West Gone
Go west
Young man
He said
But he didn’t mean it
In that he didn’t go
And in heaven
He’ll say
I wasn’t young
To which the angels
Might reply
Did you think of all the souls
Already west
Living
Hunting
Worshipping the land and sky
And he might say
I knew that
They were there
But had all these people in the east
Needing somewhere to go
The war
The horrors of the restless war
And then
The burdens in the restless peace
Thereafter
Not enough
He might be told
But enter heaven
Anyway
Where we’ll have a job for you
C L Couch
(Horace Greeley may not have been the first saying it, though he said it famously in July of 1865)
Photo by Chor Tsang on Unsplash
The Old West
[before it was new]
Let It Go
I should write early
Then release it
Each piece a journey
If a stroll
And like a tapestry
There’s thread
And there’s a loom
Something
On which something else
Is framed
The work
The weave
Go out in directions
And make patterns
And there are
The damaged parts
But it’s a
Piece at last
For all our senses
And
Overall
The sense in things
[here’s an example, first thing out most recent session, not revised to death—or life if it can’t reach]
Consideration of the Afterlife and Through-Life
So what happens next
The short answer is that we don’t know
The long answer is
We hear things
Saint Paul tells
There shall be no pain
And our bodies shall be perfect
Perfected
That is
Through some sort of transformation
Some new alignment of
The spirit and the flesh
We have stories from
Those who have
Gone
And then come back
And I don’t know
These stories
Seem
To go along with ancient texts
Of many traditions
Many followings
And
Do we translate somehow
Right away
And where might judgment be
How might it
Happen
Christians say there shall be
Advocacy
In what transpires
And that we could
Be secure of heaven
Not for being
Good
In an unerring way
But for belief
Solely by belief
Sola Dei
Sola Christus
Other groups have other ways
To understand and have
The same
To be respectful and to say
Sola-something else
Sola-someone else
We don’t know what we don’t know
But it seems
We do know things
Though it’s all
So abstract
And invisible
What happens
And criteria
Could be clearer
And frankly sensible
As in
Assuring to the senses
That we have
It all would be
Frankly
Less frightening
As well
But then our will would have no place
It seems
And for the loss of Eden
It also seems
That what we choose
Does matter
And there might be no higher stakes
In fact
Sigh
I wish it were all easier
Though even angels
Without will
We say
Manage to rebel
So all things choose
Perhaps
Nature chooses
In the changing seasons
In responding to
New
And ongoing circumstances
So try to believe
Appears to be the way
Do well
Do good
Because it’s better
More uplifting
More constructive
Evidencing of itself
The better way
Thinking
And feeling better
Too
Children
Believe
For we are all the children
And belief is our
Incumbency
Our legacy
Our lore
The words of God to tell
And evidence in
Nature
Clear enough for being made
By God
C L Couch
Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash
“And in death they were not divided. 2 Sam.1.23” (for translation programs)
gray time
it’s late
it’s fall
winter’s rise
a month away
the bears
have eaten salmon
I saw the camera’s highlights
of
bear
red flesh
and moving stream
taking
what is red
away
so now
the bears are done
(the
salmon gone)
and time for the
sleep
of a season
in the impulse of the bear
and the gray comes
earlier
should clouds
impede
a brilliance for a sunset
either way
and then
is
black-paned night
maybe
rest
regardless
after
hours
the next
the new day
c l couch
photo by Val Vesa on Unsplash
Sunset in Cluj, Romania
Hello and Thank You and Goodbye
Here the trees are empty now
That’s fair
Some leaves hang on
Inevitably
Bravely
Though winter is unchanging
Too
And with intent
And will
Comes on
C L Couch
Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash
