a note from me to you

I apologize for not doing my part in corresponding with you.  My pet care sideline (unintentional) expanded this summer with more dogs and cats to look after (since my friends know I don’t go anywhere).  Sadly, regarding pets, I have to share that Old Dachshund, subject of poems, died a few days ago.  He was old, and ironically (physically) his heart got too big.  Old Poodle walks around my sister’s home, looking lost.

In addition, I entered a new world of pain this summer.  It’s nerve pain, I guess.  Or so they think so at the doctor’s.  It now moves from my left hand (leftie that I am) up the arm into the shoulder, up my neck, and then behind my eyes.  All this has slowed me down more, added to the slower pace I have to take due to heart disease.

Could I sound more pathetic?  I don’t wish to.  I continue to write because I have to.  And if I write and then post, at least I’m doing something.  I do want to be in touch with you more, however.  If you simply “like” my work without comment, that’s fine.  I’m grateful.  If you read and never note anything, that’s fine as well.  That’s the first reason why I share anything.

I hope your August has been good and September is even better.  Thank you!

Christopher

 

Treasure Trove

Treasure Trove

 

We’re surrounded by things

Not always ours

But I think it’s good

 

Those who can have things

Everyone cannot afford acquiring

Maybe should be the subject of

Our conversation

 

Things mean ownership,

And ownership ties us to life

We can go too far

As so many of us do, for

 

Things don’t deserve attachment

That is treasure-madness

Everything is temporary, after all

 

I sit in a corner of my life

And wish we could talk in person

Having a drink in a favorite cup

You find what I provide acceptable

We hold forth, even outside cyberspace

And maybe make notes

After

 

We have a fine time

Promising another,

Knowing we will follow through

And we own a little more

Now having something of the strength

Of normal wealth

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://thelorienlegacies.wikia.com/wiki/The_Lorien_Legacies_Wiki

 

 

Sum-sum-summertime

Sum-sum-summertime

(summing up a season)

 

It’s the end of summer

And I think of picnics

And camping out and camping

Whose root word means

Field, I think

I think of all the food I had

Outdoors

And mostly enjoyed

And it makes me wonder about all

The dirt I’ve eaten

How many pounds by the end

Of each lifetime

Several pounds, I’m sure

Maybe more

I don’t mean to be gross

I don’t think it is

For good or ill, we inhale the planet

We consume its parts

I don’t mean a gluttony

But symbiosis

We need each other, the Earth and I

We are a reason for each other

An empty Earth does little good

Less so an absent home

In any season

 

C L Couch

 

 

the image is or was from the site of New Hampshire State Parks; while there are many fine images there, I couldn’t find this one of them

The New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation : Camping

 

If Music Be

If Music Be

 

The life of a conductor

Intensity in perfect clothes

The privilege of

Moods

A reason for performance

 

I used to attend

I used to direct

I enjoyed the motion

In the rhythm of the spheres

 

So what shall we do

Have a romantic ending

After a crisis of crescendo

A denouement that tells us that

The story’s over

Soon will be time to go home

 

I think that sounds right

Let the music take us

Through

The passages

The energy

The final resolutions

Then, you know,

The end

 

C L Couch

 

 

https://www.kusc.org/culture/out-and-about-blog/john-mauceri-leonard-bernstein/

image there without specific credit but a good story about Bernstein and legacy

 

Saint Peter on a Sunday Afternoon

Saint Peter on a Sunday Afternoon

 

The Shoes of the Fisherman

Is on TV

I doubt I can help but watch

An old film, yes

I imagine too stodgy and too staid

For a reboot

I’m relieved

I should read the novel

But the movie engages viscerally

As sometimes movies do engage us

And we with them

A pope is elected

Cyril, first from Russia

In the Cold War

And for all time

 

As I understand the story

Cyril came to Russia with Methodius

Wanting eagerly to share the Gospel story

And found

So many tribes at war

First, then, they imposed a language

So that all might speak and

Might be heard

Cyrillic

 

Sounds mythical,

I know

For our time, an allegory

 

Rome is eternal, so they say

And the Vatican seems that way as well

I wonder

The church is not the pope

It is the people

This is not new teaching

A billion people

I could be one of them

 

C L Couch

 

Monkishness

Monkishness

 

Is there a simple way to live

Without complexities that

Do not matter

I suppose that would be a start

What about what

I have to stay involved with

Family

Taxes

Friendships

Car trouble

Clothing choices

What to drink

What to drink from

How to prepare food

How to learn to do that

Are these things that anyone else

Worries about

 

