2 haiku about the seasons
the spring the winter
autumn summer seasons are
negotiated
green brown warm silver
blue cold red orange umber
cool yellow gold hot
c l couch
photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash
Dawn Patrol
1
The light is up
Gray light of
Normal dawn
It’s pretty much a wash
Just now
Though I think there is a promise
Of more colors
Like crayons
Beneath the single tone
Which I guess is a crayon color
Too
And hip
Gray trends
After all
Though I prefer the brown tones
Then add in some orange
Then the rest
The dawn
It will have these
But also start
With pink
And be a marvel
Sunrise
On Earth
A rival experience
In the Solar System
Because we also rise
With air
And with water
And with fertile ground
Sometimes planted
Sometimes fallow
In relationship
So that life
Might be obviously abundant
While we guess about the others
Out there
Here
2
The gray is lighter
Now
And there is more
The movie’s almost over
And I’d like to think
Maybe I could sleep at last
And
For a while
I don’t know
I guess I could let you know
Though you have troubles
Of your own
Of course
I know
C L Couch
Photo by Matias Luge on Unsplash
We Want to Make This Classic
Two years
Plus three months
Two wars
The ones we know about
Who are the combatants
How much material
Is left
To each side
How much longer
Even supplied
By the bigger thugs outside
Who claim
Defense defending
How much robbing
Peter
To pay Paul
And then Paul
Demands more and more
Of Peter
And it’s us
Is the idea
All us
We lose
We run down
We run out
We manufacture more
To say
It’s good for the economy
While the vaults in
Hell
Or waiting by the river Styx
Are the only things
That are full
And this become our legacy
We lose
Things from the Earth
That cannot be restored
Life in which
We had only given
Love
And there is less
The surplus population
Whom did we not need
And did we push them
Toward the front
Uriah-like
Of course
We wish it over
We wish them done
So we could walk across the fields
And say
This happened here
But statues
And they are meaningful
Fly flags
The same
By force
A fallow field
Unchanneled water
And who knows what
Congeals inside
Our natural
And plastic substances
To raise
Hate
Or something else we hide
Ongoing tries
For greed
Until we say
There
Someone made money
Out of this
Someone got a bit of power
Well
The illusion of it
Anyway
But that’s the best we have
In shadowlands
Expanse
There is the sun
At last
It will rise into the clouds
Maybe into a day
That’s only gray
Until the setting hour
When all these lines of yellow
Turn toward red
Then blue
Then black of night
It happens all the time
And is not
What’s happening
There are orbits
There are rings
Of different shapes and sizes
There are fields of gravity
There is magnetism
We try
To ken it all
To suss the meaning
In the measure
Or get a damn fine story
Out of it
Feature
Human interest
Sci-fi tome
That tells us where we’ve been
And where fancifully
We might be going
Out of these rounded places
Into an
Unbounded expanse
With only our imagination
For a shield
C L Couch
Photo by Krisztian Matyas on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Poetry and Senses (3 poems)
x
x
Upstart Clay
x
God will help us through
By being quiet
Leaving all the noise to us
Except the wind
Maybe the water that descends
To strike the surface
Maybe on the ancient
Mountaintop
That moans
Or the young one that must explode
Or pushing geysers through
The scalding
Earth
x
So there
God might be noisy
After all
To take a part in all this
And remind us
Of the presence
And natural participation
Of the maker
And the making
Which is us
Fashioning our noise
Into making something
Too
x
x
The Color Wheel
x
There is yellow
There is red
Then blue
There are the colors
In between
Orange
Purple
Green
And there we are
x
No white
Or pink carnation
For a crayon
No black to see
Though depending on perspective
Black might be suffuse
x
We love our color wheel
Couldn’t get along
To see
Without it
And the colors might turn concepts
To explain
x
To touch sometimes
Though there is no distinction
Doing that
To smell the color
Which is to smell the paint
Nothing to hear
Unless the wheel
Be turning
And there is humming from an engine
Or a supplicating gear
x
Imagine Earth the wheel
Us the fashioners
How are we doing
Are we colorful
Do we six colors
Bordered
Unattended
Or do we mix and blend
And have a globe
Outstanding
Then when turning
Make a noise
Send a message
To the others
Here we are
Introduce us to yourselves
x
x
Wheels within Wheels
x
Wheels within wheels
That had been said
As it’s been invented
With clay
With metal
In the mind
Over centuries
x
As a metaphor
Plots within plots
Every smaller
Going out
Ever larger
So that families
And nations
Are affected
Even over thrown
Reinvented
From parts left over
Rounded
And toothed
To have new rhythms
And redesigned
Noise
x
Wheels that press
Or parts caught
Inside gears
Or there’s so much pressure
So much lack of space
That something crushes
Unless so difficult itself
Breaks the gear
Breaks the wheel
x
And someone
Victor
I suppose
Must rework everything
So that we’re round again
And might make music
This time
As we turn
Through space
And time
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Rising Seasons
x
I wasn’t counting