me, you, God (3 poems)
Smart Scan
Something happened
If only for
A little while
Some sleep helped
And lying in
A while
And now some coffee
Having checked the phone
Set up the machine
Which
Didn’t take so long this time
And I am glad
Thinking about moving a lamp
In a Prufrockian
Way
And there is peace
I think for emptiness
The good kind being alone
In the building
Maybe
Or at least
Most of them are gone
And I am alone
With my vibes
That for some reason
Don’t feel so bad
So pressed
Just now
There is pleasure in the isolation
Not
To want it all the time
But I think on passages from
Call of the Wild
And
Martian Chronicles
Moments
Well
Passages of aloneness
That are hard on
Them
Perhaps
From time to time
And me as well
And yet
The stories move forward
With freedom from the outside
Enhancing
Liberty
Inside
To think on everything
Or at least enough
For the passage that
Is this day
Still Time
And that’s me
How is it with you
I just lay and thought a while
An hour
In
This morning
When by the way
I saw the branches dripping
Recent rain
With golden hangers-on
Of fall
Maybe doing that might
Be good for you
The time to lie
(to lay)
That is
And not to drop off branches
(though who knows
since there is
a way
with trees)
I mean
I’m not a guru
(with
apologies to gurus)
As much as I’d like to be your friend
In this
Or at least
An ally
Allies
Negotiate
And strategize campaigns
Sometimes
And maybe such
Would work for
You
And us
Let me encourage you
To take time to
Take time
‘Cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all
Which is a passage that
I think on often
(partly
‘cause the memory
is tuneful)
From a show
And the voice
I’ve heard is
That
Of Granny Clampett
Which also appeals to me
Somehow
Anyway
Remembrances aside
Or frankly
To focus better on them
And the rest that needs recall
Before deciding
Maybe we will
Find that
Time
Call it a candle hour
(with a wick
or
screw in the flame)
That is
Some time for stillness
And to think in
Stillness
A Genesis and Then Another
And then there’s God
Who made all things
And keeps
Creating
Who is investing in the largest
And the smallest
The Grand Canyon
A grasshopper
The features and
The people
Of
The West Bank
God’s spirit is in you and me
Or me because
I ask
Or you
In the same way
Though should we not invite
We have our spirits
At the least
Which is extraordinary
In presence
And in value
Each one lost
May go to God
A greater
Closeness
And a new home
Perhaps
(I’m uncertain of
theology)
The loss might be as we expect
Peaceful
Even dull
Or it might crash into life
(and
life no more)
By flood
Or war
Loss and gain
And every feather
Every hair
(or loss of hair)
Is tracked
By God
As if angels followed every
Created thing
With ledger
And the feathered thing called hope
With which to quill
Numbers
And notations
Such wonders in the world
Too many wonders
Really
For each one
To take them all
But size
And the notated numbers
Give allowance
For each one
On Earth
To have so much
Though
There are thieves
With sometimes heroes
To thwart
The thieves
And thievery
To
Bring into repentant
Light
And life
So what might God
With all our trials
Yet
Expect of us
Well
There’s Amos
About justice
And rolling waters
And also walking humbly
By those waters
(which is
Micah
more or less)
As if they were also
Still enough
While
Being hale
For companionship
Even
Some kind of feast
Beside
And so there’s God
And God with us
Our own
Immanuel
And also for the world
Come Christmas and
You know
364
(365 when leaping)
God makes
God gives
We also provide
Gifting
Maintaining
For each other
Though we are not first cause
But we’re enough
There is great utility
In being
Giving
Sharing
Out of the bounty
Or the paucity
Of God sending
As well
As famously
Each one of us
An Immanuel
(small i)
Each one
C L Couch
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Amos 5:24
[God] has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all.
