the law of glory

 

the law of glory

 

who made autumn glorious?

a final, phoenix flourish before winter

who gave the colors

then must take them back

it is a way

with the discipline of divinity, I guess

I was not asked

I’d make it color all year round,

which would tyrannize the summer

and relegate winter sameness

to memory’s dust-catch

good that I’m not creator, then

I’d hash the seasons

(even in the south it would not be safe)

lose the patterns

for

remaking life in temperate parts

year-round

I’d wreck the year

and then we’d need a

God to save

when rescue is enough

most every day

 

quiet my reckoning, then

keep the seasons in-between as they are

let peace prevail in middlin’-parts

for better reasons

 

c l couch

 

 

Mehr News Agency – Golestan dabbed in Autumn colors

en.mehrnews.com

 

Anna Pauline McAnally

Anna Pauline McAnally

In my culture, Sunday

Is Mother’s Day

I don’t know if it’s a global mark

Or not

Maybe we got it from someone

Somewhere else

My mother died more than

Thirty years ago

To say the least,

Everyone was younger then

Cancer killed her

And later killed my father

Due to late findings,

The worse of everything transpired

Sickness from treatments, only

Receiving people wearing masks

When she was in ICU

Protesting medications helped

Because she was generally a fighter

Why am I taking this? at last

And I won’t take that

But she lived longer

Than the doctors claimed she would

Two years better than four months

It will be about a month from now, the

Date she died

Because it is now so far away

Her stone lies mostly unattended

Except generally in

Caretaking

An indictment?

Maybe

For we all live

Hundreds of miles away in

These our days

 

C L Couch

 

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio on June 13, 1983 · Page 39

Newspapers.com

Pauline McAnally Couch obituary

 

Ode to Small Things

Ode to Small Things

 

The toast has jumped

Thank you, toast and toaster

Those who made you

Then

Those who made you

 

Let’s have an ode to

Every small thing that’s good

Typing

Lids that unscrew

Peanut butter

George Washington Carver’s inventions,

The ones that were never made

 

You and me

And each one of us,

Small upon the planet

Large in worth

And skill

And gratitude

For being made

And someone of us who

Might fix everything

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://pxhere.com/cs/photo/590878

 

Blue Rhapsody

Blue Rhapsody

 

If someone should take a sword

And stab me through the head

And I don’t die

What am I

I press my temples, narrowing the blade

Closer to the center

Nothing much happens

 

The pain implodes

The bleeding is inside

A Shakespeare-like character might say

I am undone

I am wounded

I am slain

 

Yet to look at me,

I’m altogether

 

Naked the blade

An alloyed monster from the sky

Maybe it’s an allergy

Maybe it’s a growth

May I am too tired

 

Too taken to read more

But I can open a blank page, one

Without text for now

 

As I have opened here

 

C L Couch

 

 

 

image

https://churchpop.com/2014/08/14/the-real-sword-in-the-stone-belonged-to-the-rccs-first-official-saint/

 

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

 

Apology

Apology

 

Sometimes I look into sky

There can be clouds

More viscerally when it’s stars

We see bucolic things

And we should

But sometimes it falls back on me

The sky, the stars

And if one can feel vertigo

When sitting still

Well

 

I’ve tried to imagine it all

And it has smacked back on me

The universe, as if I’m told

Cannot take me now

Don’t even try

It’s not yours

Someday, maybe

 

You’ll know your place

And your way around

 

C L Couch

 

 

(too beautiful, too much)

https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1707a/