‘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
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
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.
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
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.
clcouch123 
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