Cats and Dogs LLC

Cats and Dogs LLC

 

Taking care of cats is done

Human mom and dad are home

Now I’ve been asked about

A dog

It’s a cottage industry

Without the cottage

Next time I want a cottage

Maybe a retreat house

Maybe a place for

Pet contemplatives

We could invite patrons to workshops:

Julian for cats

Roch for dogs

Francis for the birds that visit

Via rafters

 

Can you imagine compline

Vigil and matins?

Cats gathered not as

Clowders but choristers

Dogs serving as lectors

Reading from

What else

You know it’s coming

Saint Bernard

 

C L Couch

 

 

Church ruins and a stray dog in Karpaz, Northern Cyprus.

Michal Klajban – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78240449

 

 

Hospitalism

Hospitalism

 

My sister tells me it’s a man thing

Not wanting to go to the

Hospital

It’s certainly true that I do not want to go

And that I thought this

A healthy inclination

Now I wonder if for those women who

Care so much

(In quantity and quality) if there is a

Kind of comfort there

Someone else to provide, to

Decide,

To break the news

And deal with it first

 

C L Couch

 

This Is What I Care About

This Is What I Care About

 

This is what I care about

Family—three brothers, sister,

Brother-in-law, sisters-in-law,

Too

 

Niece and nephews, two

Children in the next generation

Four dogs for now, no cats

I know of (since mine died)

 

Friends—those who have

Work and those who need it,

Who are healthy and who

Struggle to get through the

Day without so much pain

 

Neighbors—those who make

Up my community and those

Who try to disfigure it

 

Peace that hardly yet prevails

Love and grace that it might

Abound

 

God who doesn’t need me

But regards me as one part

Of creation, anyway

 

And you

 

For so many reasons

 

For I know that you care, too

Equatorial Collapse

Equatorial Collapse

 

Not believing in

Im-providential bluster

 

Conspiracy only by

Nature tunneling

Through our

Understanding

 

Not ready to give in

That this is the end of

Our clay days

 

Number of who’s

Died in Ecuador

Adds more, one

Victim by one

 

Richter 7.8

 

So many, so much

Gone or fading into

Earth that all destroyed

Only invites a tomb

 

Ecuador

 

Queridos, tengan cuidado

 

Loved ones, literally

Have care, reach to

Possess

 

Seek it, hold it, share

 

Expect care’s arriving

With other, constructed

Parts of the world

 

La santidad en la vida

Anda con ustedes

Abajo del mundo

Y hasta a los cielos