Prevaricating Sharks

(x = space)

x

x

Prevaricating Sharks

x

I don’t know what

To share

With you today

x

How are things with you

How is your health

x

How are your

Relations

And your story

x

I hope you’re really well

x

I’m not sure what

To ask

Without specifics

x

I don’t know what

To ask

But we can pray for friends

And strangers

Can’t we

x

Sure

We can

And I hope

This day is grand for you

x

The sharks swim closely to us

But they’re not

Attacking

Without meaning

Without purpose

x

Let’s not give them

A reason

Today

x

Live in cooperation

Maybe with nature as the

Romantics

Sought

The Victorians eschewed

x

In harmony with nature

x

Certainly

Let’s live out

The contracts natural

With each other

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

x

Gestation

(x = space)

x

x

Gestation

x

I don’t know

It’s Friday

It’s raining

We need the rain

The clouds have little texture

At least from here

x

Nothing much to look at

A wet street

Spatter on the windows

We need the rain

x

There is war

In Ukraine

More death today

More wounded

And in Sudan

We’re drawing up our diplomats

Telling tourists

To go home

Choose another

(for now)

x

We know there’s trafficking

Where

Here

Of drugs

Of people

Contraband things that

Otherwise

Could be all right

x

But you know

People

Never people

Sold

Which means someone is

Buying

Where

Here

x

Struggles for freedom’s

Hard enough

On good days in

(relative)

Safe places

x

And they

The captured

Kidnapped

Bought and sold

Are not all

But tend to be

Children

Women

Who

We know

Struggle for freedom

Already

Hard enough

More than should be

Enough

x

On Friday I could cry

But the sky

Provides

As if behooving

I could say

Nature weeps for me

As in

Instead of me

And that

Nature weeps for all of us

In distress

But it is nature’s

Well

Nature

x

That’s all

And that’s enough

The rain

Provides

Other good things

x

But I’m thinking now

There should be

Laws

For freedom

To work within one’s

Bearing

Bearing

Who we are

What can we do

x

And freedom of our bodes

Politic

Personal

That many of us

Think we have

x

Let’s check the laws of nature

And our charters

I think it’s there

Many

Freedoms

Already

There

Officially

And by

Who made rain

x

We may read wet leaves

Or our own pages

Fearfully

Consider

Wonderfully made

And what

To do

With what and whom

When made

When with accountability

Co-making

x

Rain

Tears

Freedoms

Fridays

Notions

Not like the old

Department-store

Departments

(but) Full-blown

Like glass

Full-grown

Into ideas

x

We do

Need these

A good weekend

Please

For you

You deserve it

It’s deserved

x

Does rain mean freedom

I don’t think so

Sometimes

It’s relaxing to watch

To hear

Sometimes

It’s fearful

The median response

Might have something to do

With inconvenience

Maybe this is part

Part Friday

Too

Of freedom

x

C L Couch

x

x

Psalm 139:14

x

Photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash

x

a promise to make do, make better

(x = space)

x

x

a promise to make do, make better

x

nature will not mind

if we go outside

to kill him on the hill

far enough

away

from the glory

of our temple

and the palace

and the city

x

maybe if we pledge

to clean up the trash after

make the hillside

beautiful

maybe re-purposed for

a cemetery

or something

x

nature will not mind

if we control things

for a while

until

we have what we want

x

God appears

approving of our final plans

which means

our enemies are gone

or prostrate

and we are left standing

everywhere

to rule

from being right

x

pause

x

what’s that

it’s dark

it shouldn’t be

there are noises

above and below the ground that

sound eldritch

even the cries from people

over the sobs

from the few who weep

honestly

x

and now the earth is

split

and through so many places

so that we have to add to burying

xxxxxwe have to fit in

xxxxxmore to till in

xxxxxnail over

xxxxxthen varnish

xxxxxor whitewash

x

nature

we want to be your friend

we only need you for a while

to go along

with a simple execution

over and upon

one of your hills

x

come on

work with us

play

with us

x

we know you like to play

we experience

the seasons change

even through

our

desert places

x

but then

the wilderness will change as well

when paradise is made

because

God is on our side

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Dylan McLeod on Unsplash

x

The Givers

(x = space)

x

x

The Givers

x

I need to speak better

With the Lord

And of the Lord

And of a maker’s love

Of nature

And more so

The people

Living in all mysteries

x

People and mysteries

Of how to number them

In and if

Any propriety

How to count

And within the will acceptable

Of all of us

(three entities)

x

For us

Receivers of all words

Too much is un-understood

The glass is dark

The ideal

Is on the other side

As are the mysteries

Resolved

x

But there is the need

The compulsion

To move, anyway

While

We are here

Somehow to invest

In invisible interaction

That is real

In the sense we cannot count

Or measure

Yet bears salvation

x

A book of hours

Indicates

Yet cannot reveal

As much as, say,

Look or hear into the gentle candle

While we pray

x

Our rites are fine

Many are elegant

With an aim

Toward dignity

Mixed with an agenda of

Information

Clarity

Through what is revealed

Finally vague

And believed

(by me for one)

Vague evidence for faith

As manifested,

Which is to say

As is

x

More elegant

(as well)

