(x = space)
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new breast cancer bills
pink flow’rs on a living tree
nature yeas the text
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c l couch
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today in Pennsylvania, a bipartisan passing of two bills that support research as well as life with breast cancer; I guess haikus are not supposed to serve as news reporters; but on hearing this report at noon, three lines came to mind
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photo by Susan G. Komen 3-Day on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Live from Punxsutawney
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Knob
Hollow
Gobbler
Turkey
Groundhog
Burrow
A manufactured life
Goes on tour
Speaking engagements
What is its thesis?
Moved in a cylinder
Men in hats
With groundhog faces
Thousands and thousands
I guess they have
Places to stay
TV, computer cameras
How it can it not
See its shadow?
Phil is not that accurate
Need we wonder
Why
Enjoy the day
Laughter
Celebration
Into spring
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C L Couch
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Photo by Ralph Katieb on Unsplash
Groundhog didn’t like the late April snow (she was in the middle of nest building when it hit).
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(x = space)
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Boiling Springs Fire
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I caught some
Of the story
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A fire burned
Inside
Above
(fourth floor)
Smoke and water through
All the floors
Of the apartment building
A converted mill
In the town of Boiling Springs
One town away
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I hear details of the fire
Nothing yet about the people
I’m sure I missed
That part
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I used to drive by the building
Hoped about living there,
Each time
Now it’s gone
Or at least
Forever changed
Now sorrow for
All displaced
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The town is small
An unincorporated village
It will be affected
Me, too
And you, too,
As you know about
Such things
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(after reading)
Everyone got out
One cat
The headlines say
Eleven displaced,
Which includes ten people
And the cat
The Red Cross has been
At the scene
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There was a fire
In the village
Two years ago
One person was killed
Welcome that person
To another home
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God bless the town
And all the towns
That gather loss
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C L Couch
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/11-displaced-by-cumberland-county-fire/ar-AATiBcL?ocid=uxbndlbing
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Photo by Daniel Tausis on Unsplash
“Fighting Fire”
not the Boiling Springs fire (the photos of that fire are copyrighted, sigh) but a fire
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(x = space)
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Degrees of Incarceration
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I don’t know what to say today
To students, peers, siblings, or anyone
I keep thinking about
The Pennsylvania woman on spring break
In Florida, who was raped and left
For dead
And who died
Whose credit cards were stolen,
The proceeds to sponsoring more partying
By her rapists, now incarcerated
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I keep thinking about the images
I’ve seen of spring-break partyers in Florida
At night and looking young and fit,
Drinking from cups on lawns and in driveways,
No doubt parking lots as well
And in many, many rooms
And there is not a mask in sight
And there is no safe distance in between
For any reason
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I keep thinking about the places where
People are fighting, virus (also) notwithstanding
Syria and Yemen
Myanmar
Hong Kong where leaders and speakers
Are arrested
And all the acts of violence in my land
The land about which Woody Guthrie wrote
And sang
Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, too (respectively)
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There is too much to think about
But no sedative or anesthetic for me,
Please
I have to deal with side effects from
What I take each day
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I ramble but around a theme
And I’m revising, too:
What do we think about what threatens to
Close us off from normalcies
And niceties?
