n.b.
There is nothing to say
That hasn’t been said before
But if I feel something new,
I’ll try
With what I have
To say what to the world
Is the same old thing
C L Couch
New Year
The rooster
Takes a turn
(the monkey
Is my year)
Oriental means eastern
But in China it is meridian
The center
For people and the life
We take these years
In twelve,
Which is significant for
Occidentals, too
Maybe we should learn to count
Together, dismiss compass
Names
Respecting the zenith
Of each degree
Each one
C L Couch
Happy Gregorian new year. Happy lunar new year.
Still writing from a place of pain that tends to overwhelm. I’ll be rethinking that relationship between art and suffering, sometime.
Meanwhile I’m trying.
Inauguration
A blue light in the sky
Maybe green
Depends upon perspective
Looking out along the silver sea
Of an ancient world
The truth is this:
Matter exists
So does the abstract
Earth and harmony
Air and loyalty
Water and benevolence
All things come together at the last
For judgment and better
Placement in the heavens
Meantime we breathe
We move
We love the seasons
I fall and maybe you are there
To pick me up
The risk, the chance, the danger
In saying, today we live
We step, we reach
We are aware
Living is chosen for the day
Our enemies might scoff
We in turn scorn
But better worlds than these await
And we have only time until
True glory is manifest
And a paradise of grace and will travels
Arriving in our atoms,
Saving electrons, all energy
Accounted
This is what we have
Who we are is how we choose
Salvation comes from love
And the faith
That persists
In you, in me, in all
C L Couch
(in my journal, after drafting for what’s above)
There. Message for the day. Persist. Endure. Celebrate a little. Find small pleasures. Look forward. Move now.
My headache is bad. The coffee helps.
Brain Burn
Or the Quixote syndrome
(unofficial, made it up)
Idealism cannot last
But in my mind, it’s cauterized
After the fires, it’s clear
The windmill’s won
I ride away on my pink horse
Thankful Sancho Panza
Hadn’t seen
Or heard or felt or touched or savored
Any of this,
Flame or ash
C L Couch
Portland Oregon
I have family there I
Think I lost four more
C L Couch
Four homeless people die of exposure in Portland in first 10 days of 2017
Medieval Morning
A bright, open, empty field
Ready for blackbird pins to touch,
Scratch, and leave tracks
That become illumination
This is the riddle:
Write me an answer;
Illustrate your solution,
Please
C L Couch
Negotiating the Spoon
Have you ever worked
A spoon inside a jar of jam?
(The spoon is inside)
Certainly, you have
It’s the cozy way
The curve slides under the
Oranged part, and
There you have a treasure
Slip it out and pour it
On the toast (I favor rye)
Save for the skinny parts
Sticking to the utensil
You must negotiate
The goop on the back
And in the bowl
So the spoon is gently
Struck onto the bread; some
Comes off, and
The rest is prized out with
A finger
A suckling part
Of anticipation of the rest
Taste of solution-solving
Impracticality
What a treat
Veniality
To wash off
A moment’s
Work at the sink
Time and use of smarter efficiency
And these have value
So do the slow and cumbered ways
That force the option upon us
The pleasure in what we are doing
The charity
C L Couch
The Russia Plane
I’m so sorry
And in this I do not care about
Antipathy between governments
And generations’ leaders
Loss of life from Russia
The choir, the humanitarian
Anyone from any place of any kind
Or backing
Agenda no longer counts save
Mother Russia weeping
Fill the holes in churches and
In agnostic circles
With salt water from our tears
And Black Sea depths
C L Couch
Hurry
Christ is born everywhere
I mean no disrespect
But Christ is born in igloos
And in houses split by war
Among refugees
And in soldier camps
Christ is born in Istanbul
Where meet all kinds of Christianity
He is born in mosques
And in Jewish temples
Christ is born in Norway,
When the days are dark
Christ is born in Fiji
Under lights of humid stars
Christ is born in Outback
And on New Zealand slopes
Within the folds of sheeping beings
And urban Christchurch, too
Christ is born in small America
And in the larger parts
Among the mean and angry
Those whose eyes and ears are full
Christ is born in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania, and nearby Nazareth
In Resurrection, New Mexico,
And Devil’s Foot, Montana
Christ is born in France
In Germany and Belgium
Between tectonic places in Italy
And on the sweeps of Spain’s La Mancha
Inside the skins of churches
And other noble halls
Once bright and now sleeping
In states of ruin
Eurasian steppes and valleys
In places to the east and north and south
The crossing points of human worlds
And outplaces far removed
Christ is born where plots are made
In despot places
And Christ is born where hopes are low
And dreams are only quiet things
Christ is born for you
And me
Alongside faithful Hindus
And Buddhists on the way
Christ will walk beside all pilgrims
Those who hear a call
And those who know not
Where they go
Christ is born in Africa
In rutted villages and paved cities
Where voices rise in song,
While others silenced knowingly
Christ is born in Andes places
Those fed by weeping Amazon
With those who live in shadows
Where end all lands
And continents might cry
Christ is on the ice
And born into the air
Underneath the earth where
Minerals move
And where things are still
Christ is born near enemies or friends
No feeling is required
Christ is born in word
And light where
Faith is exposed as well as misdirection
Christ is born, and it is good
Christ is born and virtue opens
And evil is shuttered
Christ saves all who wish
And those who don’t know how
Christ is born for us
All worlds allow
Heir of Earth
All oxygen and ocean
Hale or foul,
And we should turn to please
And with shouts or
In silence bow
C L Couch
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