Is the spirit

In the sky at night

With its own stillness

And its risks

The careful and the wild

Embodied

And presented

In unmoving blue

Maybe with high clouds

That haunt

Or in the storm

That

Threatens

Or attempts to ravage

When released

Land and sea

And us between

x

The hours we have

Altogether

Organized

Unkempt

The lives we have

With all the unsolved parts

Priests

Religious

(liturgy composers)

Poets

Room for unbelievers

All work

In both realms

Created

Sub-created

And must own

Not in harmony

But harmony

The music of the spheres

We say

With all the mysteries

Set down to solve

And leave or let

Untouched

Unsolved

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Ali Choubin on Unsplash

x

haiku

(x = space)

x

x

haiku

x

1

twenty pages in

the need to gaze and breathe out

outside for elsewhere

x

2

city-wise black trees

darkened too the sky-wept street

nature go with tears

x

3

after rain is haze

exhale into clarity

newly gifts of night

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash

x

Précis for Aurora

(x = space)

x

x

Précis for Aurora

x

It’s winter

And it’s likable

Because

It’s cold outside

But there isn’t snow

Or ice or slush

Or such upon

The ground;

My car is clear

Should I need it,

And the sun is rising

Making the branches

Look like

Black arms with points

Reaching out,

Beseeching something

And I’m sorry

But I don’t know what

x

What does nature need

But to exist

And have oxygen and room

For existence

And some growth?

We could help

Or get in the way;

We conquer nature

So we think

To have our grand

Plans realized

For things above,

Below

The water table

Or some other

Primordial impediment

x

Do we cooperate

I wonder,

Ever:

Do we like our trees

And clouds

And ground and stones

And deeper things

Or

Are they only things

In the way?

x

We have a dominion

Theory,

Saying that

We are in charge

Of all of it

The flora and the fauna

And everything

That doesn’t move

Until cracks in the ground

Or volcanos

Dictate; I’m not sure

How our commission goes

Should we be

Evaluated—what kind

Of grade would

Watching angels

Grant us?

x

I say all this

Because it’s early

And the trees along

The street

Must manage with

Vehicular traffic;

The cars and trucks

Are noisy

While the trees

Are quiet (no wind

to show a

protest, either)

x

I wish you well today

And us

Us together,

Since the CO-2 and

O-2 arrangement

Keeps us going

And we are ruining

The Amazon

And I don’t know

How we’re doing

On Main Street

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Renting C on Unsplash

x

(I actually do live on Main Street; maybe you do, too)

x

They Wave Farewell

(x = space)

x

x

They Wave Farewell

(Memorial Day, USA)

x

Red

(with white and blue)

Waving over fields

Dropping morning dew

x

For us

It is remembering

A waving day of it

Poppy remembering

x

Nature teaches

And must be

A burying place for war

The fields wave

The children wave

We wave

They wave farewell

x

Nature weeps

With dew, with rain, with

Anything that falls

All of us may fall

And weep

We may weep

For the children

(all are children)

Of the world

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

x

Paradise Neither Lost nor Found

(x = space)

x

x

Paradise Neither Lost nor Found

x

It is not the best of times

Just now

I have to own that part

Of the Dickens

Narration

Too many sick

I know

And there is war

Infamous

Famously defended

I’d like to know the wisdom

Of the ages

Those who contemplated

Long ago

How to redeem the mind

And sanctify the heart

How did they do it

When we’re so

Smarter now

x

How may I call up

Desert mothers

Desert fathers

My might I stir

My own kind of Celtic blood

That came to northern shores

And tried to have companionship

With nature and each other

Until organized, metallic

Factions entered

And took over

Slew what did not submit

Killed what submitted

Anyway

x

That’s my northernness

I guess

I guess I like it well enough

I’d like to know yours

And what you have from the

Southern half

Because you might

Have that

East or west

As interesting

Exciting

The fascination of our differences

Shared in easy friendship

Easy joy

The direction points aren’t bad

Unless you make them

Points of dominion

Or points of fear

x

Fear not

We can come toward each other with

Fingertip excitement

Passing through time

And sentiment

To share a call that says

The Earth is one

We are one

We are one and one and one

And one

x

C L Couch

x

If she doesn’t mind, I’d like to dedicate this work to Judith Nilan who wrote so kindly of me recently and whose friendship is cherished by me and by anyone else who is her friend, I’m sure.  You should read her blog because it would be good for you.  Her blog address is https://stonefireblog.com/.

x

x

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

x

Anjali Mudra

(x = space)

x

x

Anjali Mudra

x

What does love say

On this or any other

Plain day?

The sun is out for now

Dust is settled

Here and there

Some of the folds

In the blankets have been

Smoothed out

It is a lonely day,

And that’s all right

Not as a concession

But as a source

For small peace

That could be broken

Should the phone

Be lifted

And knowing that,

There is no desperation

A quiet day

An ordinary day

A day between the holidays

As most of our days are

x

Nothing to own

Gifted

Are the seconds and

The minutes, the hours

And the dust

Our scant possessions

No matter how tall

Or deep

They can’t defeat

The mountains

Or the trenches of the deep

We can coexist

There is no point

In conquest

When nature rolls everything

At last

Into the waiting ground

x

Fight it

Or have

A knowing peace

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

x