Postcard at the Center

(x = space)

x

x

Postcard at the Center

(wishing you were here)

x

I am up early

The sun has yet

To shine

Or try through clouds

If that’s what happens

It’s going to be

A warmish winter day

Not that the climate’s warming

Or anything

x

The trees outside

Will look black against

The morning light behind them

The cars will pass by

Below,

Somehow magically muffled

By a Sunday morning

Eventually,

It will be time for church

For churchgoers

x

No comment

But some coffee

That was necessary

And gratified I had the fixings

For a gift

And for the time

x

That’s all

The card ran out of space

Above

I’m writing on the air beside

That might be sent

As well

Through something like the ether

If not cardboard

x

C L Couch

x

with gratitude for Carrie Fisher

x

x

Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash

Sydney Opera House

x

Morning’s Delta Light

(x = space)

x

x

Morning’s Delta Light

x

Judgment light

As morning sunlight

Without shadow

On the blanket;

The light is warm

In a purifying way

x

The light is yellow due to the

Sun’s agency:

On another world

What color might be

Informing the inhabitants?

x

It’s good;

The light is living

Adding deltas

To the chemistry of

xxxxxReactions

xxxxxChange

xxxxxGrowth

x

A preference for cloudy days

Should not impede

What must also come someday

In sun

(with shadows)

To assess

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

Day’s like this.

Santa Barbara, United States

[looking east toward mountains]

x

Wake Up, Now

(x = space)

x

x

Wake Up, Now

x

I haven’t heard

Or read the news

Seen images move

Across the screen

Or be still

There

x

So what happened

Overnight?

It’s Saturday

What high schools

Might be happier

For Friday’s games?

What nations

Changed?

Who might be in charge

Now?

x

How many

In the hospital

From one of or some or all the reasons

Who is on the way to heaven

Or purgation

We can only pray

And hope

For good things now for them

x

What have I wakened

Into?

How is my home

Of planet Earth?

What’s happening outside

That we only know now

As news,

Carried from light years away?

x

And what might happen here

Today?

I won’t know, of course,

Until the hours

Come to me

And I to them

Good morning, world

Good morning beyond the world

And inside

Where things are happening

Cellularly, too

x

And can I think of God

First thing?

I don’t think I can

I’m not devout

I’ll get to God

Once consciousness

And the lines of things

The shadows

And the shapes of light

Are seen

And anything to hear

Is heard

Maybe what woke me up

If the timing is untoward

x

I’m thinking of God now

For correction

A moment of chagrin

Wishing

(one wish of three wishes,

if there were a story

happening)

Wishing

I were faithful

Like the faithful

Waking up

To hear

And somehow see

Taste and smell

And touch

The agencies of God

And then the world

x

Sigh,

Good people

Special people

Waking up

So wonderfully

And usefully

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Rhamely on Unsplash

x

Virtually a Sunday

(x = space)

x

x

Virtually a Sunday

x

I pulled on a shirt for church

Only to have technology

Fail me

Or I fail it, more likely

Virtual church

I should walk down the street

Through wide doors

Greet people

Sit down upon the wooden and worn

Bench

Await the start of something formal

Or walk

And keep walking

Chill and sunshine

And have church that way

x

Pray as I go

There are things I want

To pray for:

My brother’s health

Cancer

My nephew’s healing

COVID

My neighbor’s heart condition

Another neighbor’s children

COVID in the world

(cancer, too)

The horrid war in Ukraine

War in other places

Where it’s horrid

(always horrid)

Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan

Or violence undeclared

Peace thwarted

x

For food for everyone

Safe water

Safe living

I guess I can pray all these things

While walking

Pausing for crosswalks

Maybe I prayed for them now

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

x

Quiet Start

(x = space)

x

x

Quiet Start

x

I am quiet

And for a change

The building’s quiet

I have ordered food

Staples, that kind of thing

It should be arriving

In two hours

Or less

x

It’s a breathing moment

When the sun is considering

Fully rising

Though it’s tussling

With some clouds

I like this time

I wish my coffeemaker

Wasn’t broken

x

But I’ll take this

For a Friday morning

Pray for all the tragedies

By nature and by us

Do some plain old

Wishing, too,

As if I had an unironic genie

Who would simply give me

What I wish

Even world peace

Or something like that

x

C L Couch

x

x

Dandelions are everywhere in Finland in Spring!

