Earth-Talk
The sun is knocking,
Asking to come in
Can you imagine?
The sun, huge and glorious
And powerful, asking
To come in?
But on this pale-gray day, the Earth
Seems to be withholding
Tiny planet, fending off
The sun
What is just but to give
The smaller thing its due?
It’s here, too, after all
And what is mercy
But to wait upon
Its waiting?
C L Couch
Photo by Fabian Struwe on Unsplash
a wintry morning
early in parts for winter
here and say morning
souls are trapped on Earth
not wanting release because
we like the cages
I’ll have Dylan rage
I will fight it ‘til I know
only relent’s left
C L Couch
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
Half Moon Bay Golf Club, Yorkeys Knob, Australia
A Crimson Finch has found a nice perch and does not want to share it!
Animal Attraction
(4 October)
He loved animals
And, to hear the stories,
They had love for him
Ask the wolf about
Negotiation with the saint,
Garnering a good life in
Gubbio
Ask the birds who listened
To his sermon when no human
Would attend
Ask the rabbits that scurried near
His feet to have his company
(I’m guessing about the rabbits)
His is a portrait of simplicity
And of pain
To have the wounds of Christ
So specifically
Having unwithheld agony as well
I think he loved the world
His sisters
And his brothers
He sang to creation
Now Earth’s family sings with him
For this, the feast day
C L Couch
Image by Janet Meyer from Pixabay
Twilight of the Gods
Last night we sat out
On the porch
The heat of day upon us
A little lessened
One cat on the rail
(screens on the other side)
One cat stretched out upon the
Teak dining table,
The center of a set purchased after
A fire burned half of the house
A year and more ago
We watched lightning in the distance
I tried to count the miles
But didn’t hear anything
The storm must have been far away
The lightning cracked again in silence
Split that part of night
So far away
I had been reading of the death of Baldur
And now could wonder if he might
Be falling through the sky to Earth
Where we could mourn him, too
With all the gods and, yes, the giants
All the seasons of the year
All trees and even metals
Other elements, so says the storyteller
But Baldur went to Hel and hell
As the Norse configure these
My version cannot last
Though it made me sad enough
To wish more beauty, even slain
To Earth
C L Couch
Photo by Marc Clinton Labiano on Unsplash
Life on Neptune
I selected Neptune
Because I’ve never read
Anything speculative about it
Most of the time, it looks blue
On a map
Like a blue piece
Of sea glass
I might have around somewhere
Life on Neptune would be
Hard
Poison for an atmosphere
Contrary gravity
So distant from our first home
More so from life-giving sun
How grace might provide a
Reason for the colony
We’d be that much closer to
Life among the stars
In company with everything far-flung
In our system and
Not to dissemble
Our own galaxy
We’d have to think that way, or else
The nearness of our labors
In such a lifeless place
Static resources notwithstanding
Should drive us mad
For having dared
Such faraway commitments
C L Couch
22 April
A day for Earth
Earth needs more
But this day will celebrate blue and green
Land and sky
Water and oxygen
And that’s good
We need these
Good to be reminded
The villains will eschew
Hide in dark offices
Under the glare of artificiality
They will glare
Undoing the planet
Fracking off the layers
Mismanaged draining of oil
Allowing poorly valved
Pits of natural gas
To explode
Believing plastic washes away
Far from the profit margin
Until
We cannot drink the water
Cannot trust the rain
Forests are gone
Notre Dame cannot be rebuilt
From ancient timber
What we have has not grown tall enough
This is the world
It is ours
What have we done
What will we do
Answers to questions
They are there
Ask the scientists
Ask the faithful
Ask the Earth
It knows
It’s always known
Not to say it’s sentient
I don’t know
But it is impulsive
Knows how to react
Knows how to share the virtue
In recleansing
Another world won’t save us
This is what we have
C L Couch
“Earth seen from the Moon” by Petr Ginz.
Petr Ginz – http://personalstoriesfromtheholocaust.weebly.com/petr-ginz.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37616368
Look at It Another Way
I’m thinking of a cave
Yes, there could be crystal there
And, yes, I suppose there could be
A wizard there
How about two wizards
She can wield the power from
The spells he formulates
Realizing brand-new combinations of
The elements that otherwise
Might have kept on sleeping
In the deeps of earth and time
A retelling
A fantasy
But as with everything in all dimensions
It could happen
C L Couch
Crystal Ice Cave
California (USA)
Jesse Barden (photographer)
https://www.nps.gov/labe/planyourvisit/crystalicecavetours.htm
Flat Earth Society
Who decided that the Earth
Should have four corners?
Mapmakers, I guess
And a poet who could not resist
We make metaphors
So that something new might have
A meaning
Like the first day,
We need to separate night from day
One shape from another
Have touchstones for the texture of the thing
So that when
We hold something we don’t know
And wonder whether to feel squeamish
Or maybe grasp a little harder
As in the embrace of
Someone we haven’t seen for a while
The world is made of figures
(no need to fold it over;
take it as it is)
and the way to comprehend them
Is to line them up
Get to know them into metaphors, the similes
Induction to deduction,
We have
A rosy familiarity at last
We settle into something like a star
A source of light and radiance
Every place that has no pleasure
In the dark
C L Couch
By Konrad Miller – modified version of File:Karte Pomponius Mela.jpg; form Mappae Mundi Bd. Vi. “Rekonstruierte Karten”, Tafel 7., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38472341
An 1898 reconstruction of Pomponius Melas view of the World.
Wishful
The moon is out there somewhere
Sailing ‘round the Earth
We are here, wishing we could go
Sign up for a lunar voyage
Take a chance among the stars
Maybe nothing
Maybe treasure
Worth it, we think
Earthbound
C L Couch
https://pixabay.com/en/night-full-moon-ship-lake-ocean-2860531/
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