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Month

October 2022

Wake Up, Now

(x = space)

x

x

Wake Up, Now

x

I haven’t heard

Or read the news

Seen images move

Across the screen

Or be still

There

x

So what happened

Overnight?

It’s Saturday

What high schools

Might be happier

For Friday’s games?

What nations

Changed?

Who might be in charge

Now?

x

How many

In the hospital

From one of or some or all the reasons

Who is on the way to heaven

Or purgation

We can only pray

And hope

For good things now for them

x

What have I wakened

Into?

How is my home

Of planet Earth?

What’s happening outside

That we only know now

As news,

Carried from light years away?

x

And what might happen here

Today?

I won’t know, of course,

Until the hours

Come to me

And I to them

Good morning, world

Good morning beyond the world

And inside

Where things are happening

Cellularly, too

x

And can I think of God

First thing?

I don’t think I can

I’m not devout

I’ll get to God

Once consciousness

And the lines of things

The shadows

And the shapes of light

Are seen

And anything to hear

Is heard

Maybe what woke me up

If the timing is untoward

x

I’m thinking of God now

For correction

A moment of chagrin

Wishing

(one wish of three wishes,

if there were a story

happening)

Wishing

I were faithful

Like the faithful

Waking up

To hear

And somehow see

Taste and smell

And touch

The agencies of God

And then the world

x

Sigh,

Good people

Special people

Waking up

So wonderfully

And usefully

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Rhamely on Unsplash

x

0

Autumn Liturgy

(x = space)

x

x

Autumn Liturgy

(layperson’s)

x

Just a little gray

Is creeping in;

It might turn into

Another color

Later on

x

I may say

The point of dawn

Is nearing

Just after the moment

When night and day

Are shared first time

Then several

Hours later

x

The week has passed

Its sharing time

As well,

Being Thursday

Counting Sunday

As the first day

x

Maybe because

It’s autumn season

There is more

Preoccupation

Over what has passed

Than what is coming

x

Summer’s over

Growing’s done

Up here;

We count the harvest

And rely on it

To nourish us through

Winter

When dark is even more pronounced

In shorter daylight days

And longer nights

Even a solstice

For beseeching

Everything we lost

To return again

x

It’s all right

To think on loss

Not fun but necessary

So many things are shed,

Leaves off trees

And skin cells

Off our bodies

We lose things

Too many things, we think,

On the course of normalcy

x

And yet there is

The lesson of the harvest,

The gaining of so much

To see us through

x

The bears do this, of course:

We’ve had fat-week

Pageantry for them

Seeking winners among

The ursae

Who will be readier

For winter rest

Under their stars

Beneath the paler sun

x

We need our things

And we should have them;

Things are lost,

And often we must let

Them go

x

Gain and lose that is

The way of things

(we gain, we lose);

It has to be all right,

And it is

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by mana5280 on Unsplash

x

1

Dreaming Impossibly

(x = space)

x

x

Dreaming Impossibly

x

This is for real

But every now and then

I must imagine

Like one Lewis or the other

Things that cannot happen

Happening

x

A hole

Through which

The world is further out

Horizons wider

Air that moves just right

Enhancing breath

Progressive fields

That do not have to tire

We can take them slowly

Discovering

Along the way

x

Water we can take

It’s safe

And not worry

About returning

About returning overall,

Well, that’s another matter

After exploration

After delight

And rest

And learning

From this impossible day

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Florian Rieder on Unsplash

x

0

Rank and File

(x = space)

x

x

Rank and File

x

Thank goodness

For the discipline

Of fire and cloud

And water

And the path

The faithless wonder

x

There is a promise

When we forget

There is a promise

x

There’s prophecy

To mingle with

What is before us

In contention,

All the other parts

That make up everything

x

The everything we know,

The things we must

Believe in anyway

Sometimes from apostacy

Of fact,

Worse from the inside

Out

x

Before external judgment,

We sentence ourselves

For lack of faith

When, reasonably,

How much is there to believe in?

Evidence of what’s unseen–

Thank you,

Says our agnostic

x

The normalcy

Of matter and dimension

Fairly

Imposing,

Building what we stand on

For belief

And unbelief

x

The believer is the doubter

x

We go through this,

We are this

x

Often there is more of us

On the other side

Of chrysalis

x

C L Couch

x

x

Hebrews 11:1

x

Photo by Ruth Paradis on Unsplash

x

1

Simon Says

(x = space)

x

x

Simon Says

(based in part on verses)

x

Is that the pie-man

Or Simon Peter?