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash

Levi, Kittilä, Finland

x

Consider Morning

Consider Morning

 

Through closed eyes

There is a day unfolding

The sky is gray, turning pale blue

Maybe the misty parts will

Burn off

The street is dry

 

Opening the eyes

Brings out

A different contemplation

Now objects are seen

In pale light and shadow

Lights left on, under shades

Burnish everything

That is illuminated

 

There is burping from

The coffeemaker, while bread sits out

For the toaster

In the world that strangely has no time

For now, whenever these are served

As much as anything

More than clocks

Begins the day

 

It’s real, it’s not

It’s what there is

Uncertain muscles stretch

Brain cells don’t know yet

Which way to go

Feeling this in modern times when

The world has gone to war

The anxiety is different now

Because the enemy is inside

Not in conspiracy but

Atomic fact

With atoms making molecules and cells

With certain ones, too many, at

War with each other

 

These are the trenches

And the foxholes, now

 

There are those, bravely

On the front line of defense

First responding, second following through

With finding beds and

Other care

Third, treating symptoms where there is

No cure but creative treatment

With logistics

The next line, also at risk,

Who must be brave

Are those who fight the war at home, who

Hold together, maybe where there

Is no thread beyond connection

 

There is a layer in-between

Call it the community

That tries to stem the hoarding,

Who in company

And companies

Makes supplies to go up those lines,

Like rolling bandages

In past time

Maybe rolling them, too, just now

 

Then there are those who bunker-hide,

Meaning beyond reason, who

Make statements from the back

As if

It were the front

Who’ve never read “The Masque”

Or, reading it, forget

The lesson that, like fog inside a city,

Anyone or everyone might

Be touched by this,

Which means all are connected

 

Mere bellicosity never having won

A day much less the cause

 

Love will win with reason,

As it always does

Every time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Rathmannsdorf, Saxony, Germany

spruce trees in heavy fog

 

We Can Play

We Can Play

 

A squirrel and a bird play

In the tree

At least that’s how it looks

And sounds

The bird flies up; the squirrel follows

The sounds of chirping and chittering

Sound friendly,

As if I’d know

Though I know the difference between

A purr and a hiss

Ears up or ears laid back

The growl that leads to the bark

So I’m going to call it

Playing

There is no better way to spend

An early morning

If you’re a squirrel or a bird

So let’s pretend

We are squirrels or birds

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Rowan Heuvel on Unsplash

Unawatuna, Sri Lanka

 

Fixing Morning

Fixing Morning

 

Lord,

I don’t know what

To say or do

Thank goodness for the

Autonomic processes

I sit here, tempting frozenness

Fruit of depression

And anxiety, I know

Though like gout,

It could be an exigent bout

With indecision

 

But decision-making requires

Quantities,

And I have none

Feeling beaten around by

The world, because I have been

What is left?

 

Then I look outside:

It is a pale scene

Morning light-blue, yellow light

Upon some branches

Other branches in the shade

Though the leaves are waving green

As if to signal spring, perhaps

Officially some weeks away

 

While, I’m sorry for ingratitude,

I tend to savor

Seasons as they come, anymore

(dreading the extremes—

why did you make these?)

So a sign of spring is fine

Even a comfort (thank you) but

Not a pressing need

I tend to love even when they’re difficult

All times I have

 

So if this pastiche outside

That only I behold has been

(and maybe not)

Arranged at all for me,

It might be an invitation

You know (I know you know),

To sit up,

Eat the toast,

Finish the coffee,

And move on

 

It looks to be a lovely day outside

And if I leave the noise inside

I’m sure I will hear birdsong

So much better

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

 

The Gray Gift

The Gray Gift

 

For the moment,

There is a blanket over everything

Like the one I woke up under

Anticipation of a holiday, perhaps

The blanket is light gray

It settles easily as it’s made up

Of daylight

I’m not sure what we might have done

To earn such protection and

And of

Muted beauty

 

It’s a quiet gift

And will last as long as diaphanous things

Might

Maybe longer, since nature

Knows the way around Main Street

Over it (upon it)

To serve it

And to keep it going

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by wilsan u on Unsplash

I don’t know where this is, but it’s somewhere.