But there are vehicles that do
And they and their movers are
Confident
It will be another
Weekend of rain
Eighth in a row
Tomorrow
Saturday
And Sunday
And certainly
The sky just outside now
Is gray
The leaves are wet upon the ground
This time of day
It’s fall
x
It’s fall
We should expect some damp
Maybe in all seasons
But this is chill
Descends with leaves
Dissembling
That is
Dissolving
That we’d rather drive through
In sunlight
Brilliant light
And also dry
To pass through
All the colors
Dryly
Reclining
Divinely resting
Into winter
x
Our weekend sights
Set
For somewhere in New England
x
We want what we can’t have
Enough rain
To build the tables up
Again
Dry days and dry roads
For touring
And school
And time off
Simultaneously satisfied
As well
x
Well
Why not want things
There are always ponchos
And we need the rain
And schools have holidays
Sometimes
Sometimes that work
x
Then
Elsewhere
South of here
Or west
Or in another region
Of America
All Americas
Or in Africa
Or Europe
Far-flung Asia
The Pacific Rim
Or an extremity
Of white bears
Or the other
Where the penguins
In the photographs
Line civilly
Awaiting who is next
To slide into
Salt water
x
For you
In any of these regions
It must be so different
So wonderful and different
Where you are
And now
x
And maybe you will share
The weather and the climate
With those of us
Not there
But here
x
Meaning in the MidAtlantic
The Northeast
The Midwest
The Northwest
The northern South
And wide parts
Of Canada as well
x
Dry or damp
Let’s move
Adroitly on
All and any
All the pathways
That we have
Any of which
In any part
We hope
Might lead toward peace
x
As any of us might
Might wander
There and figure
In the sunshine
Or the rainshine
Depending on an attitude
A tolerance
Endurance
For the weather
Errant sunlight
Or the shade
For the interests they support
And for our own
About peacemaking
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Daniel Frank on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
two poems for young people
x
x
Youth
x
They (you) look so young
Not like those near altars
Of antiquity
Who are forever beautiful
But cannot move
x
These might be cared for carefully
That youth might be preserved
Youth cannot be preserved
x
Youth might invest their own
(your own)
So that the coming days
Are rich
With age and wisdom,
Maybe things put by
x
But (you) run without avarice
Or even long ambition
Become parts of a transitory mural
That is bright
All colors
Shapes
At least three dimensions,
Which will have no museum
Save in memory
x
x
Locksmithing
x
Who holds the keys?
Why are there keys?
Why are their locks?
What is kept?
What must be freed
Up with which
From being locked?
x
Behind the door
Once opened
Nothing might be withheld
But secrets of the arrogance
The avarice in
Withholding
Private parties
Boring,
Frightening without joy
From the absconded powerful
x
There might be secrets
For the young to own
(they, you
should have mentors)
If taught or teach themselves
(yourselves)
How to
Break out
x
This is the story
Of the end of age’s
Generation
The beginning of another
An ownership
That could calcify
So-called in privilege
Or turn around
Turn everything around
Toward all the growth
In revelation
And unwithheld resources
For life
With invention
Food, that is, and challenge
x
Keeping democracy
(boo say some, but)
We need it
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Burned Out at the Salton Sea
Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Mortal Timing
x
It’s cool today
Thank goodness
I am thankful
I guess I can’t haiku this
No artful three-line
Praise
Or only observation
Out of nature
Yet nature should be thanked
We are lucky in this hemisphere
Just now
North enough
And south enough
(ecumenically)
Praise fall’s invocation
Of bright colors
Praise the God
Who shows us grace
With autumn
x
Someday
The seasons mesh
Their virtues celebrating
All together
How trees will bear fall colors
While serving new life below
As spring
And summer
Under winter’s cover
We don’t know
(maybe there will be quarters of
seasons’ perfection)
But it is heaven
And new Earth
And these miracles will work
Like clear gold
In the streets of
New Jerusalem
x
C L Couch
x
x
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
Revelation 21:21
x
Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Look Now
x
I pulled on the window shade
The old-fashioned kind
I got stuck with
Gray all around
I suspect another strange fall day
Too hot in the eastern USA
This year
x
It takes a couple tugs
But without the absurd length
That it can get to,
The shade goes up
And it might be too hot
But the leaves that look at me
Inches from the glass
Are autumn first
Colors mixed with summer green
Red and orange, yellow
All say hi
(green sighs)
We are here
x
It is the season, anyway
And I am thankful
Whose formality comes
Later on
With cornucopia
Thick tablecloths
And such
x
And while there is no peace
There is small, sustaining
Joy
In nature’s
Hello in the season
Outside
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
present lack of tense
x
pre-dawn charcoal sky
blue here and there
aside from color,
nothing else is moving
x
c l couch
x
x
simple celebration of inclusivity
photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
Recent Comments