It’s all right, you know
(I know)
There is no Sunday best required
For thinking spiritual thoughts
Or wondering how the Spirit as we know
That Spirit might be enlisted
Might be involved, anyway
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If not our neighbors or our friends
Though maybe our neighbors and our friends
And family people
Encouraging our say
As we encourage saying
For all the times I want
To shut up, and that is right
For all the times there is something pressing
And I
And we
Should release it
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And, yes, I wonder if poems
Should have messages and morals, but then I think
I’d have to say that poems aren’t for less
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Maybe poems are
Things we have to say
That can’t be said better in
Any other way
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C L Couch
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Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash
Love
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(x = space)
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Gobbler’s
(3 February 2021)
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It’s Wednesday
Phil is back inside the keep
All is well
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Yes, it was done
In a cyber way
Phil was social-distanced
Fans were turned away
Tourism dived
Beneath the radar
Of spending consideration
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Something again next year
Pity the small towns of
Western Pennsylvania
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C L Couch
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by Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States – Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, uploaded by GrapedApe, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25167720
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
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Emergency Calls
(remembering 9/11 in the USA)
Today in my part
We are remembering
A horrific attack on innocents
By crazy people
This kind of murder happens
Elsewhere
My country is not the battleground
So often
Syria, Yemen, Colombia, Myanmar
The Philippines, Somalia
Sudan
We’ve sometimes had a hand in these
That might have made the crazy
People crazier
Enacting their cause here
On this day, we remember here
Where death came to passengers,
Firefighters, office people, and
The rest
Companies of normal people
Noncombatants, we would say
If this were anything like war
Between fair nations
I suppose on planet Earth
Wars and war-like actions must
Happen in someone’s yard
The playing fields, business places
Farm, and town
We have few dedicated battle zones
The DMZ, maybe ocean surfaces
And depths
Air and now we think to weaponize
Space, above and beyond
So war must happen close to home
Inside
And things warlike, if not war
Which then we call killing
We call it murder
And I suppose on someone’s ugly surface
There is a plan to do it again
Pray that we stop it
And praise those who do
But as we honor peace
So may we honor them:
The victims, those who ran toward
The concussions of air and sound
And matter
Turned into explosion and horror
Metal, blood, and bone
All those who died first
First helpers
And the many who were saved
Who are with us, still
We are here
Remember
Celebrate
Pray for cessation
Pray for profusion
The horror gone
And peace prevail
C L Couch
By United States v. Zacarias MoussaouiCriminal No. 01-455-AProsecution Trial ExhibitsExhibit Number P200066Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by User:Russavia using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15252009
Aleppo, Pennsylvania
Neighborhood is
Near three rivers
Reminding us that
Syria, native or
Immigrant (like the
Rest of ours), has
Been America for
A long, long time
(driving out)
Misty Mountains, Pennsylvania
I travel west on I-76, and it is there:
The Lonely Mountain
Higher and set apart from the ridge
That falls away, behind
A dragon set atop, searching for
Prey gone to ground
Orcs lurk below, ready to battle
Dwarves who stand ready ‘round
The deep tomb of their king at rest,
Diamond earthstar guard upon
His chest
I see these shadowed and
Foreshadowed parts of epic
Because
Tolkien, the literary mentor, first
Saw his
(driving back)
Rainbow World
I drive east on a four-lane reach
Of road, not an interstate so I
Have concerns to watch out
For local traffic
It has been raining, now mostly
Stopped with dark clouds in
The distance
Yet there must be a band of
Spectrum light somewhere
Because before me is a rainbow
That, against grey background,
Shines with every ordered
Color distinct and bleeding
Into from each other
Purple into blue into green
Into yellow in orange into red
From blended shades
Between
It arches, and I see both ends
Where it leaves the hillside,
Arcs before my car, lands on
More dimly-toned earth in
My direction
Of course, I think of Irish
And of argent pots inside with
Their own hills, sun-colored
Coin
And the folk who keep it,
Minding with angry magic any
Interloping
Burnt Cabins,
Pennsylvania
We’ve suffered
A local tragedy
That might never
Be explained
Even if a reason’s
Given
We have a super
Highway—yes,
America’s
First “super
Highway”—that
Is the Pennsylvania
Turnpike, and
A retired trooper
Of the state
Police tried a
Robbery at one
Of the stations
There
Between small
Towns in the
Allegheny Mountains,
Two workers
Are taken, held
By his gun,
Until the truck
Arrives to gather
Monies from the
Turnpike tolls
The theft occurs
And fails, the
Captives shot
And killed; the
Officer-now-
Suspect is killed,
Too
Serving troopers
Prepared and
assigned, had
Arrived to restore
An aberrant,
Criminal scene
Back to ordinary
Nothing ordinary
Anymore here:
With tears, the
Deaths are told
Each word
Sounding like
The heavy note
Of a mourning
Bell
Sadness ringed
Round sadness,
As voices split
To tell
It will be a
Story of
Transgression
And the sorrow
Brought to many
Kinds of
Families, and
It might pass
From focused
Attention
But here was a
Neighbor tragedy
On persons who
Will not
Appear in their
Expected places
At work or at
Home
And others living
Who will never
Be the same
A chance for
Money maybe
Too easy a
Reason for all
That befell
Close by—I
Tend to believe
Something else
About surrendering
Life happened
Here
clcouch123 
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