The Warmth of Light
(light about light)
Am I done
I mean for now and
Not
Tomorrow
The brilliant light behind
Me
Through the window
Keeps on shining
Making
Dust-exposed squares upon
The floor
Which is fine
Against
A social expectation
Light is yellow
It is gold
It is precious as we say
Of gold
Against the grayness of
The winter
And too many days
That do not shine
At all
Until
Maybe toward sunset
When sunlight shall slide beneath
The line of clouds
Before
The night
To make a light-prized
If late
Day of it
More usual
Winter’s day
Rather today and
In
These parts
We have a gift
In part
Because the buildings
Aren’t so tall
And
Well
Because I’m looking at it
Even warmed a bit
By a ray
And you might be looking
And be warmed
Should the winter-light ironic
Be good
In your
Current situation
Otherwise if
Far
Far
South
(not
so-far polar south)
Seek a/c
While some might think
Too
Light on light
To write about
Though
Maybe the proof is in
To read
About
And
I don’t know
Maybe feel all right
After
C L Couch
Photo by Nadine Marfurt on Unsplash
St. Gallen, Switzerland
The Exchange
A gray day
A featureless sky
No help there
For interest
Or advice
So what shall I say to you
You know
I ask this
On most days
And sometimes
Write into an answer
Or write
Many things
And one thing turns out
Acceptably
I know the first
Judge
Of things
Is me
And I could be sorry
For that
But this is what I have
I have (or have) to write
You read
You respond
If only to react
And there you are
Writing
Photographing
Painting
All the colors at your beck
(for the words
as well)
And you’ll share something
And I’ll
Read
Or look
And if I’m smart
I’ll
Listen
As we listen
And be changed
Life in the blogosphere
Though actually
Life in art
And honestly
In business
Too
We have to find
Something attractive
To buy in
And there are laws of
I understand
Attraction
So there is exchange
And a go-around
Of growth
And opportunity
Back to art
Well
All of it is art
The theory and the vision
Adding the science of
Application
To expression
(expression
crossing
any boundaries between
the schools)
And I guess the part about business
Is a way of saying
The abstract
Is practical
While where
It seems not
It is necessary
As in vital
As in vita
That is life
C L Couch
Photo by Caryn Sandoval on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
3 poems, when you have time (one poem about observation, one about reading, one about war taking all)
x
x
Observe and Report
x
For preamble
Nothing like
The burdens of a people
Upon Joshua
Or Caleb
x
What’s petty
What is meaningful
Too often
I don’t know
I pick up a stone
It’s not a park
There are no regulations
I take the thing with me
Becomes an artifact
At home
x
I am reminded
Of the Earth
We are set on
So many layers
To the center
Countless to go out
Again
To try to count
x
Clueless
It and I
While it’s supposed to be
And I think I should know something
About the atoms
The formation
Its place
Near my fingers
When I found it
When I take it up
Look upon it
Now
x
x
Read Me
x
Not unlike the words
Commanding
Alice
To forward
Her adventure
x
Words
Well
Words have
Such value
So the lines are short
While
Reading slowly is advised
Going slowly
Generally
x
Yours should be read
This way
As well
x
Time is a treasure
Though we should parse it out
Surrender it in particles
x
Not worrying so much
About the measure
Since the bill
Of sale
Is not our own
But investment the creator made
Inside creation
x
So let’s take our time
As said
Although again
It’s not our own
But lent
At best
And for our use
Simply
As use
x
Please take time to read me
I’ll take time
Reading
You
And then there’s
The needful time
For vital
As in lively
Response
x
x
War and After, After
x
The wars go on
Again
I can’t imagine
The explosions
The dust
The rubble
And the blood
Beneath
x
And the things of blood
Of bodies
That once held the lives
Of souls
While here on Earth
x
Now stolen
As if by gods
Self-styled
With machines
Black and pretty
Smithed
In hell
x
And this is metaphor
Impressions
The real thing
For those alive
Is all about
The running
Avoidance of more anything
Like that
Again
x
And then it happens
There is more
It’s worse
Nothing inside ourselves
Ever
Really
Gets used to it
x
And then
Maybe there’s a moment when
The silence rings
Notes of nothing
Anymore
While looking
Touching
For flesh containing life
We might embrace
To take
And to offer
What we have
x
And there might be people
Come from
Too short a way
To find us
For ourselves
To treat us
Representing
Something clean
And institutional
Away
x
We might be taken there
Where
Objectless walls
Close in
With noises in the distance
Or have we brought them with us
And is it noise
That closes in
The distance
x
We need medication
Sedative
To leave all this
Except for bodies
That have names
xxxxxWe cherish both
xxxxxWe want them
xxxxxHave to search for them
xxxxxTo know them
xxxxxAnd to have them
xxxxxOnce again
x
Though we might have to settle
In without response
While life is measured
Sometimes
Without
The power to the building
And their efforts
And the dust
And rubble
That came in with us
x
The war
The damning war
The reason we say bloody
For the worst
Things we can think of
x
Fleshly containers
Holding flesh
Until they must
Let go
x
Who are they
What are their names
Who are we
Where are we going
x
War take all
Peace for the remnant
The ghostly revenant
Left over
The dust
Of everything that’s taken
For what’s left over
To remain
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Ansia Lasa on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
excerpt from “The Heart”
x
I was a child who
Wanted to
Escape
And on rainy days
I sat in a chair next to a lamp
In the room saved for
Official company
And rather than
All that
I took the quiet
And went into books
With
Stories that saved
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Amaan Ali on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Reading Lists
x
Adrienne Rich
Wrote about Aunt Jennifer’s
Rings and tigers on screens
And diving into a wreck
x
These were the poems
We interns were assigned
To read and teach,
And that was all right
x
But reading on one’s own
With no one’s rubric but
One’s own
Is so much better;
I’m sure we were supposed
To instill some kind of
Critical process regarding
Life and reading in it
x
But I’m not sure
How well that worked,
What kind of processes
We might have instilled,
What seeds grown,
What personal
Allegiances to one’s own
Mind and heart
x
So was a new generation of
New readers of poetry
Begun? Has it flourished?
