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June 2019

A Cycle of Faith

A Cycle of Faith

 

Seasons move

And then return

Though nothing stays the same

There is a year and then another, and

Each moment, each molecule is new

There is a cycle

But like the one on wheels

It covers new ground when it must

Or when we like

There is a degree of choice

Stay where we belong

That’s good in town

Strike out anew when we are away

And a wide, open road unreels

Beneath us

 

We believe

What we believe

Does it cycle like the year?

We have it, then we let it go

Like distractions of the seasons

We may like a

Philosophy at home

But then the alarm goes off

There’s smoke

And we run away

Smart move

 

What scared us away

Fear of fire, as it should frighten us

But when fire is a thought

Maybe we decide

 

When I was in school, I read philosophy

I read more now

Not to prevaricate, it isn’t all

The mind

The rest of us makes choices, too

Have you never felt it?

 

Pheromones, some might say

Or other such attraction

Call it a cause, even

Somewhere the heart must stir

It doesn’t have to be

Against the rest of us

 

There’s ritual:

That can get us far

It will not fill up all the years

It shouldn’t have to

All our lives can’t be spent in the temple

Unless that’s our job

And even so

Life outside is necessary

Air outside is different

When it moves

 

So there are factors

And ingredients

With the passing of time

Ineluctable

We choose

And we have faith

Or not

Don’t deny the power that’s in

Miracles or tragedy

Trauma of the ages

In our spirit

Tragedy through time

We think we’re the only one

And we are

Now we’re not

Here comes the sun

The rain on all of us

It’s all right

 

Do you marvel now

We can be moved?

It comes and goes

We need the respites in between

But does it grow

Like arches should we walk upon

An aqueduct in the other way

Toward the source of water

 

The spire grows, if on a side

The arches take us somewhere

Toward the origin

The start of creation, we might say

But the aqueduct’s not made for us

Ours goes the other way

The spire toward the future grows

 

And so the cycle breaks

Its rim cannot hold

We are better than our borders

And, like Aslan, should be

On the move

 

C L Couch

 

 

Luis Rogelio HM – Merida – 045, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72766771

 

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Doxology

Doxology

 

I sin

You sin

We all sin

There’s probably a nursery rhyme about it

It can’t not happen, I suppose

Not on this side of things

In heaven, maybe not

But wasn’t there a war there,

And is it done?

 

The evil that we do

(the sin)

When it becomes a habit,

Then a calling

Well, we’re done, I guess

And yet the wreckage might go on and on

Destruction of the spirit

With victims, all around

 

There is one sin unforgivable

I try not to be clever

But it seems to me to be denial

Of the Spirit of God at work in the world

And the presence of God, at all

A self-fulfilling condemnation

With no room for grace

No allowance for salvation

The humility and openness

The human soul requires

 

God cannot laugh this off

It must bring pain to God

Who would rather love

Us than do anything

In all creation

It’s how creation’s biased

In the very making

And the keeping of it

 

We can’t live happily ever after

If at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Old 100th

Unknown – attributed to Louis Bourgeois (1510-1561) – 1551 Genevan psalter, typeset by the Mutopia Project, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6885924

 

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Pillars of Hercules

Pillars of Hercules

 

Do you believe?

I do,

But you don’t have to

What is there to believe?

What is in front of us

How we feel inside

What that indicates

Things that happen that we see

And hear and taste

The ground we touch

Through shoes

The scents of spring

That time is passing by

 

What else,

Something beyond electrochemical

Ethereal, if not ineffable?

A child’s love

Our own attraction to so many things

When something good occurs

(say, Christmas morning)

Or something bad

(someone we knew

is no longer here)

 

Faith is the evidence of things unseen

Isn’t that a lark?

And if God is so good,

Why do so many bad things take place?

On these two points

So much atheism depends

(note I haven’t brought up evil yet)

I can understand:

How can we respect something

That isn’t there?

Yet I might ask,

What do we see when we are looking at

Nothing in particular?

Our eyes are open

Ears as well

Our fingers at the ready

Like the pianist’s prior to play

 

We are ready, and

What is really happening

When nothing’s happening?

Not convinced of the ethereal,

Not yet?

Give it time

That is more fluid than

We believe we know

Here endeth not a lesson

A suggestion, sure

 

C L Couch

 

 

View of Europa Point and the Rock of Gibraltar from the Strait of Gibraltar. Levante Cloud overhead.