Anyone

Who’d rather simonize

A game

x

We know what Simon Peter says

He wrote letters

We have two

He fished

One kind and then the other

It seems he went back and forth

Between despair

And inspiration

His is a good cause

For reconciliation

Saying the one thing

You are Christ

Then falling, failing

Into water

(he is rescued)

First refusing foot-washing

Then wanting it all over

x

Yet somehow he is the rock

A name

A metaphor

For church

Jesus says so

Then there’s the episode

Chapter and verse for us

When it is night

And his rabbi, his leader,

And his friend is arrested

xxxxxtaken away

xxxxxto the authorities

xxxxxwho can determine

xxxxxtemporal and real

xxxxxcontinued life

xxxxxor death

And when he’s near

To everything

And asked about it

Says he doesn’t know

He doesn’t know the man

And upon the last

Of three of these

He curses

And the rooster crows

And he sees

Maybe in every way

The savior

Who was his teacher

And his friend

And it’s over

No paradox remains

The holes have been dug

Into conviction

Into faith

And practice

In some new ways perhaps

At least on the inside

Where it matters

Unless feeding others

That is an outside matter

x

What faith,

The joy he had

Have gone into the void

Like mortality

Into the entrance of a tomb

He goes away

He’s out of everything

For a chapter

Or two chapters

His own story

Torn out by the tearing actions

Of denial

Help my unbelief

He could have remembered

The cry of the parent

For the healing of the child

He could have wept

For Jerusalem

And for his friend

x

Peter, Peter

Denier

Pumpkin-eater

Follower and friend

He said so

Jesus said so

Then everything was gone

He was gone

With the other one

Sometimes we lose our way

With the other

x

C L Couch

x

x

Matthew 26:69-75

x

(the letters that are 1 and 2 Peter)

x

nursery rhymes that are the stuff of ages, now

x

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

x

1

Trick

(x = space)

x

x

Trick or Treat

x

Simply put

And because I cannot count

Not knowing all the places

With the numbers

Too many died

This past week

From war

From sickness

From hunger

Or from thirst

From having something safe to drink

From crime

And corruption

(there are many sources)

From hate

Because hate, in fact, can kill

It takes the life

It leaves us with a zombie-like illusion

We can blame the movies

For the monsters

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Arno Senoner on Unsplash

x

0

Rhapsody on Umber

(x = space)

x

x

Rhapsody on Umber

x

Orange

Nothing rhymes with it

(I’ll try syringe

sometime,

hydrangea-a?)

Who cares

In the better way

It’s wonderful

And add a little brown and yellow

Is that burnt umber

The lost crayon?

x

But it’s just

Right for fall

Add red on its own

For leaves

And all the shades

For possibilities

Cast them under clouds

On a cool day

When walking

In the countryside

Is right

A quiet celebration

A season in the season

If you live around

Here

If not,

In the mind then

Or online

x

It’s fall

The very best Pooh weather

There should be

Tea and honey

For Christopher and friends

The roly bear

The donkey with the usually tail

Mama kangaroo and child

Tiger with springs

An owl of storied wisdom

As far as a child’s genius go

Long-suffering rabbit

And the pig

Small

Always counted on

Like needful stories

To be there

x

thanks for A. A. Milne and to my mom who really liked the stories

x

C(hristopher Robin) L Couch

x

x

Photo by Valentina Ivanova on Unsplash

Ukrainian Village, Чикаго, Иллинойс, США

Published on October 19, 2021

x

0

15 October

(x = space)

x

x

15 October

(I might have talked about this last year)

x

Open market

Open season

Open days for change

Of others

Telling

Selling

You to change

Telling

Selling you

To change

x

Which might be right

Which might be necessary

Expedience a benefit

Since these days will

Move along

x

The seasons are fixed

Perhaps

And I mean all of them:

Two to four upon the Earth

In regions,

Three seasons of the Sphinx,

The growing

And the harvesting,

Exchange of goods

And services.

Home by the end of day

x

For those older

In the north and west

For all of us

Whose lives

Are counted and uncounted

Hours

Fiscal years

Phases of the moon,

The sun has a lesson

In plan and unplanned

Sunspots,

Mass ejections

x

And for our own decisions

Inside the desired

And the inevitable

x

C L Couch

x

x

the season of the healthcare marketplace in the USA

x

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

x

0

Warplanes

(x = space)

x

x

Warplanes

x

Almost antique word

That brings to mind

The bombers in the movies

The models on a tray

I worked on

When I was sick

x

But these are real

Metal and tall,

Plastic in the systems

Electronics

And then there are

All the explosives, loaded,

Ready to send

Here or there

x

Warplanes

That was the word used on the news

Long, official,

And romantic

Scarves and leather jackets

Indiscreet

From up so high

While on the ground

Where we live

The war takes out

Our fields and homes

While a threat

x

Maybe

Only anxiety,

A state that has its own

Consequences

In the air

On the land

Where the bombs hit

Or there are UXBs

If only in the mind

When we look up

And then look at each other

Side to side

x

Or it’s the real thing

The planes we cannot trust

Unleashing

Some kind of hell

Upon the Earth

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Kevin Den Heijer on Unsplash

x

2

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