Are they among the ones who
Turn to poetry when there’s
A tragedy?
x
(read up how we
took to verse after the
Towers fell)
x
I like Rich, though that
Would not be enough
In that we were serving
A learning process
x
It was a small, state school;
I never heard from anyone
Again, though nothing and
No one is due me
x
A state away and many
Years, I wish us well
And to take up small books
Of miracles from time to time;
I do this, Mary Oliver’s
Most recently
x
C L Couch
X
x
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
x
Reading the Next Day
Going back to reading what
Was written
Sometimes there’s little sense
Like looking back on doodles
Or freewriting
Looking back on other things
That’s harder
Talking with fewer people in old age
Means less chance for faux pas
Or maybe it’s reclusion
Only
I don’t need a bigger pile
Piling in the in-box
Who does?
I go back to what I read
Having picked it up in the middle of the night
Because I wasn’t sleeping yet
And a story called
(I’m not sure who was more at fault)
When I return
Will I be welcome?
Will I be welcomed again?
I mean, yes, I bought the thing
But there’s more
An invitation
Riding like the girl who
Delivered most of the news
From Paul Revere
The book is here:
Will I take the message?
Will I accept responsibility for
Interpretation, then dissemination
Throughout the land?
You see, clearly there are questions
And there’s pressure
A lady or a tiger
Re-reading yesterday’s
New pages
In new hours
And then there’s what I’ve written
C L Couch
Photo by Prasanna Kumar on Unsplash
Besant nagar beach, Chennai, India
Books, most loyal friends.
If true, Ludington’s story puts Revere’s to shame, writes Valerie DeBenedette for Mental Floss. She “rode twice as far as Revere did, by herself, over bad roads and in an area roamed by outlaws, to raise Patriot troops to fight in the Battle of Danbury and the Battle of Ridgefield in Connecticut,” DeBenedette writes. “And did we mention it was raining?”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/was-there-really-teenage-female-paul-revere-180962993/
After Reading, There Were Crafts
This time and long ago
I was learning Bible stories
The story I remember best
Is the one in which the prophet
Was tested via
The priests of Ba’al
Elijah was a good one
So the contest went his way
We know where Jehovah sets
With the faithful,
Which is with the faithful
When I read on my own,
I learned much more about
The prophets who were not so good
The Bible told me so
Deborah and Gideon turn out
To be exceptions
Not to mention all the kings,
I think,
Who came into being against
Jehovah’s wishes, anyway
Against God?
Who would do such a thing
Who knew the Lord so closely?
Does it breed contempt,
After all?
Solomon was prosperous
David was loved
Though there was ruin in his
Realm and by his hand
War, deceit, rebellion, adultery,
And murder
Yet when Absalom was killed
Left hanging in a tree
(such an image),
I wonder if God did not weep
With David, waiting by the gate
For a better word
The lesson was extended into
Something with our hands
I remember best all the burdened-out matches
Glued to a cardboard shape
To make a cross
A cross requiring so much
Extinguishment of light to have
Now the finished product better lay
Against the wall
As a reading for Good Friday
C L Couch
Community Archives – HC02495, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76993143
Photograph by Robert McCormick of Belleville, Ontario, showing Mary Ritchie (lived 1842-1929, formerly Mary Holden) and her Sunday School class from the John Street Church, Belleville.
The Act of Reading
It’s amazing how
Letters on the page
Keep us going
How the, which has little
Meaning, is essential
I look at the page, and
It matters
You find me there, too
And everyone who
Has meant something to you
And me
However it’s configured
Nowadays,
We go to words on pages
And they matter
The secrets of all time and space
Are there
The words wait
Like magic spells
Invocations standing by
Turn to them
Whether paper or electrons
Our salvation waits
And other stories
C L Couch
title by Wolgang Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response
image in the public domain
J. R. R. Reading Day
25 March
(Not that there’s anything to
Mind, but)
How was this decided?
What happens in the story
To commemorate?
What’s in the lore?
Having a day made right
For reading about rings
Or the Silmarils
Or ships retiring west to
Middle-Earth’s Elysian
Shores—or imposing corsairs
Creasing through southern
Waters
All this is good
If a day to be celebratory
Even better
An excuse to wake up our
Hobbit aspects and have
Bilbo’s birthday party, after
Reading, under the great
Shire tree
Not having to wait
‘Til 22 September
When we can make the party
More fantasy
Officially
Again
clcouch123 
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