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winter

Ashen

Ashen

 

In a corner of

Winter-quiet

I have borrowed,

Since everything

Is lent from God

Even the words

 

Note what we take with us

Nothing but some spirit

And flesh, which will need renewing

 

I wonder here

In the great gray sky

Or underneath the ashen earth

Or in refugee molecules of

Water, trying to escape

Once the desert rain is done

 

About what quickens everything

Who decides

How and why

 

In what is my hope today

My reason

Validation for my purpose

For anyone’s

Anyone who seeks the truth in light

 

For the darker reasons

Tread another path

They disappear

I do want to go with them

 

My hope must be in

God who has arrived

Bringing a longer day

And promise of green seasons

 

coda

 

I am impatient and unknowing

Unknowing and still impatient

Insight comes in parts

In fits

In gold-hot coals

That want to touch the tongue

 

There is a price for growth

Sometimes only for

Having another day

 

Sad assessing,

There it is

It does not count for grace

And considers nothing of

Another’s mercy

 

We have the day

We have the moment

What shall we do

 

Why not live

Uncertain of the defining

But having it

A spark if not a prophecy

 

Is having life reason enough,

You know, it is

 

C L Couch

 

 

Wikimedia Commons (image)

 

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High Level

High Level

 

There is a mourning dove visiting

Outside

Have I mentioned that,

He or she?

It pushes its tail feathers through the

Padding I pushed in from the other side

Next to the

Baffles of the air-conditioner

 

In the afternoon, the bird is gone

I push the padding

Back

 

In the morning, it returns

To push the foam strip through

With the tail again

I want to negotiate

The bird may stay, but I need

The air

It’s hotter than the season typically

Affords,

And I write on my side

For now, it’s only us

 

I’m not sure what it’s doing, she or he,

Building a nest maybe

Mourning doves

Aren’t good at that,

Though I’m impressed with the

Chartres-like, circular

Labyrinth design

Of round, broken sticks

Arranged, frankly, more like a coaster

For my mug of coffee than

An avian home

For old or new

 

We’ll work something out

If not, winter finally will

Drive

Us both away

 

C L Couch

 

photo by Terry Johnson

http://www.mymcr.net/our_community/monroe_county_georgia/monroe-outdoors—mourning-dove-still-top-u-s/article_00951622-6a1c-11e6-b4dd-6b2c02e45bd3.html

 

3

Ice Castles

Ice Castles

 

It is so cold outside today

And I must go, ironically, to

The doctor’s

In pursuit of health, my heart

Might burst

I’ll try to leave

There was snow last night

I’ll try to clear the car

That needs inspecting, but it

Is so cold

 

Before leaving, I listen a story

Of a knight besieged

In a palace on the mountainside

In winter

 

C L Couch

 

1

‘Scape

‘Scape

 

A knoll of pine trees

Tops too tall to see

A circle implied

Because there is a seat

At zero point

 

And snow falls:

Flakes congealed into comic blobs

That fall in quiet plops

On branches and,

When straighter, onto

The granite surface

 

The needly floor,

Covering a sleepy earthen

Solemn way to

Narnia or Middle Earth

 

No lamppost,

Elf, or orc, either, only a winter

Day on planetary sides

Where worlds meet

 

A place made up

And does exist

For I am here

 

C L Couch

 

2

Portland Oregon (haiku)

Portland Oregon

I have family there I

Think I lost four more

 

C L Couch

 

Four homeless people die of exposure in Portland in first 10 days of 2017

 

1

Journaling at the Start of 5 February

Journaling at the Start of 5 February

Added coffee to the canister. Drank from a
Mouthwash bottle nearly empty with a full one
Beside. Same with toothpaste, when it’s time.
These small abundances matter much.

It’s a bunch of days. So the television tells me.
Something to do with weather, with a kind of
Food, and with the heart. Maybe something pre-
Valentine’s. I slept five or six hours, which is not
Enough. I slept under a throw, which is not enough
Though better than a blanket making me too hot.

Too hot in winter. (In a cold-winter clime.) That
Should be a blessing.

4

Keystone Groundhog’s Day

Keystone Groundhog’s Day

Tomorrow—that’s 2 February—
Is, well, Groundhog’s Day

And since I am in Pennsylvania,
Maybe I should say something
(Maybe not)

The groundhog is a creature
With variants: prairie dogs out
West (USA), like Texas
Armadillos in attitude and in
Treatment, so I’m told

Nuisance-being that somehow
Makes a hole we all attend to
On this day

Origins are fought over (the day,
That is, not the groundhog
Itself, made in the perfect,
Chortling humor of the mind
Of God), though likely it’s a time
And rite of spring brought up
Into present cultural moment

There is a town, and here it is
(Here’s how it’s spelled)

Punxsutawney (too bad—Spell-
Check defeated me again, this
Year by only one letter)

Here in top hats people (not
The beast—and I don’t know
Why anyone wears the hats)
Will withdraw the toothy animal
From its artificial den atop a
Hill in or near the town (pardon
Me, the borough, there being
No towns in Pennsylvania,
Municipally speaking, save one
Town for another day)

And then winter’s prophecy-
Predictor takes over the day via
Shadow—and that’s all

But I like the day because, unlike
Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving
Or Memorial Day, we have not
Wrecked this one

There are no Groundhog-Day cards
(I know of), so you must make your
Own—and thus enjoy the day (or

Maybe not) in whichever way you
Groundhog-like

(Legend has it that on this morning, if a groundhog can see its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If it cannot see its shadow, spring is on the way. InfoPlease.com.)


ShenandoahNPS / Foter.com / CC BY via Google Images

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On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter (prose poem)

On the Cusp of a Nor’Easter
(prose poem)

So my friend calls from Indiana. I tell her of my sister’s new job. I am relieved and happy, because my friend’s been struggling with sufferings that would drive me mad. She sounds well and has a chance to tell me some about her family on her way to church to help lead (in technical matters) a Bible study there. It is cold here. It is colder there (single-digit degrees for many days). When she must ring off, she does. I am at the coffeemaker and place the backside of the phone on a spiral burner on the stovetop (everything turned off). While the coffee’s cooking, I clean out some plastic bottles into which I put tap water to drink throughout the day. Not thinking at first, I place the cleaned-out bottles just outside the burner circle set upon the stove. When I’ve done this four times, I have four empty bottles cornering a phone set on a burner plate of labyrinthine form. I’m sure there is a deity for winter (generally, Persephone, though I’m thinking there’s one for winter only), and have I not built a small, strange contemporary altar to her. A narrow receiver (wireless) offered up inside four plastic monoliths keeping in their stillness their own kind of sentinel watching. Is this supplication? I want my friend to be well. I want her husband to enjoy retirement and her daughter have success at school. I want the cold to move on, over there, though for a Midwest winter season, I guess what is endured is rather normal. (Still too cold.) My temps in southern Pennsylvania still have two digits. But we are called to be ourselves storm-ready against a coming, miles-wide soon-arriving gale. It smacks the South and later rounds out to sea—on the way releasing slivering ice and snow and the season’s other dangers onto our regional metropoles: D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. And in my small town? I pray for navigable roads. In my small place, I pray for electricity’s constancy—that it might faithfully provide sufficient heat in rapport with the thermostat. And now I guess I wait. We wait. I clear the stove and leave on the burner now a single cup, ready for coffee. The empty ceramic vessel a suburban symbol of encouragement and also, I think, of supplication.

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