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haiku
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1
twenty pages in
the need to gaze and breathe out
outside for elsewhere
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2
city-wise black trees
darkened too the sky-wept street
nature go with tears
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3
after rain is haze
exhale into clarity
newly gifts of night
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C L Couch
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Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash
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This Autumn Morning
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Gray with
A patch
Of red
Inside black
Branches
Red leaves
Attached
Maybe until
A winter wind
Comes to
Take them
Through the
Air until the
Breath’s expired
Then gravity
Must have
Its way and
Like the roots
We can see
And-or touch
Must lie upon the
Earth
And inside
For a while
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C L Couch
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Joshua Tree National Park
Photo by Matt Artz on Unsplash
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Devotionism
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I talk with God
God talks back
Sometimes through
The trees,
As happened last night
When I went out
Encountering a roar
From a single tree
Near the garage,
A tree that always
Reaches
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With the wind,
Maybe someone
From someone
Wanting to take notice
Of the night
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C L Couch
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Photo by Florian Hesse on Unsplash
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Signing Late Winter
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The sky is blue
As an observer,
A romantic,
Or a child might say
At last
And with a sigh:
It’s been white
Or gray for a while
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A lithe tree branch
Dances against the window
I can’t hear it for
The distance,
Though I’m sure there’s
Scraping
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Asking to come in
Or better yet
Inviting me
For company
To go out
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C L Couch
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Photo by dorota dylka on Unsplash
Blossom
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Imposition of Immortality
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The tree outside looked as if it were leaning toward the window. I mean big parts, think branches and the bow. Black against a gray sky, it all looked dramatic. Worse, a little scary. Trees have fallen down before. In the back, a large one, bringing many wires with it. In the backyard of the house I grew up in in Pittsburgh, a tall and wide willow. Fell in the night, covering the backyard to be seen in the daylight. The first big thing to fall in my nascent awareness. Will the new tree fall? I don’t know. Who does? The squirrels and dogs walked by? Qué será, será, the Spanish say (and Doris Day). It is what it is, we say these days. All we are is dust in the wind. I guess that goes for imposing trees as well.
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C L Couch
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Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
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Photo by Diane Helentjaris on Unsplash
Old carved tombstone of a weeping willow tree in a cemetery in the countryside near Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County. The cemetery was integrated with the graves of African American and white Americans as was the nearby church.
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The Golden Tree
There’s a golden tree outside
I’m not sure why
It isn’t autumn (late April),
No time for anything to turn
Maybe sunlight is passing
Through half-leaves left
From winter,
A batch that somehow clutched
Though the colder seasons
I don’t know, and in
A good way I don’t care
It is a patch of gold I see
First thing on looking through
The slats of mini-blinds
(don’t care for mini-blinds),
A gift of gold for no reason other than
I happen to look outside
First thing,
Catching rays through
Angles of the buildings,
Lighting up what otherwise has
Been a sullen street
C L Couch
Photo by Simon Harmer on Unsplash
Tree of Life
The soul must be amazing
Some say it’s like a bird
And why not
I don’t mean a matter for debate
I mean the spirit that’s inside us
That leaves us when
We can bear no more
Where it catches next, I do not know
Branches in a tree
What has it for keeping
I think it is somewhere
I guess it might be doctrine
And so for argument
To say it owns eternal
C L Couch
Photo by Kushagra Kevat on Unsplash
Prescribe Contemplation
Forgive me
For a fat mind
And soul leaden
With lethargy
Crowding out the angels
Pressing leaves of better notions
From a wisdom tree
I’d do so much better
Reading these even if I can’t
Hear heaven’s language
While living low to
Ground
Unearned wings
Plus siren’s wax all
Impeding taller clarity
C L Couch
Fantasia
1
I dreamed a dream last night
In which my jacket or some such
Kept getting caught in thorns
I’d get free and then right away, it seemed,
Get caught up again
I don’t know how many times this happened
I was helped at least once by someone
Else, and someone said
To be kind
That thorns are like that
Then the dream went
Where dreams go
2
I was looking through the porch screens
This morning to whatever was outside
Everything was still—I don’t think
It ever was so still
And then under a tree, while still on
The tree, I saw some branches moving
Everything above was quiet
But some branches below, as if to be mischievous
Were circling ‘round
I saw one branch was twirling
Maybe there were squirrels on the branches
Though I didn’t see them
The dancing carried on for a while
And didn’t actually stop
It was that the entire tree, many stories
High, was moving, too
I guess the wind picked up
And maybe on those branches there were squirrels
Chipmunks, grinnies maybe
(as I’ve heard someone call them)
I’m not sure an explanation lessens
Magic
And really all I was saw were leaves dancing as
If to a flute
With one branch twirling
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I was driving into town and saw
A billboard I’d not seen before
Announcing something medical, maybe
An urgency for testing
I could see the word BLOOD in all-caps
And also see that that it had been torn off
At the bottom, many times
As if something were clawing
Or something offering a review
And rejection of the word
As if in protest
As if in need
Blood for blood
I’ve heard of it
I’m not stupid
I don’t know what it means
C L Couch
Akazienstachel (eventuell Robinia pseudoacacia?), Standort Nähe Waldfriedhof in Leverkusen-Schlebusch, Landschaftsschutzgebiet „Unteres Dhünntal“.
TipFox – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49029195
grinny – Urban Dictionary
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grinny
The Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia term for a chipmunk.
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