All the Green Hours
It’s the witch hour
The day after Saint Pat’s
Though
The ministry of saints goes on
Brigid might be busy
Too
Being the saint
And also something of
Imbolc
The supernal spirit of the land
C L Couch
(for Saint Patrick’s Day late)
Photo by Greg Willson on Unsplash
The Body Practical
The human body
Is impractical
I mean
It’s working well enough
Until it isn’t
But what we really need
In addition to nominal
Health
Is an option for gills
That fold away
Until we need them
And we need
Wings
That keep
And when unfurled
Remind us as we fly
That God favors
Us
In making us
And we
At the very least
Owe the favor in return
While we are soaring
And at other
Times
Plunging
Also with delight
Into the depths
C L Couch
Photo by ibuki Tsubo on Unsplash
Long Earth
Thinking
About day and night
In the spring surprise of
Noting
Blue light persisting
Layered
And
Dissolving in to dark
And yet the longer time
As Earth considers turning
Back
Leaning to favor
Days of planting in the northern
Half
While the southern part
Has winter
A cycle of
Waking
Hibernation
Still for a billion years
Two billions or so
Until a final pressing
To go away
To land upon another world
With the surprise
Discovery
Of its own planetary cycles
And its seasons become
Our own
C L Couch
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
two fresh-baked works from ridiculous to personally at least sort-of maybe/maybe not sublime
Ides of March Eve
(or Pie with a Protractor)
3.14
Forget the year
Pi Day
Have some pie
A tasty metaphor
The circumference of
Which
Requires pi
To be determined
All our work in circles
Determined by a number
A function
That’s unsolvable
And yet
We build our arches
We have all our round things
The math might be frustrated
And sorry to
Computers
But our stone tools
Might have worked just fine
Without it
Without pi
Though it’s Pi Day
So let’s have a slice
That has a
Radius
With somehow
A part
Of the arc around
And maybe not get started
On the spheric calculation
Of
Each blueberry
The Morning Rush
Somedays
I wake
And try to make everything
Fit
Starting in my head
Into a style
If not a way
Simply
A few things to like
Some
Favorite flavors
A few items of clothing
Shoes
That fit easily
A car that might need work
No doubt from
Time
To time
But that gets around
From here to there and back
Again
While I may listen to my books
While on the road
A place to live
That’s quiet enough
Normal noise
Allowed
Even preferred
To gravestone silence
A thought
To work
That I can do
Beyond the blogging
Or maybe learn
A dollar
Two dollars
More
From the daily work
With any decent accomplishment
From the crafting and the
Posting
Though I don’t know
It seems skittish on many glassy surfaces
Inside
To consider
More exercise
Less weight
The national pastime that isn’t
Baseball
And with more study
And some interaction with
Like-
Minded people
Too
A church that I might stand
And might stand me
A life with God
That’s
Wel
Not palpable
For now
But authentically affirmed
And stretched out through the hours
Like
Taffy
Or an impossible balloon
Something with taste
(even savor)
Something to enjoy
Even remarkably
And
You know
It will not happen
There’s not enough allowance
Or belief
From the world
Not simply to help
But to permit
Because our life
Force
Is worked on by so many propositions
That become
Well
Impositions
What
To buy
How to vote
What
To believe as coded by
The pundits some of whom
Get elected
And
I’ll keep my faith
Of course
My discomfit with the world
Hoping for a purer
Uncultish Earth
Fitzgerald
This
Side of paradise
Sigh
Keep waking
And keep dreaming after
Waking
C L Couch
Photo by Kura Tregenza on Unsplash
rest in God
(the habit)
rest
in God
and what does that mean
to rest
and sleep a little more
a little more in depth
and
to have dreams
and to dream well
or to dream of true struggles
that by
daylight
we must live through
and
where’s the resting
maybe it’s to nearly nap
to lie down
or lie
back
think easy
find the divine though easy
almost
fall asleep to thank
and then go down
in safety
for a while
or maybe
it’s
an attitude
for decision-making
to be at peace
even
in this meeting
of a board