“No Time at All”
Pippin
sung by Irene Ryan in the first Broadway cast
(Ecclesiastes 3, Psalm 23, Jack London, Ray Bradbury)
Undeferment
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
“Harlem,” Langston Hughes
I am poor
I guess
I have the words
And some temerity
(rubbed
with facts)
To say
And I wonder
If the poor
Can dream or
May
Because dreams require
Some funding
To live as vision
And idea
In the daytime
Or
After sleep whenever
Some apparatus
Finally
That might build something
Even with reason
And approval
Yet
After food
That is
And safe water
Shelter
And compulsory education
Voting
And some will say
We shouldn’t
Dream
Citing something like
Chains of being
Or in spirit
Shall have a realm
Not here
For sure
Rather
Then
To pass a rule to take
Those dreams
Our dreams
Away
Citing
Some might say
The classes as distinctions
Though we have only made them
Out of balsam
And so not in the realm
Of real
Lasting places
But only signs to keep
The oligarchy ready
And plutarchy
As well
Because
Oppression manufactured
By the way
Has begged our revolutions
But peace
Better ideas
Should prevail
From all
Of us
And all of us allowed
The dream
To have it
Work it
And to play
With
Only barricades
That any might encounter
While
Waking
So we may all
Dream dreams
Asleep
Alert
Without deferment
C L Couch
“’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .”
Peter talking to a crowd, citing Joel
Acts 2:17(a)
NIV
Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash
For Edwin
Evidently
It’s
Hubble’s birthday
Happy Birthday
Your gift
To us
Rendering so many things
More clearly
Maybe our gift
To you
Our continued faith
In the sky
World Children’s Day
Today
As well
If we remember taking boxes ‘round
With
Trick or Treat for UNICEF
Collecting quarters
Then millions of quarters for
The cause
The cause of
Children
Need we say it
Though we forget
We adults
Forget
Leaving children inside schools
Or not counting them at all
(beyond
certain
grids)
Until they’re grown up
Into rivals
For our power
For our love
In the mean time
They are forgotten fodder
Uncounted
In the strategies for
War
Women and children
We still say
Which
Didn’t work
On liners
Any more than battlefields
Inside
And in back of
Loss
Hunger
And
Disease
And worse on them
Than on
The older us
Which we older ones might not
Want
To believe
Even though
The wretched things attack
Hope
In the young
As well as young awareness
Okay
We’ll say
And even mean
They are precious
And
They are our future
And they are precious
And
They are our
Present
Last Work of the Day
I think
Not of life
But
To move on a little
Unzip the sweater
Change
The shoes
And leave the make-believe
Awhile
How about
As is supposed to happen
We take the feeling of the sweater
The softer shoes
And
Made-up imagination
With us
Then meet
With feathered insights
Muscled inspiration
On
As has been said
The morrow
C L Couch
Photo by Lawrence Chismorie on Unsplash
Alexander Calder, the sculptor/mobilist whose work is featured here (in Switzerland), constructed a mobile for the children of Pittsburgh, which floated near the entrance to the Carnegie Museum—a favorite thing for me, when a child, to behold
Pittsburgh references to Mister Rogers, too
Animals Fair
Sometimes
I think
I’d like to live
In the world of
Mole
Waiting on Toad
Or another of the animal
Fabulae
But then I’d have to become a
Beastie
I suppose
Something small
Like a civet
Still with
Tooth and claw
Or something that imposes
Like a
Heffalump
With girth
And myth
To help
C L Couch
Photo by Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash
Toad of Toad Hall drove a shiny red sportscar and wrecked it. He drove several more such cars and wrecked them all. (And faced jail time, kids.)
where is oh there it is
how shall we live
in such
a world
how shall we have faith
or even
energy
to start the day
at all aplomb
with hope
in the new day’s
potential
where is the joy
that can’t be suffuse
in the world
but must be out there
somewhere
well
in here
as a promise
then a stitched pledge
we think that evil melts
when we throw water
on it
no
we don’t
we think down deep
that evil never
ends
never steps down
instead
runs
too many of our companies
and
too often
maybe always
gets elected
Pangloss’s garden cannot
be the answer
though we should live parametered
we shouldn’t live
frankly
barricaded
discipline’s important
and we need
restraint
we own
but
we are made for light and air
and the better part of
freedom
we are made for will
which is the
problem
though
we might choose freely
something that delights and
also
emboldens
but what are such things
that are not
comprised
to death
except for understanding compromise
in peace treaties
or
the love we bear each other
sounding trite
and silly
we shouldn’t be surprised
but we’ll have to take the chance
in order to
be ideal
sometime
c l couch
photo by Tony Mucci on Unsplash
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