a few things I’d rather have written about today (and then heard further about the shooting)
Tributaries
Today is
Mom’s birthday
She’s been gone
Since ‘83
Gee
Now fifty years ago
Come 13 June
There is gravestone
With a flower
Though we had planned
A rabbit
And they go it
Wrong
So many things went wrong
Back then
And not to say
Things are so smooth now
There’s legacy
Though certainly
We’re on our own
And up to us
And on us
All our choices
By life
She lived too brief a life
I had wishes
For gifts and such
Hopes for relating
Never realized
Dreams
Dissolved
Everything went numb
And dark
For a while
And some of that remains
Even fifty years
Later
When it’s late
In the time
Of all of us
The children
While it’s also blessed early
For the new ones
To carry on
Inside generations
One by one
And all together
One, two, three, four
Black, white, green, red
One by one
And all together
Now
The Today Show
Today
Is a better day
Because I washed something
You don’t know what it means
If you’re depressed
And then
Improve one thing
One small thing
Unless
You are depressed
And maybe this works for you
As well
I hope so
Not to scrub
Obsessively
Toward bleeding in
(bleeding out
or in)
Somewhere
I mean washing
Almost without thought
Cleaning it
For safer
More hygienic use
Again
So ordinary
Now so extraordinary
Realized
And realized
There’s
Some sort of spiritual
Match in this
The extraordinary
In the ordinary
I can’t remember
Is it us
Made by God
This way
To live that way
Is it our purpose
Or the purpose of the universe
Made of small things
That become huge
In planet-making
In eruptions
Upon every rounded surface
At some time
I don’t know
Somehow the small is large
While remaining small
And I cleaned
Something small
And it has largened
My awareness
Just enough
To let in something better
And I could give it
A name
But for now
Will simply live with it
Let it live with me
(please let it live with me
a plea)
Nameless
And wondrous
For a while
lento
the ashes are gone
most likely
(we’re supposed
to let them fall off
naturally)
sometimes the skin
is broken
where they were
upon our foreheads
anyway
we’re in Lent now
the long season
named for the lengthening
of days
it is the Italian word
that also comes to mind
lento
meaning slow
play the music here
with ease
taking your time
while attending to
the baton
ahead of everything
the instruments
and guiding
interpretation
the Buddhists say
go slowly
they’re on to something
especially
for these days
in which the days grow
gradually longer
in assurance of spring
the green season
on its way
and we hope it will arrive
with nutrients enough
in soil
and rain enough
from above
and our good choices what
to plant
so that at long last
there might be abundance
though we’ll need the right amounts
of rain and sun
from above
a spiritual collaboration
we might believe
and hope for
even plan for
in these lengthening
of days
we make time now
to file away
what we know
and don’t know yet
eat less now
think more
lay a new foundation
for prayer
more solid convictions
and intentions
on which the frenzy
soon enough
will build
time now
maybe for dreams as well
to have them
talk about them
with the Lord
and with each other
on the plane of Earth
C L Couch
Photo by Praveen kumar Mathivanan on Unsplash
day without asking
day without asking
unsaid what is borne by hours
twenty-foured season
C L Couch
Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash
disseasonability
an easy winter
brutal summer
heat
in exchange for
the snow
fair exchange?