I don’t have much already

What few things I have

I’d like to like

I guess

Like the shape and texture

Like what it has me think about

Or helps me to think about

Nothing at all

 

I don’t know, what’s possible

So much is unsettled

So much is teased

So many things call out

Let us draw you in—we are

Meaning here

Join us

You won’t be lonely anymore

There are many like us

With us

Small prices to pay

 

Is this what it means to be a person

To face complexities and

Find a way

While everything’s a mess

And we don’t know how to clean

Because we forgot

 

Simplicity does not mean alone

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://www.poorclares.org/do-nuns-have-fun/

Do Nuns Have Fun?

yes, they do

 

The Big Quiet

The Big Quiet

 

Was everything else

Set here first

Slathered on by gravity

By passes and twirls

Of heat and carbon

Round an axis circling a

Toddler sun

Looking for a place to stay

Bending away

From solar majesty

The attendance who wants

Some sovereignty if

Only in degrees

 

Something presses in the middle

Like clay inside a fist

And round and round

Flow minerals

Red and black turns of

Earth that

Slip-slide curved, over and

Under

Until there is a kind of magnetism

From constitution

Settling, not settling

And over which

Into

Water arrives

 

And after managing an arrangement

Between the land and sea,

It’s time for seething

Into untoward life

Tomorrow there’s be more

For now, it’s just a cell or two

That impulses into

The world

And now will rest to take a breath

Throughout the darkness spell

For now it is decreed

A night and day

 

C L Couch

 

 

primordial soup – daily doodle 046

March 29, 2018

Brain Blinks

by Don Whitaker

 

Symphonia

Symphonia

 

I rock

And the music of the Earth

Moves back and forth with me

Waves, air currents

Tree branches in the wind

Up and down, forward back

Everything’s in motion

Everything’s related

Everything’s connected

Everything takes part in the same

Song

That’s been moving every molecule

Since the first counting

The first conducting

Of our days

And who is the conductor, who is

The composer

The Greeks had an answer

Followings without a godhead

Know the one

And there’s the none

Others must appreciate

 

But when the stage is full

And every part is played

There is thanks and praise

And no one is too tired

To begin again

Such joy is in our muscles

Such love in all our timbre and our

Tune

Every knuckle, every bond

And should it have such feeling

 

You know, once the mystery is done

And all hearts are known

There is a feeling

Something settled

Something ready

To go again

The sheer delight in currents

In inspiration passing through

And leading us beyond

Firing our choices

Approving all our discipline

We compose, we rehearse

With meaning in dysfunction

In all our challenges

Everything that hurts

 

I imply there is a conductor

But when we turn

Whom do we behold

For now, there’s only mystery

And we must practice together

For the music to have merit

 

Compose

So will I

We will create a song for

Our delight and, when we have it right,

The animals and even usually unfeeling things

Will be lifted

And will cheer

Cheer for you

Cheer for us

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Daderot – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6581237

Voyager record, Music from Earth

 

 

Corazón

Corazón

 

Can I write about this now?

Maybe a sabbath day will help

It’s the living, you know

They cannot have that

The people of Puerto Rico

Spanish and Taino

Legacy of colony

Self-determination that we prize

So much is always mollified

Into a chance for daily life

And that is gone and has been for such

A long, long while

 

We chose this for them

Our nation did not free them

Did not favor statehood

Rendered a possession in a war

With Spain

One set of owners to another

Arecibo’s there

Ancient San Juan with El Moro

But life is dark

Because there’s no electricity

For so many

For so many

 

It’s a litany of labor

Living that does not allow for expectation:

What might we have today

Food that has not spoiled

Walls that are dry at last of storm

Our children start school soon

Will there power in the classroom

Or at home for studying?

The nation could answer affirmative

We haven’t

 

We could build them back

And Texas, too

And, yes, handle the wildfires

In the golden state

And all the shootings in Chicago

We’re reactive

Here’s a tragedy

Could be our finest set of hours

What is it

They’re mestizo?

We don’t know five hundred years of conflict

To comfort?

We’re unaware of what is manufactured

That we need?

 

I’m asking

Because we made a claim

Because we have the navy there

And look for understanding in the stars

 

So maybe we can listen for

Ayúdanos

 

C L Couch

 

 

Free photo: El Moro Puerto Rico – structure, washed, worn – Non …

Jooinn

El Moro Puerto Rico, structure, washed, worn, stone