southern exposure
now it’s Tuesday
out back
the red looks brown
near-
winter brown
already
though the red out front
more fiery
by sunlight pouring through
the backs and
fronts of leaves
so
maybe it’s a matter
only of shadows
only
of daytime hours
and if the light could shine out back
there would
be fire art
out there
as well
c l couch
photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
haiku
x
1
twenty pages in
the need to gaze and breathe out
outside for elsewhere
x
2
city-wise black trees
darkened too the sky-wept street
nature go with tears
x
3
after rain is haze
exhale into clarity
newly gifts of night
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
How They Carry the Good News
x
I’m not sure what I’ll
Write today,
But there will be something
Something about me
And you
God and the whole world,
Which we sing is in
God’s hands
x
I suppose an earthquake
Might mean
That something is slipping through
The fingers,
A flood might mean
Too many tears
x
The birds might carry news
Carried by the wind,
Another agency
x
They hear the talking
In the trees
And what stones say
Between buildings
Some shining,
Some in ruins
x
I guess there are words
From all over Earth
While the moon
Sings in response
And the stars
Oscillate their notes as well
For any
Who are listening
x
Let those who hear,
May—not
With ears
But with supernal apparatus
That repression
Or suppression might affect
But is with us, still
Too deep, perhaps
Though there is
A law of freedom
That
I’ve heard about
x
C L Couch
x
x
“How They Carried the Good News from Ghent to Aix” is a poem by Robert Browning.
x
Photo by Christine Benton on Unsplash
At a gymkhana show in Warner Springs. These two make a formidable duo, galloping across the arena and then coming to a sliding stop to make a sharp turn around a pole (out of range to the left). They take my breath away.
x
(x = space)
x
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Imposition of Immortality
x
The tree outside looked as if it were leaning toward the window. I mean big parts, think branches and the bow. Black against a gray sky, it all looked dramatic. Worse, a little scary. Trees have fallen down before. In the back, a large one, bringing many wires with it. In the backyard of the house I grew up in in Pittsburgh, a tall and wide willow. Fell in the night, covering the backyard to be seen in the daylight. The first big thing to fall in my nascent awareness. Will the new tree fall? I don’t know. Who does? The squirrels and dogs walked by? Qué será, será, the Spanish say (and Doris Day). It is what it is, we say these days. All we are is dust in the wind. I guess that goes for imposing trees as well.
x
C L Couch
x
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Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
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Photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash
Old carved tombstone of a weeping willow tree in a cemetery in the countryside near Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County. The cemetery was integrated with the graves of African American and white Americans as was the nearby church.
x
Halcyon
It’s a beautiful day
Sometimes, I guess, that’s it
Outside
Everything allies to make it
Grand
Bright blue sky, punctuated with
Big balls of cloud
Yellow light is playing on
Green branches
The brown trunks look gussied up
For square dancing
With their partners
Once the night has fallen
And there are no humans watching
James Weldon Johnson might approve
It’s a day for Aesop
Or for Tolkien
Mary Oliver
Or Gerald May
Or anyone who has a porch
With chairs and a pitcher
Of the family favorite
(we won’t judge)
At night in June
There should be fireflies
And we’re allowed to watch them dance
While other things are secret
(see above)
C L Couch
Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
Adelhausen, Rheinfelden (Baden), Germany
Sarehole Mill
The closest he would ever come
To loving a machine with anything
Near intimacy
He didn’t drive a car
He took the train (but did he
love the train, as many young
ones do?)
He was inclined to write by hand
Or so it seems
With all the inky manuscripting
And the drawing
I’m not sure he ever saw a movie
Courtesy of film-projector gears
But there was this mill
Still grinding corn
And did the Gaffer live there?
There were bricks and
Inside burnished metal
I wonder how it sounded
When coarse grain was pulled through
And did he ever try the product
There were trees close by,
There had to be
Or the feelings would have faltered,
I believe
How near to the heart of Hobbiton
It must have been moved, at last
Turned by water
Providing force enough
For humble profits,
All around
C L Couch
view of Sarehole Mill from the millpond, Birmingham, UK
Bs0u10e01 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66147691
The Cypress Trees out Back
They stand tall and spare
Branches at the top all by themselves
Like leafy crowns
Bearing the responsibility without
The retinue,
Royal reinforcements
The tree that was squat and enormous
Is gone
Blown apart by wind and rain
And all weather-fury
Tell me how the slender cypress
Still rise from the earth
When the broader, low-to-ground
Was taken
I don’t know, but I think
Maybe the taller trees were
Much, much better at bending
Without breaking
C L Couch
Kevmin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7571467
A branch of fossilized Glyptostrobus species needles. Eocene, 49.5 myo; Klondike Mountain Formation, Republic, Washington, USA. Stonerose Interpretive Center specimen # [sic]
Trees
(for an October prompt)
Tolkien liked trees
Robin Hood, too;
Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily,
I imagine,
Providing shelter
And playing fields
For lost boys
I like trees
Two of these peaked
High like towers from
The wide suburban plain
Of the backyard,
Splindly reaching toward
A clouded sky on
A Pittsburgh summer day
There was wind
At night, and upon the
Morning in the yard
One tree had fallen
Large across the lawn,
Tall on the ground
Sibling standing over
As if to demonstrate their
Name,
Weeping willow
For many days
I had climbed into the
Guard now dying,
Onto a lumbered platform
That my father built
That lay square among
Round branches
Inside uprooted, plodding
Blocks
Of grass
First time for me
With something monstrous
So close, so wrong
C L Couch
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