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Slow Glass

Slow Glass

 

The birds are quiet today

The sky is still

Precursors to rain, perhaps

 

Earlier, I saw a squirrel outside the window

On a lower branch

The animal stopped, gray arches for

Its back and a brushy tail

Turned one way and then another

 

We, smaller beast and I, looked at each other

For a while

Already out of reach

We could afford to stare

 

Now we might serve as memories

To each other, through the glass

 

C L Couch

 

“Light of Other Days” is a science fiction short story by Irish writer Bob Shaw. It was originally published in August 1966 in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The story uses the idea of “slow glass”: glass through which light takes years to pass. Bob Shaw used this idea again in later stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_of_Other_Days

 

 

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

 

8

Ontology

Ontology

 

I don’t know, God

I know you love us

It’s all the rest that can confuse me

Why there is great truth

In nature

We refuse to understand

While we destroy it

Learning nothing but that dollars

Speak not a greater truth

But noisier

So I guess you could say it’s all on us

And we are responsible

But we can also credit you with making us

Why did you do that,

Why are we as we are?

 

We can build

And then tear down

We leave artifacts

That we refuse to learn from

We love clear days

Then smoke them out

With factories and war

Factories to make the war

Viable

Not to mention all the vehicles

We could not pass a law

That says what we make cannot

Destroy us at the same time

Let alone with Earth

I know I go off on things like this

But, really, what’s the point

In planet Earth

If we destroy her?

 

Wisdom is a woman, too,

In a number of traditions

But men are made to ignore women

Treating them like other

Resources

My, don’t they have it wrong

All of it

 

So what’s the answer, God

I’m sure there is an answer

Before it’s all a cynical taking

Climbing on each other toward

An artificial peak

Without wondering what we leave

For children

So they’re left to be like us

Or rebel to find another way

I don’t think I’ll blame them

When they do

 

Maybe our agenda has been

To build another Babel

One structure, one language, one power

Over all the Earth

Determined by us

Goodness, I would hate that

And so would anyone who delights in

Diversity

We made kaleidoscopes

Maybe we should look into them more often

Prismatic colors

Ever-changing order

Not anarchy but beauty in

The light you made

You make

I suppose if we asked to be

People of light

A new adherence to your making and

Your teaching,

Someone would try to pass off some darkness

As the light

Where is your justice, Lord?

We need it and can’t manage it, ourselves

Isn’t there a great mediator, even here

On Earth, among ourselves

Within?

I remember now, it’s love

That I learned in church, even if churches

Forget, hiding agendas instead

Some learn, anyway

And live it so much better than I

These are the ones I need

The ones who live in love

Not perfectly

But persistently

 

We need these people, God

The ones who love

With strength and practicality

Because it’s the better reason

For taking the next step

 

Show us love, Lord

And those who love

The real strength

The foolishness in the world’s eyes

While it digs and flies and wends

Its way toward hell

Each day until the last

But it can’t be for fire of hell

Or fear of it the reason

Love must be embraced

Because it bests fear

Because in the embrace

We see, as sometimes on a clear day

You are there

The God who made us

Allowed the serpent, too

Who gives changes over ages

For all of us to turn our will at last

 

Toward you, into you

Below, above

In better places

And the worst

No peak too high

No pit so deep

But you are there

You gave us will

How about we return it

Using it to do so?

That might be the final irony

You’ve been waiting for

Maybe then we’ll understand

Apocalypse is love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by sergio souza on Unsplash

 

8

Summits

Summits

 

Hi, Earth

I hope you’re doing well

Though I know you’ve

Been beset with challenges

The heat is rising

Water, too

Islands in the Chesapeake are

Disappearing

And I know this because

It’s local

What is going under elsewhere?

I’ve read about the polar regions,

Too

That’s big news

In every way

What about the corners I don’t

Know of

Who is in those corners who

Know nothing of me?

 

Oh, Earth

You’re probably in trouble

And it’s probably our fault

I count on nature’s

Indifference, but I think it’s getting angry

Could a tornado or a hurricane

Be vengeful?

Hail in indictment,

Earthquakes cracking open

Rage, eruptions open wounds

That must have their way?

 

I don’t know

There is romance in nature, too

I don’t want to lose that

There’s gold in the ocean

Silver in the sky

Diamond where’s there clarity

Gemstone colors everywhere

Though the real wealth

Should be love and understanding,

Which of often indicates

A partnership

Is that still possible?

 

I want to know you, Earth

Travel all your courses

And maybe, were it possible,

To find something new

We could meet around a rock,

So many of us

Celebrate your sponsorship

Of human possibility

Resources for

Exploration

 

But we must give something

Of our own, speaking for

My kind

We can’t attend the rock-table

Empty-handed

With something in our pockets

No tricks up our sleeve

It’s too ideal, isn’t it?

We’re too cantankerous on

Either side

I wouldn’t be surprised to find

We both have our illusions

To fool each other, yes

Also to keep us going

You there,

Us here

It’s cynical

It’s fearful

It’s not, to use another idiom,

(we make idioms of you

salt of the you,

for instance)

Cards on the table

 

So what to do, then

We simply go on, as is?

I cry

You rain

We terrify each other

Ruin things as well

Us by force of will

You by an imbalance

That certain Protestants would say

It our fault, too

Finally, I can only speak for us

And our own

Will and ingenuity

For all you have and all we take

Oh, Earth, I ask of all

We must find ways

To give each other chances

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Denis Linine on Unsplash

 

6

Cheating Death

Cheating Death

 

Who cheats anything

And gets away with it?

