle, Snoopy
Photo by Andre Benz on Unsplash
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