there is romance
in the snow
yes
and peril, too
but do we forget
(speaking in January)
that
there is danger
in the high heat,
too
not to mention
polar ice shelves
sliding into
sea
exposing land
which is interesting
though
in fact
we are losing our cool
so to say
and for real
the Earth is heating
and we need
the heat
and shall we forget
we need the cold
as well
sorry
we’re not halfway
keep talking winter
in the northern world
at least
and maybe ask
down south
how the summer’s
doing
c l couch
photo by Liana S on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Exiled
x
Oh
God
Shall we have
A good season
Together
The year has started
And now
Another season
x
Intentions
Overlap
You come into the world
And you are here
The Earth tilts
And always
Has
Far as we know
x
Turns
Like a top
A toy to such as you
Though you
Are not a giant god
That way
x
You play
But not with us as
Playthings
Upon the Earth
An unrolled
Plastic battlefield
x
We toy each other
Which is
An eldritch lesson
We came up with
On our own
x
Objectify
‘Til someone doesn’t matter
Like Cain
Like everyone in western Asia
Like anyone who’s different
Over here
x
We need a season
Need the time
But shall we be reborn
With remembrance
Of a real birth
To save the nations
Ransom
Captive Israel
Then all the rest
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jorge Fernández Salas on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Released
x
Winter starts tomorrow
Summer to the south
There is no snow forecasted
(in the north)
For a while
Another drier
Warmer
Winter time
Which is all right
For fear of snow
Blizzard and ice
That keep us in
With or without
The victuals we might need
(for all precautions)
But in terms of sleeping ground
The frozen seeds
The insects
Everything that hibernates
The warmth unseasonal
Won’t help
And we’ll awake to spring
Plus winter in the south
That isn’t right
That imbalances
That takes away the timing
That Earth needs
And all upon it
x
Yes
There’s climate change
And eldritch melting
At the poles
Interesting for observation
And for extracting mammoth bones
Maybe not so promising
For what else
Might be released
Into the air
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by yasin hemmati on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
First Frost
x
1
Last night
x
It kills some things
Blankets others for the night
That is the final season
x
Nature knows
What we try to control
Knowing that relenting is
The final lesson
x
2
Ally ourselves
Withal
The nature of our lives
With the nature
Steadfast all around
Whose
Perturbations are
A part of all of it
x
Rhythms
Cycles
Seasons
Storms and quakes
Floods and eruptions
Take too many
Should have their own
Rhythms
Cycles
Seasons
x
Try to dance
Like skaters
Swimmers
Climbers
They all fall
And rise again
x
We could take care
Of all of us
This way
And let us grow
Into work as play
And play as work
(if we take in both parts)
Into retirement
What comes next after
Seed and bloom
Trunk and ever after
Life again
Life ever after
Goes the story
x
Join with the movement
Of the seasons
Of the spheres
While together
Work it out
For better times
Reasoned
Lives today
Living ahead
The generations of the forest
x
We are the forest
Too
x
C L Couch
x
x
(the briefest of bibliographies)
x
The Word for World Is Forest
Ursula K. Le Guin
x
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the Creator triumphantly raise,
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who guideth us on to the end of our days.
Katherine Davis
x
x
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Late Human Summer
x
The alphabet of storms
Goes on
Blows on
When the alphabet is done
I wonder
If we add prime marks
To letters
Going back to A again
(with prime)
x
The sun is out
We’re getting a heatwave
Because we’re bad
No
Only because
(the only reason is because
though
yes
as a species
we may take blame
for vicissitudes
in climate)
x
Other things have happened
In the night
The hours between day and day
I enjoyed the company of
Friends
And so was lucky
x
I was not on either side
Of war
There was no explosion
Not even verbal
‘Cause we like each other
And otherwise would disrupt
The ritual
Like dropping wine
Or leaving bread crumbs out
In Communion
x
Not that things don’t happen
‘Cause they do
I get The Daily News
And should read to know
Who has killed whom
In shockingly
Petty ways
That had treated victims
As sponges
Softly receiving weapon plunges
Or shots
Sometimes by ghost guns
Now that we have
Ghosts for guns
x
But I’ve only been up
For a while
And haven’t been in touch
With the world
Which will change soon
Or I could take the day off
From the rest
Of us
Except for you
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Hellish Season
x
It’s summer
And it’s hot
The sky too dense
With particulates
Of fires
And there’s
An irony of floods
And there is war too hot to fight
Yet fought
There
And in
We’ve heard
The war at home
x
Too much heat
It could seem
For sin
And yet not (yet) hot enough
To forestall
Our trying
x
And should
The hellish rise
In us
Around us
There might be balm
Valued
And adored
x
Christ
(of battle
of
the coming of the Lord)
Spirit
And angels
Come with mercy
Like cool liquid
On fevered heads
Once bodies
Have been taken
From the fray
x
And then the heat
Might break
A cooling rain
In fact
Begins and lasts
All the next day
Like the fourth day after
Three days
Of terrifying
Awesome
Blooded battle
All battles drawing blood
But this
Specifically at Gettysburg
x
Four days at Gettysburg
The fourth day for rain
To wash the field
To mist the ignominy
Either of retreat
Or too much victory
x
C L Couch
x
x
(after three days of accidental, built-up, pent-up, exhausting, murderous battle, starting on the first, the battle at Gettysburg was done and on the fourth day there was rain—ironic for the nation, being the Fourth of July, of course our independence day for the USA)
x
Photo by Henrique Sá on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
haiku
x
1
slow nature inside
plants grow in unsure seasons
ours darkness or light
x
2
unsurely outside
winter by a calendar
summer another
x
3
creature on a branch
cardinal or squirrel set
then fly or skitter
x
C L Couch
x
x
(like those earlier, these haiku can relate to each other, though I doubt there is a rule about connection; or each haiku may stand alone, which I guess is more traditional)
x
Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash
x
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