friend

Early Morning Half-Light

Early Morning Half-Light

I had a dream and in it

A love and I

With a friend were talking about

Seasons

I was asked if I liked the snow

At the time we were surrounded

By it

Nonetheless, I said I liked snow

Fine

And my dear one said so, too

Clearly, our friend at the time

Only wanted to hear

About warmth

So I waxed

(maybe that’s a mansplain)

I like four quarters to the year

With time for everything

I’m sure I had that when a child

In Pittsburgh

Though it’s not like that

Now

Global warning having moved

The even year up north

Somewhere in New York

I looked at the one and thought,

Maybe we’ll go there

And then dreams do what they do

C L Couch

“Vier Jahreszeiten” (Bernd Altenstein) am Holler See in Bremen

JeKr – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14692213

July 5, 2019 0

Kaibigan

Kaibigan

(Filipino friends)

Don’t know much about a mystery

Don’t know much etymology

Don’t know much about a language book

Don’t know much about Linguistics took

But I do know that you’re both dear

And the gift of words you brought us here

How much better the world is to me

How much better you make the world,

You see

(inspired by “What a Wonderful World,”

released by Sam Cooke in 1960

inspired by Rosema at rosemawrites,

Maria at Doodles and Scribbles

for giving us “Word-High July”—see below)

Word-High July: Welcome!

Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and I [that’s Rosema at rosemawrites] are more than excited to read your takes on the 30 Beautiful Filipino Words.

Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).

HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!

wrestlingroots.org

July 31, 2016 4

My Kaulayaw

My Kaulayaw

(for Rosema)

Sister

Brother

Friend

Sister to my wounds

And brother to

My zeal,

Friend to our needs

In the world

This should go

Two ways at least

I pray it does

Sister- brother-friend

Allow me to live

Let me serve you

In this way

Word-High July: Welcome!

Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and I [that’s Rosema at rosemawrites] are more than excited to read your takes on the 30 Beautiful Filipino Words.

Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).

HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!

July 17, 2016 2

Silakbo!

Silakbo!

I’m hurt!

I’m sad!

I’m fine, thank you!

Stop asking!

I’m in love!

I hate you!

I got the job!

I’m so confused!

Stop asking!

I’m lonely!

It hurts!

You’re my friend!

Why have you

stopped asking!

Word-High July: Welcome!

Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and I [that’s Rosema at rosemawrites] are more than excited to read your takes on the 30 Beautiful Filipino Words.

Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
Tag your post with WordHighJuly, so your co-bloggers will be able to read/see your take on the prompt. Here’s how you create tags.
Most important of all, read and comment to your blogger friends (old and new found, we’ll never know).

HOP ON and let’s all GET WORD-HIGH this JULY!

July 8, 2016 10

Loss

Loss

(for my friend Sanford)

Love pitches

And slides down

No purchase for a hold

All last moments gone

You

Are friend sitting beside

Me, sometimes

Walking with me here

And there

You moved so slowly

Through the world

So that love might

Permeate, a message

In itself

Go slowly, the Buddhists

Say—you taught me

That

A righteous challenge

For those who move

Too fast, a badge

A sign that virtue

Is in rapidity alone

Rather what we do

While on the way

Is what makes the

Difference

And the love we leave

While on our way

Where you are

Is good, is right

Is healing, and is

Love—

You loved us here

Thank you for that

I cannot say good-bye

June 12, 2016 5

Sanford Alwine, 1938 into 2016, seventy-seven (haiku)

I lost my good friend

He is closer to the source

Nature and God now

(I’ll write more about my friend)

June 10, 2016 6

In Memoriam 17 March

In Memoriam 17 March

I miss you, friend

I drank scotch (not Jameson’s)

At your wake

You always liked this day

When we celebrate the troubles

And pray through beer for

Peace—you are in heaven, now

While I remain on a

Purgatory of earth

I believe; and I hope to see

You someday, which is more

Of an Amish than an Irish

Thing to say

Be in peace and joy and all

Green in forever living

March 17, 2016 6

North American Union

North American Union
(not NAFTA, more than)

So my friend Dennis
Who taught me how
To smoke a pipe (don’t
Worry; the pipe for
Years now serves only
As a decoration)

Well, Dennis once
Posited a plan—that
Canada and Mexico
Merge with USA

Dennis from Canada,
I the USA, while we
Lived and worked
Close by the San-Diego-
Tijuana border; we
Spoke of our

Now-new nation (and,
Admittedly, this is
Somewhat stereotypical
Thinking from thirty
Years ago), a country

Enjoined: vast resources
Of nature in the north
With great human ability,
From the south with ever-
New technologies from
The land between

So there, Dennis, shared
In time of friendship,

Knowing that all mortal
Things are finite and
So need care to last then
Maybe last again,

Shall we disassemble
Walls—add a writhing
Serpent into bald eagle’s
Claws, all set upon
Autumnal maple leaf—
This our new metaphor
To try?

Perhaps this is a time
To arrange triangles of
Tables, negotiating
Continents of possibility

February 17, 2016 0

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter (prose poem)

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter
(prose poem)

So my friend calls from Indiana. I tell her of my sister’s new job. I am relieved and happy, because my friend’s been struggling with sufferings that would drive me mad. She sounds well and has a chance to tell me some about her family on her way to church to help lead (in technical matters) a Bible study there. It is cold here. It is colder there (single-digit degrees for many days). When she must ring off, she does. I am at the coffeemaker and place the backside of the phone on a spiral burner on the stovetop (everything turned off). While the coffee’s cooking, I clean out some plastic bottles into which I put tap water to drink throughout the day. Not thinking at first, I place the cleaned-out bottles just outside the burner circle set upon the stove. When I’ve done this four times, I have four empty bottles cornering a phone set on a burner plate of labyrinthine form. I’m sure there is a deity for winter (generally, Persephone, though I’m thinking there’s one for winter only), and have I not built a small, strange contemporary altar to her. A narrow receiver (wireless) offered up inside four plastic monoliths keeping in their stillness their own kind of sentinel watching. Is this supplication? I want my friend to be well. I want her husband to enjoy retirement and her daughter have success at school. I want the cold to move on, over there, though for a Midwest winter season, I guess what is endured is rather normal. (Still too cold.) My temps in southern Pennsylvania still have two digits. But we are called to be ourselves storm-ready against a coming, miles-wide soon-arriving gale. It smacks the South and later rounds out to sea—on the way releasing slivering ice and snow and the season’s other dangers onto our regional metropoles: D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. And in my small town? I pray for navigable roads. In my small place, I pray for electricity’s constancy—that it might faithfully provide sufficient heat in rapport with the thermostat. And now I guess I wait. We wait. I clear the stove and leave on the burner now a single cup, ready for coffee. The empty ceramic vessel a suburban symbol of encouragement and also, I think, of supplication.

January 21, 2016 4