or with a family
one person
two
or twenty
and in the situation to have
still-thinking
thinking through in an allied way
not
alone
but with others
who might not all
in the room
yet still
still
we know are present
rest might mean embrace
an arm around
and how can God do that
though
the maker of embrace
without doubt
has a way
to make it
think
make it feel
make it hope
and make it love
(also the inventor
of
love)
so rest in God
and maybe in each other
rest in God
c l couch
photo by Squids Z on Unsplash
“Lotus”
Jiediaosha, Shenzhen, China
Prayer in Search of a Liturgist
And if we pray
Should we find a service
Or something
A box
As it were
In which to keep it
Give it
A liturgical home
A formal place
To live
Like a tabernacle or
A reliquary
Or may our prayer
Rise to the trees
And that’s
Enough
Not even to find a nest
But leave the tree’s tendrils
To aim
Even for soaring
Blue then white
Then to the black of space
Or
Un-Claudius like
Might it be helpful
For a prayer
To descend
Into the ground
To talk with
Seeds
Or to the ocean floor
For octopi-like things or
Expulsive vents
Or to go down
To a kind of nothingness
That you are Lord of
Too
Directionful
Directionless
Might prayer go where it needs to be
Where it un-needs to be
For your approval
And
Somehow
For application
Even without much more
Than itself
By itself
To consider
By us
By tree
By space
By Earth
By depth
By you
C L Couch
Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash
(Claudius in Hamlet declares “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;/Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”)
Outlook
It’s
Sun
And yellow on brown
For trees
While the sky is an ashy blue behind
I know it’s Lent
And maybe this is a somber
Spring day
Maybe a calling to
Remember this is what happens
After
Winter
After March’s lion
March’s lamb
Straightforward observations
With ingredients of
Folklore
Added
Even to the speaking of the sun
The day
To us
Unusual
After all
Like a little revolution
A little anthropomorphizing
Is a good thing
Which we’re gonna do
Anyway
Thinking of a sun that smiles
Looking for
The face
In the moon
Tonight
C L Couch
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing . . .”—Thomas Jefferson
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash
Shall I Compare Thee to a Winter’s Day?
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?
Cold wind must have its way on us:
But thou art cooler than with ice to play
Through season’s layers in response to fuss;
We play outside then warm ourselves inside
Where should thou offer play ourselves a game;
And I am thankful for hot chocolate’s tide,
Though I fall prey to local champion’s fame;
And thou shall treat me when I am of need
If know thou might give over certain flaws,
And let me help thee with an even speed
And yet excel according to love’s laws;
And I must give according to my own
And yet if thou should have thy way made clear,
My own mistakes too sharp as snow is blown,
Then winter’s day know only thawed hearts here;
Fair face’s features with expressive eyes,
Thy bounding love unbounded by the world;
Grace in thy form as only our God buys—
Thy words and insights found like treasure pearl’d;
And should I ask and knowing I must wait
Might we so heat above the frost, our fate.
C L Couch
Photo by Tarryn Grignet on Unsplash
The Riddle of the Day
My eyes aren’t fully open
Neither
Is my heart
With all the feelings
Either
While
Of course
Fuzzyheaded
And the day starts
Anyway
You know that this is so
Up for hours
Many
While third-shift people
Earned the right
To sleep
Just now
Yet in
As in yet in thy dark streets shineth
In the last half-moments
Everything
Seems a little
Gold
As if to say
That we pass through every day
A screen
Made particulate gold
You barely feel
Yet
Sets your heart toward me
Then you wake up to me
And then
Decide
How to feel the gold
If at all
To ignore
Or
Behold
The everlasting light
C L Couch
(as with the ancient form, the solution to the riddle speaks
and cited, not as riddling but referencing, is “O Little Town of Bethlehem”)
Photo by N I on Unsplash
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