2 poems kind of about brokenness (sorry)
When the Circle’s Not Unbroken
The Lord
Invites us
To the circle
Or the square
Or something oblong
Maybe
Rhomboid
To something
Maybe broken
For design
Or due to
Some experience
That seems
To break up everything
Fear
And anger
Breaking out
Without
The lines
To keep it in
To keep what might be loved
Therein
Though love remains
In the fragments
The Lord
Cares for us in these
And if the situation
Backs in
From extreme
The parts
Maybe come together
In a new shape
If partial
While we gesture
Talk
And work on fixing
For a while
Call it prayer
Call it Bible study
Call it therapy
Or medication
Every means
That helps
In measured
Dosage
And discretion
‘Til something like
Our circle
Even as
Something else
Shall come together
Maybe with a new
Amen
March on Two Left Feet
(or right)
The fifth already
Seems like
March is
The right name
The lion hasn’t really
Come
Though are there hints
Of lambs
Is a fair question
It’s in-between
A kind of academic
Purgatory
While the sky
And Earth
Decide
To fix the things
From winter
Into spring
We hope
The flowers undeceived
The planting happen
In its own
Good timing
That might have to change
Or not
Should good-guessing be required
By planters
Of all kinds
Who typically
Are breathing through
Northeastern cold
While waiting
For green seasons
To begin
C L Couch
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski 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
the wanderer
(after losing everything)
winter arrives
there might be a storm
of ice and snow
in days
I’m not ready
but I’m never ready
not when I have so little
with which
to endure
I’d sell my soul
for food
and warmth
but God won’t let me
there is still the notion
of my soul
that is
assayed as worthless here
but might
be worth something
set on a scale
for heaven
so I shall
persist
until my spirit
has run dry
of blood
and will
and pray to God
that I’ll be taken easily
once warmed before I die
and only so much
before
having arrived
I’m washed in comfort
and apology
in paradise
c l couch
inspired by “The Wanderer,” a poem from a millennium ago at least, and by pressing issues now
photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
some poems for you today
(some poems of the day)
x
x
night will come on
x
second full day of winter
a thoughtful day
perhaps
x
day before the night
before the day
still a blue or purple day
white or gold
in the offing
x
another yet another
gray day outside
to look at it
to feel it
too
there’s something of a chill
x
maybe it’s three ghosts
warming up
in an ethereal bullpen
before descending upon London
or wherever
whoever Scrooge
might try to sleep
inside posts of tarnished gold
having eaten
unappreciated food
and nothing for the child
Want or Ignorance
not yet
x
we can await
transition
transformation
of a night
in a great story
sometimes on Earth
the real Earth
to know
x
x
the allusion is, of course, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, often published with other Christmas stories
x
x
multiplicity
x
sigh
a great God
comes to Earth
having been here already
shooed us from the
garden
set an angel with a sword
to keep us out
should we find it
however accidently
once again
x
a God
who’s always here
already
thus begging a confusion
since we make a deal
of God arriving
though God is here
x
well
the ancients
didn’t have that problem
paradox in time
like characters
from Bible stories
costumed as one’s own
also
in Old English
for example
without a future tense
x
so that
every time is now
and the next thing
and the thing
that was
no worries
x
God is always here
always arriving
too
everything a kind of participle
or a gerund
the subject in or as
a tense
that is all timelines
all the time
x
confused mortality
perhaps
yet replicating
meter of a chaosed clock
that has numbers
that
for the sake of our philosophy
are movable
forgettable
in the exigencies
of moments’
having
and remembering
also anticipating
x
always the birth
always the apocalypse
as well
meaning that
time and meaning
have all seeds
and growth
and harvest
with all accounts
as with all stories
every gospel
all the same
with kairos room for change
here and now
and then
and what’s to come
all the same
here
and in a kind of ancient
(that means contemporary
too)
crazy and amenable
as now
x
was
is
will
as now
x
bless our ancients
for knowing something
of
the ways things magically
and really are
today
from yesterday
into divine best-guessing
for tomorrow
x
x
servile
x
what shall we say
that’s permanent
except that God is love
God is a spirit
plus all better metaphors
a rock
a lion
x
who has an investment
in every good
and reasoned thing
in need
for us to call it miracle
x
water from
desert stone
food in ravens’ mouths
that they abey
until
delivery
x
God strives
to keep the prophets
whole
for the rest of us to
hear
and to absorb
the entire
story
letting
the wisdom
and the warnings
to soak in
through all
our cells
supernal messages
easier metaphors
for meaning
x
no riddles
save for fun
sometimes erudition
(though the simple ones
are better
aren’t they
Bilbo)
no requirements
beyond a willing
and created nature
x
there being
no stars for gain
(there are no Sneetches
and there is no
McBean)
no refectories
with sainted machines
dispensing
when the answer
or indulgence
might be right
that is
Earthly correct
x
rather leave
our kitchens
for serving
real food
for need
and in a turn
for pleasure
since there’s no reason
service should not be
pleasant
as well as exigent
with even
seasons to remember
the life outside
inside
x
the gospel within
food
perhaps
though better
after
so that we might be
sated twice
with victuals
and nourishment
from stories
forgetting not
our own
x
x
the clock that smiles
x
tomorrow go to church
or last night
this evening
later the next day
until the sun
decides
to set
and an indulgent clock
must by the maker
say
it’s had enough
x
there is this morning
too
there is right now
and shall we worship
God
inside a heartbeat
savoring the next
secured
inside
the believing beat
of now
x
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Dominic Tham on Unsplash
x
x
God bless
our in-between days
x
(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
White Out
x
There was hardly any winter;
Now I am nostalgic
x
As I get old
The immediacy of snow
Has sometimes frightened me
x
Am I ready?
(knowing I’m not ready)
x
But now I miss the falling
And the settling
x
Not the extremes, of course,
Or the extremes of heat in summer
But enough that says
Winter is allowed
In our land
x
And I might walk in it
Again
x
So I’m learning, still
(so are you):
I hadn’t thought more generally
And with some surprise
That the bildungsroman
Has never
Finished
x
It goes on bildung-building
(education)
And as roman
A story
Of many chapters
Or a song with many stanzas,
Key transitions,
D. S. to the coda
For life is repeated
Many times,
It seems
Or even improvised
x
And of Shangri-La philosophy
(moderation in all things)
Maybe the winter
Shall return
With some climatic glory
And less (less) fearfulness from
Me
And should anyone
Who feels this way
x
x
C L Couch
x
Photo by Mark Rabe 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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