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Testimony of a Winter Day

Testimony of a Winter Day

 

Snow has fallen

Like frosting on a cake for now

Is that where the baker’s

Term came from?

The sky is featureless

Any sunlight is diffuse

It’s Saturday

So in the USA timing is not an issue

For the weekend-minded

And privileged

It’s a setting for a winter’s day

Appropriate for the Mid-Atlantic

If there’s a storm somewhere

Beaches will be closed for walking

Ships will hopefully take caution

As an exigent criterion

 

At present, I live in a small town

And testify only to a noisy neighbor

I would rather live without

Maybe he will leave

But not today

Today is a day for inside

For those who have fireplaces

To light a fire in them

Read by another light

Next to the firelight

Wrap up in something

Liquid hot or cold close by

Or if there’s someone else, have

A conversation

 

About nothing in particular

Or what’s been keeping in the rush

Of sunlit, navigable days

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by invisiblepower on Unsplash

Norway

The Early Morning

 

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Uneven Day

 

Uneven Day

(winter solstice)

 

What did Merton say?

I don’t know where I’m going

I don’t know what I’m doing

And Frodo something like

I will take the ring to Mordor

Though I do not know the way

Indecision is a funny thing

Because it doesn’t have to stop us

We can pray

We can wear the ring

As a blessing or an onus (as in probandi)

We can go to Gethsemani

(Kentucky)

Then on to Mordor

 

Tomorrow the day and night are split

Their most unevenly

It won’t be a celebration, then, of symmetry

Rather infinity, for we’ll be wanting

Hoping

 

We’ll want longer days

The chance for life in light

Maybe a bargain,

If we do our part

We’ll say

And many of us mean it

 

How do we move from darkness into light?

Shouldn’t that happen, anyway?

What if we stand still?

Sit in a quiet place

Where we won’t be noticed

Won’t be bothered, either

 

Well, we don’t where we’re going

And we might stay in place

Though ongoing inaction doesn’t plumb

Right in the sounding of our nature

I don’t mean not rest

By all means, rest

But take care for the new year

That for many starts tomorrow

When division is uneven

When balance won’t accomplish much

For months to come

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Kamesh Vedula on Unsplash

Cupertino, United States

 

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Lent 15

Lent 15

 

It is a sight to see

A last cold day in winter

Green is trying

To work its way through

It only looks like moss and lichen

Now

In the south, it’s autumn passing

I think I’d have to be there

Really to get it

Such is my brevity of sight

Only used to sensing northern climes

 

I don’t live in a desert world, either

I’d be just as likely to romanticize

Though it must be hard

 

to live a metaphor

When it strikes the covered face,

Threatening to upend

A breathing life

 

The world is extraordinary

Our world

It’s hard, it’s soft

It gives, it takes away

It inaugurates

It keeps away for good

A mean game

Except that it’s not meant

 

What we shall have here

What gained, what lost

Anything ponderous

Or discrete

Anything at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

gert jan degroot / 66 Images

Pxhere

 

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Paean

Paean

 

I don’t know what time it is

I mean, it’s mid-morning

Not in an hour of

Dramatic dark or anything

The sky outside’s a wash, in fact

Enough light for movement,

Nothing added

 

But I have slept, at last

And feel the thankful fullness

That comes and lives inside

For a while,

When the right kind of unconsciousness

Has happened over hours

 

There are images of nature on TV

Some kind of early-winter story

In March, I can afford

To let it be romantic

All the layers

That they wear

And that nature provides

 

(later on I look;

it’s ten fifty-nine)

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jaanus Jagomägi on Unsplash

 

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Taking Turns

Taking Turns

 

It’s dusk

Dark on a windy winter day

The branches want to articulate,

But they can only screech against the sky

Upon my window

Maybe the trees want to come inside

But better they are where they are,

And I don’t open to their world

To bring the season in,

So we’ll each remain

 

But for now I’m glad the cold is here

My thanks to Persephone

Whose story rings my mood

 

The seasons are a find

Who would have thought of them,

Four for temperate climes?

 

Hers is an old story

And behind all the bittersweet

Action and parable

An older story waits

Untimely resolution

All our chapters realized

 

C L Couch

 

 

CC0 Public Domain

https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1109482

 

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Agapāte

Agapāte

 

Yesterday was a pretty day, you know

I took a step outside and breathed

The air was warm and cool and good

My neighbor passed by,

And we talked about the start of winter,

Which might have been at that moment

It could stay this way, we posited

With no power over seasons

 

In the south, I know it’s summer

We might think that’s wrongway

 

From there, we are the backward time

Turvy-topsy, as it were

I hope it’s a good summer

I hope we have a decent winter

In all the midland places

And extremes

I have no idea what we deserve

Thank goodness better love

Doesn’t count that way

 

C L Couch

 

 

Wild0ne / 269 images

https://pixabay.com/en/drop-wet-h2o-icicle-clean-cold-3065629/

 

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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

 

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