Personification

I get it

We must make a foe

Of death

To be defeated

Even if that never happens

Not by us

Where is the sting of

Death might be

As close as we can get

Death hurts,

Though finally it doesn’t

Have to

 

That’s faith

That is not personified

Except for centuries ago

In morality plays

Maybe we should bring them back

With all the characters in tow

Allegories

Grace, Good Works

Temptation

Faith and Judgment

Parts of a spiritual life

With the hero Everyman

Whose name will

Have to change to Everyone

I must admit, I like

The sound of that

And how it might play

Upon the stage

 

That is mortality

Where Death will win

Though it will not hurt so much

For the dead,

For those left behind

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Simon Matzinger on Unsplash

Charles de Gaulle – Étoile, 75008 Paris, France, Paris

Don´t spill the light of truth onto me — I prefer to live in the dark.

 

4

Coronavirus Is Republican

Coronavirus Is Republican

(or Democrat)

 

Is the virus partisan?

Does it respect one group

Over another?

If you get to be

Surrounded by doctors

Then maybe you’re okay,

Though even then

 

With fifties Martian-like antennae

‘Round a bulbous planet,

I don’t think the virus

Cares except to replicate

Make more of itself

Trying to take out whatever

Might be in the way

Until it meets the stronger thing

Like Nietzsche

 

But it is not a politician

Who should wear a mask

As an example,

Public servant

It is not the people who

Try to do it right

And might still get sick

There is no quid pro quo

The virus doesn’t bargain

Maybe summer heat will help us

As good as any other

Don’t campaign on the virus

You will lose

Like the gambling house,

The virus wins

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Odysseas Chloridis on Unsplash

Thessaloniki, Greece

A visual depiction of the corona virus outbreak and the isolation it has caused throughout the world.

 

5

The Trail

The Trail

 

Who gets the good?

Who gets the bad?

We do at least in here

We have it for the asking

We ask it of ourselves

We ask providence for help

This much we get

 

One step and then the other

And we’re on our way

Toward a path we’ve chosen

And which, if

Covertly (this is grace

until revealed, sometimes

a surprise)

Will have chosen us

 

The good then selecting

The bad will make a claim as well

Spirits will mediate

Depending on tradition and

Our current habits

Stay the path being generally

Good advice

Ready to move,

Even to change course

Should that become

Necessary

(tricks or illusions)

Good will let us alter ways

When needed

Bad should like to keep us in a rut

Neither trail

Path or gap

Being easy

Though we can ask for help, again

That divinity would show us

 

More than allegory

(though allegory, too)

We’re talking choices for

The way

And on the way

It shouldn’t be guesswork

Maybe resorting to a text

Thoughts and insights should help

The kind that only hurt

Or serve single ambition might

Indicate the other

 

Finally, we’ll find elsewhere

That feels like home

Even if home

We never really had

Because it is

Nothing but strangeness and

Foreboding

Should a turn be wrong,

Which will be all right

Because we can turn again

 

C L Couch

 

Photo by Alex Bertha on Unsplash

 

5

Reveal

Reveal

 

I can see the shadow of a bird

Through the air-conditioner baffling

Maybe it wants to build a nest

It’s happened before

Hopefully, everything will last long enough

To bear eggs and to hatch

It’s all happened before

 

This will add a little tension

To already tense days

But it’s creation,

And I won’t be removing the air-

Conditioner for a while, now

For cleaning or what have you

 

And when I turn it on, the birds will be

Okay with the new noise

That’s worked out all right

As well, before

Oh, and so you know

I won’t be looking further

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Dean Ward on Unsplash

Before chopping down one of the trees in our garden we did an inspection to make sure there were no nests in it. This gorgeous little nest was in one on the lower branches so it looks like the tree is staying.

 

 

5

Soul Music

Soul Music

 

Start in Africa

Carry through to the Caribbean

To New Orleans

Then travel up to Detroit

And with a kind of partnership

In New York and Nashville,

You have soul

 

The other kind, we know

From long ago

When breath entered earth

To form a person, rising

 

Was there music in the garden?

I think there must have been

A shame that in a lull

Between certain movements,

The serpent talked with Eve

And then Adam

All too easily

Fell, too

Then there must have been a kind

Of silence for a time

In mourning, angels set to guard

Then maybe once emptied of us,

Music returned to Eden,

Which was its nature

 

It we listen, will we hear it,

The music in our souls?

Back in Detroit, maybe

Or in the backyard,

Where a picnic turns to small

And loving concerting

For the family

And for friends

 

It might be gone or hidden

(hiding’s a kind of gone),

But like the soul

The music might be found again

Turn to archaeologists,

Turn inward

We can have it

We can play it all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Last concert of Ray Charles at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of the Place des Arts during the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal in 2003. Photo by Victor Diaz Lamich.

Victor Diaz Lamich, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3606167

 

9

It Burns

It Burns

 

Do I have any more to

Say? There should

Be something every day, though

If I worry, nothing might be

Realized

 

But to empty all would then,

Well, to be empty

 

Inspiration, what is that?

A light, a spark,

An ember from an ancient fire,

Spirit from an epic-writer

 

Does the fire

Burn through all the ages?

Do we have a trust,

A pledge,

To carry heated parts to the next

Fire outside the house, having

Warmed ourselves

Once more?

 

What is there in

The torch that borrows from

The center of the Earth?

If hell is frozen, it is heaven

That burns

Alive without consuming,

Like the bush and then the pillar

Saving Israel

Then lighting up the faces

In the temple priests affirming

All the creeds

In the presence of the holy

 

And in a later age, carried off in battle:

So where is it now?

In pockets of the saints

To keep them warm

Inside a cell

For living

Or for execution

 

And to our time it goes,

The coal for inspiration, then

To the future, though

For now

We’ll keep it here—we

Need the fire to heat up

Our reason and the craft,

All come together

For a season and then quietly,

Still glowing,

To the next

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by M.T ElGassier on Unsplash

Tripoli, Libya

cold winter night

 

10

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