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October 2019

Fun in the Foxhole

 

Fun in the Foxhole

 

I can’t imagine the experience

Ever, ever, ever, ever

Being entertaining

There’s death so near

Peril in every intake

 

While death companions

Other kinds of war

Experiences, too

By a design, it must seem

From nature by a

Predation of the elements

 

Then on each other when and where

We first throw down peace

Because parochial victory

Is a shinier aim

Fool’s gold can make that

But there might be joy sometime

Whether or not decreed

 

Decreed it was

The truce that broke out for Christmas

When the trenches could not

Hold hate enough

And must give way to silly, life-

Giving, temporary treasures

Shared in hand-grips (no longer strained

by guns)

And in games

Talk in whatever language

Enmity turned ally for a day

 

Too easy to

Beweep our outcast state

To isolate ourselves with agony

Truly earned, deserved

Loss that will not have an end

To emptiness until all

Waiting

Mortal and divine

Is done

 

Call it or call it after

But might there be some pleasure from

A moment of sensation?

Something to say

Yes, that was funny

Yes, I’d like to share a cup of tea

And maybe eat something

Yes, there’s a holiday

We can have it

Or avoid it

Then make our own

A mischief tyranny of joy

 

I’m not sure what I’m proposing

Cheer, giving over something

Sliding the weight along to let it out

Maybe no one has to know

Only the few who understand

 

Maybe a public moment,

Yes

To say, we grieve

We must

But there’s a turning

Pushed in Ecclesiastes as

The time to dance

And while in ancient times there

Could be dance for death,

Our dances go more joyfully,

I think,

Which is a good modern choice

 

C L Couch

 

 

DeFacto – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48650239

Football Remembers memorial, designed by Spencer Turner, at the National Memorial Arboretum

 

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Not a Judgment Call

Not a Judgment Call

 

I think you should have

A wonderful day

You deserve it

You’ve been working hard

And if you haven’t,

Well, that takes some skill

In a world where

Busyness has become the virtue

This is not about perfection

No one can have that

This side of things

It’s about a treasure you

Don’t have to dig for

A reward for living through

What has gone before

What is happening now

It’s a reward for living

Believe me, have earned it

 

This is not a moral judgment

Not my purview,

Thank goodness

Not today

Not now

 

If you’re good, then that is

A treasure, too

If you’re so-so, then there’s a long

Bench for all of us to sit on

Join us

If you’re bad

I mean as a quality

(you’re that committed)

Then something will find you

I won’t have to

And you can have this day as well

No charge

 

No charge?

Well, that’s not right

It’s the cost of what went on

Before

And a little something to leave

For the living, after

Even for tomorrow, while

We’re all here

And while you’re here

I think you should have

A wonderful day

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash

Kopernyka Street, L’viv, Ukraine

I took this photo on Lviv street (Ukraine) last summer. Such scene appears in this city every year above road, that is why it was a little bit hard to take this photo, cause I must lay down on road, but it was busy by cars, so I waited until street will be free.

 

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Lifting Things Now Matters More

Lifting Things Now Matters More

 

I’m rocking out

My lower back

How things rock out these days

I must look a fool

I do not care

I might be doing something therapeutic

Might not

Might be doing nothing but

Expending energy

Don’t care

Either way, I have something to do

I’ve had to learn to say ouch

I’m not so good at it

Not out of heroics

Partly out of curiosity

That overwhelms when

Something new has happened

Partly because

I was told about

Silence and virtue

Long ago

By a teacher who was tired, I think

Stuck on a bus of us

On the return field trip from

Young people’s symphony

William Steinberg, conducting

What adult would

Want to hear the calls of children

After?

So when she said

Good children are quiet

Well, I heard that

And never was the same,

Which is all right

There were enough at home

That less noise from one

Would go

Like good spelling

Totally unappreciated

So, yeah, there’s that

I rock

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Gambaru CrossFit, Brazil

 

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Rebroadcast

Rebroadcast

(keep trying)

 

I’m sorry for the fire

Sorrier for all the hungry people

Were the lady to advise us

Though worship is important

Starving is not conducive

 

There is no medieval lumber

Tall enough to do the job

Of the first beams

That is fine, we can go with something

Like aluminum

That will not rust or

Easily catch fire (again)

But organic need cries out

Toward another kind

Of construction

Empty people

Feed us

 

What shall we say,

There are too many now

And now there will be many more?

Maybe we need to reach up

Further than vaulting

Ingenious plans

Already on the table

We have the means for everything

Tall churches, too

Because we won’t have Paris

Not all of us

 

What shall we have?

