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March 2019

Lent 8

Lent 8

 

Though the dates change,

The days remain the same

Lent’s first week dawns into

The second

 

Let’s not tally

What was done each day

Though there are calendared prayers

And practices

This might work best as

A time that doesn’t have

A record book

Keep a journal, fine

(but) sit still and think

Afterward, have a smackerel

A spoonful of sugar

Yes, Lent is its own reward

 

Understanding quiet

Knowing the noise

That greets us later on

 

But if there is a little treat, enjoy

 

Maybe the next hour will be good

Maybe the new week will be patient discovery

Senses a little more alive

Than they were, even yesterday

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay

 

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Lent 7

Lent 7

 

A week from Mardi Gras

(fat Tuesday, )Shrove Tuesday,

Fastnacht that in

Pennsylvania (USA) is a doughnut

 

And the observance

What did we shrive,

We shrove the house of fat

Of everything extravagant that might

Distract us

From the discipline

Of remembrance and devotion

For the coming days

 

Okay, so what did we really do:

We might have had our fun on Tuesday

But who’s to say the next day was

Somber

It should have been, I guess

A mood for taking ashes if for nothing else

 

Though there was something,

Something not to miss

The start of a new season

Not as fun as Advent

 

Without the fire that comes with

Pentecost

Let alone the triumph that is

Easter

 

There is an odd coupling as well

Since spring is starting now in northern climes

There are signs

Today there has been sudden warmth outside

 

There are springs of a green kind

Winter-washed

There are signs

Of nascent life

What shall we own, then

Of dust or seedlings?

 

Maybe we take both

To have a time of stillness and of energy

A quiet dynamo

Fueled for the change by fragrant remembrances

In growth

 

C L Couch

 

 

DeFacto – Own work

Warwick Castle water-powered generator house, used for the generation of electricity for the castle from 1894 until 1940

 

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Lent 6

Lent 6

 

The season is like mourning

A dying of a kind that takes

Weeks to be fully realized

The only kind of death that might be safe

Because following

Still keeps us here

 

The consequences are mollified by

Our remaining mortal

If something else should happen,

Well, that’s something else

 

It’s dying on the inside, isn’t it

The gradual release of things

That might do better elsewhere

Attached to other life preservers, say

 

Dying to ego

And to vanity

Fleeing what we think we need

To embrace and then let go

A gift, a conversation

Uneasy service that

Needs doing, anyway

 

We have days now

Negotiating will,

Arriving at a knowing place

Of spirit

From which to act

When it’s time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Official Navy Page from [the] United States of America[, ]Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Ryan J. Mayes/U.S. Navy

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22662531

Attaching distress marker lights to flotation devices used in the event of a [person] overboard[.]

 

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Lent 5

Lent 5

 

Why do we swim

I guess for recreation

Maybe for competition

Sometimes for exploration

We can at least explore our muscles

Get to the depths of us

 

“All asymmetrical

All beautiful”

I just heard someone

Say that into the room

 

And it’s true

In the smallest of ways, we are

Wondrously imbalanced

 

Floating around in freedom

Might free us of

The need to count with calipers

What is not exact

Yet can be so compelling

(not correcting)

In ourselves

In each other

 

Circle-comfortable

Yet more like an amoeba

By grace, unforming

 

C L Couch

 

 

A pod of narwhals. Note the spiral configuration of the single tusk.

Dr. Kristin Laidre, Polar Science Center, UW NOAA/OAR/OER – NOAA Photolib Library

(public domain)

 

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Lent 4

Lent 4

 

Swimming is fine

Be careful not to go so deep

There is no air

Unless you have an aqualung

And a buddy

Yes, God is there

Above, beneath, within

But scuba gear exists for a reason

Even inside a metaphor

Remember the old saw

About the person in a house

Surrounded by a rising flood

Who had a warning from the radio

To leave,

Then offers from neighbors in a boat

And a helicopter pilot who had espied

This captive on the roof

And lowered the machine

And this person, trapped, then was drowned

 

Then was mad at God in heaven

I thought you’d protect me, was the

Complaint—and the response?

I gave a radio warning, a ride with your

Neighbors, a seat in a helicopter:

Why are you here?

 

We can help each other

Share old sayings and

Find a new of saying things

Today

We should let that happen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Hard rain on a roof covered with felt and tar paper in Gåseberg, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden. Original version. The yellowish dots on the roof are lichen.

W.carter – Own work

 

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IWD ‘19

IWD ‘19

 

Today has been (to

announce it)

International Women’s Day,

And in my country

Women have said they

Own the responsibility

For women’s status not only here

But also in the world

 

To me, this is amazing

It’s sisterhood

(you decide how to say this—)

 

Yeah, it is

 

C L Couch

 

 

Public Domain

With nearly 1000 [African-American] women employed as burners, welders, scalers, and in other capacities at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California, women war workers played an important part in the construction of the Liberty Ship SS George Washington Carver, launched on May 7th, 1943. Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens plies her trade on the ship.

 

Huffington Post

Most U.S. women see gender equality around the world as their shared responsibility.

 

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Lent 3

Lent 3

 

Now let’s dive in

The water might not be easy

But it’s time to think

Or swim

What is the season for

It’s for faith

But there are long stretches for

Allowance, I believe

For doubt and all kinds of other

Tugging matters

Pulled up the anchor

Drifting around a while

 

C L Couch

 

 

Artykha / 2 images

(Pixabay)

 

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Lent 2

Lent 2

 

I need to slow down an anxious heart

Place it on the page

Start a new movement,

Lento, lento

 

Love and loss

I just heard those words

Spoken deeply by a woman

Respected deeply

Her low notes offer an easing of

Fast talking

Fast thinking

 

I have a whole season for everything

Take time

Forget or shelve at least

What’s too fast

Or bring it along, if that can’t be helped

But try to enter as fairly as possible

Maybe there will be a restful leavetaking

 

C L Couch

 

 

<a href=”https://pixabay.com/photos/turtle-slowly-large-871285/”>Image</a&gt; by <a href=”https://pixabay.com/users/Pixel-mixer-1197643/”>Pixel-mixer</a&gt; on Pixabay

 

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Living Ashes

Living Ashes

(6 March 2019)

 

Ash Wednesday

Day of ash

Start of Lent

A slowing time

As in lento when the music

Slows

Because it must so that the fullness

Is appreciated

 

Cigar ash

Ash rising from an evening fire

On the hearth inside

Or ‘round a ring in a sponsored place

Where campers meet

To sing

Or tell stories

All of which, like music,

Can lead the pace as well

 

Ashen face

Missing blood and signs

Of lively living,

Ash that’s left of things

Incinerated

Blasted in a furnace of white heat

‘Til blood is dried, marrow has cooked

In bones

And inorganic things released

Of familiar substance

Until only unringed nuclei

Are left

A mystery for spectroscopy

 

Livened ash

We are reminded

Adama

We return to earth

But keep in mind what

We are now

All the substance, all the motion

We can own

 

C L Couch

 

 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA – NASA Satellite Captures New Russian Volcanic Eruption, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51484278

For the first time in 35 years, the Plosky Tolbachik volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula erupted on Nov. 27, 2012, sending clouds of ash to the height of more than 9,800 feet (3,000 meters).

 

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