Category: Fall

Axis Mundi

~ Kat Couch ~ 1 Comment

It takes a while for the birds
to land, though one or two
blue sentries are always
on the low tumuli of piñon:
scrub-jays sensitive to my morning feet
the creaking door
the crackling of the seed bag or
the soft clank of the bucket’s
handle on the tub

Sound carries here
in sagebrush-juniper
above the valley floor
a whisper half a mile along
our rutted dirt might as well
be whispered in the yurt

and so I fill the feeder knowing
the unknown wild is watching
our Clark’s Nutcracker or the jays
and juncos dropping
from the Sangres in the fall

dropping from the foothills
with the usual messages
about time gone
and smaller days

I tip out empty husks and peanut shells
from the hanging wood and wire
of the little platform

there’s already shuffling deep
in the otherworld of the bough
yet who could tell?
they’re still too liminal for me

ghost birds have started their
lazy, patient circling around my head
weaving a perimeter of sound
Pinyon Jays with their uncanny bleating
and the whistling of Mourning Doves

though all there is to see
is Sis Naajiní on the far horizon
catching the eastern light now
holding up the sky

our white shell mountain
the one initiates climbed
to spend the night in shuddering cold
greeting the early heavens
with an outstretched hand
to feed the gods
humanity

“Ghost” and the Machinery of Grief

~ Kat Couch

We’re going to do something a little different today and go the podcast route with a look at the poem “Ghost” from last October. Actually, one generation removed from the poem, because the hosts of the discussion are reading from the lyrics of a bluegrass song by Kat’s Sundog based on the poem. The lyrics follow below.

The discussion itself was generated with a Google Notebooks tool, but objections to AI aside, one thing about these tools is clear: chatbots struggle to write a decent poem, but their analysis of poetry is extraordinarily good and sometimes provocative. At the very least, they provide a starting point for further insight.

Here are the song’s lyrics:

Ghost
(A traditional bluegrass song by the band Kat’s Sundog)

[Intro, instrumental, slow-paced banjo & fiddle picking, melancholy mandolin, building to a full band entry before settling into verse tempo]

[Verse 1]
A trail cam tied to an old pine limb
In the cool, thin mountain air
Caught a shadow movin’ through the gray
Of a cold September day
A bobcat, slow n’ easy on her paws
A rabbit swinging from her jaws
Eight forty-eight in the autumn pines
Though the dead ain’t counting time

[Pre-Chorus]
And the picture frames what the heart can’t keep
The sigh of a soul released
We freeze the moment to save the spark
Before it fades into the dark

[Chorus]
Yeah, we’re keepin’ your ghost here
Though you’re long gone
Clingin’ to the shade you left
Of what’s left here
Holding our breath like a hollow
Can’t lay you down, can’t follow

[Verse 2]
That mountain cottontail swaying
The hunter on her pendulum way
Through the greasewood and the brush
Beast too beautiful to touch
Stripes on her haunches in the dimming light
Autumn moon makin’ her bright eyes wild
Slides through the branches like a work of art
Stealing what’s still breathing from my beating heart

[Bridge]
Oh, little one, you’re wantin’ to go
Where the wild things run and the cold winds blow
But babe, give us back his form
We’re holdin’ on, we’re holdin’ on

[Instrumental break, fiddle solo over driving banjo]

[Chorus]
Yeah, we’re keepin’ your ghost here
Though you’re long gone
Clingin’ to the shade you left
Of what’s left here
Holding our breath like a hollow
Can’t lay you down, can’t follow

[Outro]
Well, she’s carrying the host here
We’d love back to livin’
Bringin’ back the heartache we bin given
[Fading mandolin]

And if you want to listen to the song, it’s here: https://suno.com/s/bB7Qh9uHaXeMOFjg

Ghost Podcast

Saddle Ridge

~ Kat Couch ~ Leave a comment

Two boys ride their bikes
from one corner to another across the north field.
The realtor had told us a local church owned the land.
It’ll never be built on, she promised.
And at least for now it hasn’t been: a vacant rag-and-bone lot,
God-made for weekend racing.

The boys are maybe ten…twelve?
They fly off the field too fast to compare.
Nothing in their lives will ever again be this uncomplicated —
the gentle slope of it, the trail rubbed to hardtack,
the blood oath company of boys,
and down the block, a pirate map of streets
with names like Campfire, Horse Soldier, Medicine Man.
Familiar home-ended streets.

Years from now, too many years to see,
when they’re a little worn themselves,
and divorced in one way or another from their deep contentment,
this will seem like saving,
a possible grace.
Mild October, the air whistling and racing,
and their sharp shouting rising
like seagulls on a sunlit sea.

I have good days and bad days

~ Kat Couch ~ 2 Comments

On the bad days the cataract moon,
the full hunter’s moon, splinters in the sky;
footstep pieces rain into the atmosphere.
I am swimming in the Great Lakes
among the decomposing bodies of pigs,
flip-flops, and plastic wallets.
Our neighbor has caught fire
walking to the mailbox
and flakes of his kindling skin
drift up the hill like paper.
The black pine off the deck aches
for the touch of finches and flickers —
its twin is already gone
heart broken, heart broken,
and the streambed of the intermittent stream
has given up trying to remember
the feel of water.
The tv plays its only scene:
the thin-boned dad rocking on the curb,
his eyes like socket wrenches, saying
we lost everything.

On the good days it is like
this late November snow / so still
you can hear across Well Gulch
the rustle of that unselfconscious thrush
regular as the earth contracting in the sun.
He has fallen asleep now,
tired in his abundance.

I wear my old wool hat to get the mail.
Melinda, the post girl, is still down the block,
trembling in her cappuccino-colored Jeep,
clapping her hands for blood,
and so I wait,
boots squeaking in the drift
below the cottonwood.