Nol Aders – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4259571

 

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Body Counts

Body Counts

 

All of which to say

We can be spiritually minded

And love this life as well

Of flesh and blood

And stuff

 

I have a body

Inside’s kept my soul

When the soul leaves,

There is a counting

So many spirits in Virginia

So many from Sri Lanka

More from Palestine today

More from Yemen

There are tries at genocide

If my enemy does not exist, then

I no longer live in fear

The fear of retribution

From another side

Notwithstanding

We say to a better place

But we do not know

We do not know

A better philosophy’s required

To convince us

That somehow all this

Leave-taking is all right

 

There’s a medieval notion of

Purchase for ransom

The devil has our souls

Jesus paid to free us

But what should have been gold

Turns out to be blood

Payment required

For ancient sacrifice

And deals made

Once outside paradise

 

And with his blood mankind hath bought

One of the older Christmas songs

(hence the faulty use of

mankind, though it)

Teaches us,

Which does not mean to

Long for heaven over

Earth

This life is yet worthwhile

It’s all right to guard it

And regret its passing

Not as an end to

Suffering (that’s good)

But as a gift we’re given

And would just as soon

Not have to return

 

It’s all right

The old, old story says

We get to have it

Once the shell is gone,

We’ll get a new one

For now, though, that’s a mystery

And one not to manipulate

Of tyrants or

The gross indifferent

 

Keep us on the inside, Lord

Help us with reasons

With resources to

Live it on the outside

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Schwoaze from Pixabay

 

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Haunted

Haunted

 

I’ve been dealing with a ghost story

It’s on television

But it has me thinking

No wonder Ibsen wrote that play

The ghosts, they come to get us

And they live right here

 

C L Couch

 

 

PanAmericana 2017 – the image was taken on an overlanding travel from Ushuaia to Anchorage – taken by Thomas Fuhrmann, SnowmanStudios – see more pictures on / mehr Aufnahmen auf www.snowmanstudios.de

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78892499

 

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Scrap Book

Scrap Book

(6 June)

 

Cotton, leather, metal, glass

Plastic would come after

The things of Earth are drawn out and used up

As if the jealous ground would never notice

 

But this is the way of war

It doesn’t care about the ground

That will receive us

Before, during, and after

 

Creation cracks

Under the weight of it

And the blackened sky

Over boiling water

Earth will receive it all

And close it up

And maybe set to heal

 

We are done

The Earth is done

Afterward, there will be

Some kind of peace

Grandfathers come home

Grandmothers come home

To be black-and-white remembered

 

C L Couch

 

 

Unknown or not provided – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16455209

The beachhead is secure, but the price was high. A Coast Guard Combat Photographer came upon this monument to a dead American soldier somewhere on the shell-blasted shore of Normandy.

 

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Heart-Hardening

Heart-Hardening

 

Ritual

How I make the coffee

Special spoon and all

How I keep the heel of the bread

Until it’s next to last for a

Treat of butter and honey

How I read with glasses

And a bookmark,

Set and ready

How I start the car

And how I turn it off

Nothing takes more time

 

It’s simply in a pattern

Not for memory

Or recall,

A way to think on what I have

And how it was made at first

And by whom

 

We’d call it sacramentalize, I guess

To have a name,

A verb

To keep it active, keep it fresh

 

From time to time, these actions might

Remind me

Of church

And what used to happen there

 

C L Couch

 

 

psyberartist – church ruin, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25828665

 

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Myth Taken

Myth Taken

 

A real myth

Something of the story that is true

A point for evangelism

The apology that says not sorry

But here’s something

Maybe I can explain

Maybe you’ll take to heart

Because the head is fine with it

 

Patterns

Northrop Frye

Joseph Campbell

The story told

Again and again

Owned by groups, changed

According to experience

Embellishment

Because of what has happened

 

Our town was spared

My child cured

Weather wiped us out

We saw vengeance

Someone died

We were no longer sure

 

Now risen like

An older story

Of the truth

We believe it now

We’re amazed

We’re taken back

We’re scared

But we are certain

 

How much of myth

Is easing fright

Attitudes made bold again

Through explanation

 

I take salt that I’ve spilled

And throw it over my left shoulder

The devil who is hiding there

Is frustrated

And I’ve found a use for useless salt

(I don’t do that for pepper)

Now if only I could use the milk

I’ve spilled

 

It can turn sinful

Or start that way as strategy

I want my neighbor’s land,

To enslave the family

 

In storyland, we think there’s solace

And there is

With myth, we now know things

And we do

 

C L Couch

 

 

Shinwa no Mori (Forest of Myth) by Taki Toru in Izumo-Taisha, Shimane, Japan

 

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graceland

graceland

 

god’s grace

I don’t know how to write about it

as ineluctable

I don’t understand it as a gift

a safety valve on condemnation

a release from hell without

the harrowing called-for

 

we sleep

(perchance to dream)

we wake up into heaven

more than grace for meals

more than meals

more than food

or any sustenance on earth

’til earth renewed

 

for now a taste

that, distilled through mortality, is

a taste that saves

remarkably, a savor

of the lord

 

c l couch

 

 

 

Photo by Kevin Bluer on Unsplash

Nellim, Finland

Moon and Northern Lights Glowing Through Trees

 

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