I think you know by now

Ages of temperament

And we are less impaired

Have garnered so much more

The answer in the

Question

When we ask

 

You know it starts with will

You know everything worthwhile

Begins and ends with shall

Then will

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by TAN Erica on Unsplash

 

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Clean Your Room

Clean Your Room

 

I don’t know what was the timing,

But every now and then it was

Time to clean our rooms

My mother said

I don’t recall how long it took

Things looked impressive, after

I never could keep

The look

I’m sure I wondered why

But now it’s people

(imminence and remembrance)

I have to sort

Place on a shelf or in a box

I’m not good at closing things

Walking away without

Leaving open cupboard doors

And drawers

(lids of boxes)

Leaving depths

Invitations

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

 

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Then Let’s Keep Dancing

Then Let’s Keep Dancing

 

I only knew one perfect person

And he was crucified, my father said

Yes, but then he rose, I might

Have said

It was the argument beneath the argument

Not a debate about

Points of faith

 

I didn’t know all the demons then

There are others

To learn

My father’s got the best of him that was

His joy and anything of wisdom

I never got the teaching I deserved

Any child deserves

 

It’s a long way past hate

Worse, dismissal

That became the only way to get along

Stranger, either way

Never a decent conversation

Decent as in real

 

I can only sigh about it, now

So much of it is dust

Like the Kansas song

Or the one by Peggy Lee

Every generation needs a song,

According to my professor

Something that turns

That turns us into mortal means

Reminds us we are seasons

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alex Seinet on Unsplash

“Wind on Wheat”

 

“Is That All There Is” is a song created by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, famously recorded by Peggy Lee.

 

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After Reading, There Were Crafts

After Reading, There Were Crafts

 

This time and long ago

I was learning Bible stories

The story I remember best

Is the one in which the prophet

Was tested via

The priests of Ba’al

Elijah was a good one

So the contest went his way

We know where Jehovah sets

With the faithful,

Which is with the faithful

 

When I read on my own,

I learned much more about

The prophets who were not so good

The Bible told me so

Deborah and Gideon turn out

To be exceptions

Not to mention all the kings,

I think,

Who came into being against

Jehovah’s wishes, anyway

Against God?

Who would do such a thing

Who knew the Lord so closely?

Does it breed contempt,

After all?

 

Solomon was prosperous

David was loved

Though there was ruin in his

Realm and by his hand

War, deceit, rebellion, adultery,

And murder

Yet when Absalom was killed

Left hanging in a tree

(such an image),

I wonder if God did not weep

With David, waiting by the gate

For a better word

 

The lesson was extended into

Something with our hands

I remember best all the burdened-out matches

Glued to a cardboard shape

To make a cross

A cross requiring so much

Extinguishment of light to have

Now the finished product better lay

Against the wall

As a reading for Good Friday

 

C L Couch

 

 

Community Archives – HC02495, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76993143

Photograph by Robert McCormick of Belleville, Ontario, showing Mary Ritchie (lived 1842-1929, formerly Mary Holden) and her Sunday School class from the John Street Church, Belleville.

 

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And Now It’s Time

And Now It’s Time

(chronos in kairos)

 

And now it’s time

For something spiritual

Yes?

I’ve written about pills and cats

Not written together

I go to the first page each day

Thinking about soulful things

Soulful intentions, anyway

It’s not that I think the

Spirit’s far

Because she’s not

Or that I think I have to overcome

Mortal prevarication

Liking mortality, but I don’t think

It’s that

I’ll take each day I have, thank you

Something supernal’s coming

I have next to

No idea what

I wonder if the spiritual

Is under the skin

And hovering above

Deep enough for blood

In the air for breathing, too

Now I think about it, how distinctive must

The portions be?

 

Not to say against

Those who must have

Food separated on the plate

 

Though I like pushing peas against the

Mashed potatoes

 

I think also to say for me, perhaps for

You that

Spirit and soul, flesh and energy

The kind of energy

By Blake rightly claimed

Eternal delight

All things must be meshed together

Somehow living in this state

Today and I think

In the resolution of eternity

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash

Here we learned how to make traditional Chinese dumplings from scratch. Our group of 16 people each had a task to do and it was an assembling line for dumpling production.  A beautiful procedure . . .

 

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Animal Attraction

Animal Attraction

(4 October)

 

He loved animals

And, to hear the stories,

They had love for him

Ask the wolf about

Negotiation with the saint,

Garnering a good life in

Gubbio

Ask the birds who listened

To his sermon when no human

Would attend

Ask the rabbits that scurried near

His feet to have his company

(I’m guessing about the rabbits)

 

His is a portrait of simplicity

And of pain

To have the wounds of Christ

So specifically

Having unwithheld agony as well

I think he loved the world

His sisters

And his brothers

He sang to creation

Now Earth’s family sings with him

For this, the feast day

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Janet Meyer from Pixabay

 

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