Dear Heart
What shall I
Say
What shall I
Do
Today
I ask and ask
While there are no letters
In the sky
What shall I
Pray then
For an answer
A direction
If not
A plan
How about the next
Step
Only
How about an inclination
Certainly a push
Should help
A small one
Maybe
I won’t
Tell your supervisors
Or maybe you could help
With this
Great weight
That seems
To be weighing more
Today
Some small lightness
Which
I’ll take for
Freedom
To move along
Dear angel
Thank you
Knowing you are there
Is
Of course
Something good
More than
You know
You know
C L Couch
Photo by Jason marquis on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
What Number Pain Today
x
I don’t know
Or recall
Who came up with
Quiet desperation
Perhaps a modern poet
I hope you
Don’t have to live that way
Something inside
That found its way
A sidling kind of thing
That won’t let go
It could be memory
Or money
The potential for a scandal
Or simply a lot of pain
Not the kind that
Inspires a statue
And who needs that?
x
Pain is a reaction
A response
Also a signal
Can keep in the inner workings
Working
It should have an end
Not simply a measure
But that’s what
Therapy
Or medication’s for
x
Or simply bearing
Old body pains
A place of wounding
In the spirit
We can keep
Except sometimes we can’t
Then the therapy
Or medication’s needed
Prayer
Companionship
Companionship in prayer
x
Aquarius bears water
The libation bearers, well,
Libation
As offerings
Atlas
Or the elephant
Bears the world
And there’s the story of Saint Christopher
Who carried Christ, not knowing
It was Christ, through water
And a storm
And the child’s weight increasing
Until the one who carried him must say
He bore the weight
Of the world
And did bear
x
Carry weights
And pains
And as pains are signals
Pay attention
Carry,
I mean carry,
Carry on
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
x
the phrase “quiet desperation” is by Thoreau in Walden
x
(x = space)
x
x
weight of glory
x
what do we say
sometimes the weight is too much
it presses down like gravity
on a wide planet far away
x
is there grace in the stars
the kind that made them,
I suppose
the love that means covalence
molecular intimacy
and from there through our bodies
back to the stars
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Radu Chelariu on Unsplash
when I saw this at first, I thought it was a field of stars
x
Lifting Things Now Matters More
I’m rocking out
My lower back
How things rock out these days
I must look a fool
I do not care
I might be doing something therapeutic
Might not
Might be doing nothing but
Expending energy
Don’t care
Either way, I have something to do
I’ve had to learn to say ouch
I’m not so good at it
Not out of heroics
Partly out of curiosity
That overwhelms when
Something new has happened
Partly because
I was told about
Silence and virtue
Long ago
By a teacher who was tired, I think
Stuck on a bus of us
On the return field trip from
Young people’s symphony
William Steinberg, conducting
What adult would
Want to hear the calls of children
After?
So when she said
Good children are quiet
Well, I heard that
And never was the same,
Which is all right
There were enough at home
That less noise from one
Would go
Like good spelling
Totally unappreciated
So, yeah, there’s that
I rock
C L Couch
Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash
Odd Gratitude
The weight is in my eyes
Just over my lungs
Inside the muscles
Pressing on the bones
Everything moves, anyway
Fingers, hands
Knees stretch
I blink, swallow, turn my neck
To see what’s what
The day’s ahead, and I’m
Thankful
Surprised? Shouldn’t be
Life is nearly always worth it
And always, really
There’s torture in the world,
Which must challenge the price
To pay
But this is being tired
Really tired
And there’s pain
Though not enough
To wreck the odds
Of there being maybe many
Good things ahead
C L Couch
Gratitude Stones
https://www.firefliesandmudpies.com/gratitude-stones/
http://www.yessafechoices.org/parents/character-education-corner/gratitude
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