(x = space)
x
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Sorries
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Maybe there is
Nothing more
Sometimes
Except to say we’re sorry
We’ll do better
Then do better while
Moving on
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C L Couch
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Photo by Andrew Johnson on Unsplash
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(I made up “sorries.” Sorry.)
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(x = space)
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Slip-Sliding Petition
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God, I’m tired
Not tired of life
But from lack of sleep
Dreams
That wear me out
So that I’ve lived a day already
Then try to rise
Into waking,
Real agendas
x
This is a prayer
Maybe I could ask for something
x
x
x
I can’t think of anything else
I’ve drifted off
Into Saturday
Or something like
Is Saturday a prayer?
Amen
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C L Couch
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Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Close Call
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Danger, Will
Heatstroke air today
Both hot and humid
You’d swear we were
Sitting, rocking, reclining
On a porch
In a Southern family drama
Spanning time,
Hope, and cynicism
Sipped by lemonade
x
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this
But once I asked a Southerner
How Southerners
Endured all the close heat
There
I thought maybe home remedies
Or some adaptation over generations
Here’s what I was told:
Air-conditioning
Sigh
No saga
Only appliances
Or a central system
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C L Couch
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First-edition dust jacket cover of As I Lay Dying (1930) by the American author William Faulkner.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91865318
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(x = space)
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Each One an Apocalypse
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I look up to hills
From the valley
It’s not that the rescue
Has to come from there
Though there are climactic moments when
Over the ridges
Everyone needed
And everything
Appears
x
It’s that wherever from wherever
God is there
And it is God who rescues
Who swoops down
To carry us from battle
Takes us to water
Moving just enough
For a hand to fill
From which to drink,
Clean water played
Over wounds
We are better than we’ve felt for days
We are lifted up again
And taken to a home
Whose dimensions have been guessed at
But whose simplicity
In majesty
Is unknown ‘til we’re there
Where living’s perfect
And we are told
To stay
x
Each has an Armageddon,
An apocalypse
The unprevaricated spirit
Manifest
With mortality and eternity
On either side
And through and through
Some have called trinity
But is the nature of the Lord
Relational
And relational with everything
Forever
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C L Couch
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x
x
(x = space)
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Stone Soup
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I don’t know what to say today
I want you to have a good day
x
And for a while
To know good days
And what to do when days are bad
Beyond the dreaming we all do
x
So that it’s
What we know to do with what we have
Sometimes that’s hard
And hard to believe we have
I’m poor
I know
Too close to the legacy
Of art and artists
x
But I know good people
Am learning to ask
And not gauge heaven by response
Or lack thereof
But to keep trying
x
Also allowing expectation
We live
We are entitled to live
I don’t know about evil people
I know so few
You are entitled, too, I suppose
I am not God
And cannot judge as God
x
But the many, many, many
Of us who are not evil, not pure good
A mix, you know–
Choose a complementary color
We are colors
We color the world
x
And are deserving
You deserve
A good day and another
A whole bunch like bananas
Or corn kernels on the cob
Or other things so many colors
(as I’ve said)
x
Anyway,
A wish is not a horse
Or an electric car
And, drat, we have to try
The curse of Adam, some would say
Eve is cursed as well
But curses are not endings
x
“We have to make our own way,”
I just heard,
Which is true
And there’s so much more
There’s you
There’s me
And any me or you who happens
To be close to you or me
In distance
Actual
Or relative
(and there’s cyber-),
Which is to say
x
A nearness
(actual or relative)
To help make life
One bowl of stone soup
At a time
x
C L Couch
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Stone Soup is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Statue of a monk and stone soup (sopa da pedra) in Almeirim, Portugal
By Adriao – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7645719
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(x = space)
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Ex-Temporaneous
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It’s a dark day
Not enough for a
Ritual outside
And there’s rain
The sun tries
To come through
In patches
Dark hours nonetheless
x
That might be spent
At midnight
In the loft,
A vigil
And an offering
Prayer life in the dark
Ages behind that
x
Maybe a candle
Of the kind
That does not curse the darkness
But slices through it
If in, well, a fuzzy way
Batteries included
Diffuse Light and shadow
Diffuse
With unscripted words
Everything
Partnering
For the message
For the words
x
C L Couch
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x
Photo by Zoran Kokanovic on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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A Million Now
x
Two and a half years
A million dead
Shall we count?
We should have time
While counting out the days
For boosters
Should we be privileged
For boosters
x
If they were like stars
Then there would be no question
Everyone would want them
Like the bread
That goes with circuses
Is New York still giving money
For a shot?
x
People I know are gone
Because of COVID
It’s hard to take in
I might be dense
How could I know a million
Twenty times a number counted
For the city some miles away
Whose rutted streets
For the moment
Have no wagons for the dead
Or another absurdity in
A Python moment
x
Try to count
To a million
Try to consider millions of
The dead or fleeing
Thanks to war
Go ahead, combine the numbers
Since the same hate’s
At work
Every time
x
There is liberty
In abnegation
Deny the medicine
Turn oneself into
The other side of counting
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C L Couch
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1 Million COVID-19 Deaths in the United States
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Photo by Susann Schuster on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Fish and Bread for Breakfast
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And he does
Jesus loves you
Grumpy we might be
Though post-resurrection letdown
A haze of liturgy
Formal words that don’t match up
With Easter
But here we are
Since the book is ours
Invited to have breakfast with Jesus
Fish and bread
Common enough fare
Or not
The English
And others I’m sure
Have kippers
That is herring
England is an island nation
Israel is by the sea
And by an inland sea
We’re having breakfast
And hearing about metaphoric sheep
From a shepherd who knows the work
Perfectly
And is calling us to do it
What
How can we take from perfection
Well, we can’t
But we’re all here
It’s what and whom we have
We can dine with Jesus
That is the Christian church experience
But then we have to be out there
Out here
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A message from white men
We need to hear from everyone
We need to hear the story
From the lips
And other parts
The parts that move,
That dance,
That look and try to look with love
On a good day
While struggling on another
This can’t be a message of perfection
It has to be real
And what do we know of perfect
That is real?
x
And we are loved, anyway
And we must love
And it’s the best thing going, anyway
x
C L Couch
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(church with preaching on John 21)
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Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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After Evening Service
x
We could keep vigil
On toward midnight
When the new day is called
x
A horn might be too much
But inside the church
The organ might be released
To greet the day
Subdued for lateness of the hour
Wanting to be good neighbors
Give our hearts some quiet room
As well
x
I guess “midnight vigil” sounds
A quiet thing
To us
I’m sure in other lands
It does not go that way
There are noisy fanfares
Calls as announcement
Calls to prayer
Calls to say
(to play)
Even to shout
x
This is a new day
Of the Lord
And the Lord’s creations!
x
C L Couch
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Photo by Adrian Dascal on Unsplash
Washed Away Night
Midnight in Saint George, Romania
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