March 2023

Believing God

(x = space)

I am going away for a few days. My family is having a wake to remember my older brother who died recently from prostate cancer (detected way too late). I’m not sure how hotel wi-fi works or if it works or if I work with it, so I’m not sure about being in touch here while I am gone.

Believing God

Immortal, Invisible

How much sense

To believe in such a thing?

Like a ghost

We cannot exorcise,

Like love

We never want

To go away

In something that made everything

And we weren’t there

That guides us if we want

But has an overarching will

At work

Regardless

Intimate and inside

Glorious in nature

Even when

Nature is terrible

And thus

Capable of fright for a response

We go there

And shall it come here?

A word

A choice

And we are outcast

Another word

And we are home

In a place with many mansions

Source of fiction

And nonfiction

Belief on trial

But so go justice

And mercy

As ideas

Is it everything that’s good

Compelling faith

And then the action?

And is God

The best of all?

The maker, sponsor

Source of everything

That lasts

That’s worth the lasting

Life

Loss

The spark that’s there

And holding the spark

When it goes out

Something everyone

Can get and have

Like good stories

Told well

And, well,

This is the best story

We can have

And is alive

All the time

Forever

Gladly for aye

And amen

C L Couch

Photo by Lucas Hoang on Unsplash

certain hymns and verses in John are sources for allusions

March 10, 2023 3

Everywhere

(x = space)

Everywhere

(IWD 2023)

It’s International Women’s Day

While in some parts of the world

It’s nearly over

And it’s over

I wonder what happened?

What nations adopted

Legislation

That affirms,

Almost absurdly,

The humanhood of women?

What programs might have taken place

By groups who want

To announce

Or better yet

To shake the world

With a civil earthquake

To bring tectonic change

Into culture

What artists and art groups gave us new ways

To see and hear

And touch the way

To change?

And what God waits

To intervene

When the threats increase and wholeness

Is defined

Only in part

For some?

Better yet, let’s intervene ourselves

Let’s push on tyrannies

Until pushed over

And things are built

New places

And new institutions,

A world that’s femininely organized,

Which is to say

The most human

Of all worlds

C L Couch

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Salha Khan, a Kurdish hero. Statue in Erbil. سالحە خان ١٩٣٢ – ٢٠٠١ لە هەولێر #kurdistanregion #erbil #هەولێر

March 8, 2023 1

meeting God

(x = space)

meeting God

how deep the ocean

and shall we ever know it

how far the sky

beyond the blue

and empty black

and shall we reach what’s next

and the last

what’s inside

and shall we understand

to fix the organs

and blood flow

between them

achieve perfection

or much longer life

at least

to have the body

cooperating with itself

and where is energy

and will

to do so

it is there

many serve with it

and so will fix things

and explore

and reach until

everything is reached

and there is God

waiting

not to say

why so long

but to say

well done

we go on

to what’s next

to discover

and those behind

who sponsor

and who wait

even to love

those leaving

and generally

the people

on the world

on new worlds

inhabiting

and to have

more and more

the better lives

fed and clothed and watered

steeped in art

to make the generation

bright and beautiful

shall do the exploring

with God

after God

quiet God

maybe with a part of God

to keep

to save

when necessary

otherwise

in the imposed Edenic way

to leave us

as it’s been

on our own

C L Couch

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

March 7, 2023 1

Poetry 180 from the Library of Congress

(x = space)

Poetry 180 from the Library of Congress

I’ve been through the series

A few times now

I’ve read

And taken notes

Cut-and-paste the parts

That one way or another get

To me,

Placing everything inside

A sort of commonplace book

I speak

Electronically;

Everything for now

Is not on paper

But kept in columns

In the storage space

I rent

And I wonder if

I take out the same parts

Of poems

Except the new ones

Year by year:

Take them out and keep them

In the way I keep the same parts

Via electrons

It’s a terrific series;

I forget it’s not for me

(I am

the second audience

at best)

I mean, I don’t think Billy Collins

And the staff

Of the LoC mind that I read this

And keep it

And I like,

Even that I’m changed

Though not a highschooler

And not changed as one

C L Couch

https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/

Photo by sarina gr on Unsplash

March 6, 2023 1

Glory

(x = space)

Glory

It’s a Sunday feeling

For those who have a Sunday

To be speaking

And singing to the Lord

The pastor cites

The shortest psalm

As an invocation,

Which is an invitation

More so a directive

To be singing

Can you imagine David

Dancing first

Before the ark

When it was brought into

Jerusalem?

There was singing then

And all the instruments

We’ve heard about

That played

Today is Mission Sunday at this church

So there are connections to the world

Everyone’s invited

Everywhere

Not as a number

But as you,

You are invited

To meet Jesus

Through us

Not because we are messiahs

But because

We can quote him

Tell his story

Show you something of his love

For everyone

And the hope that the whole human world

Might be saved,

Which is God’s wish

But not God’s will

For God has mitigated God

In favoring our will

And our decisions

Yes, it’s the reason why

The world is so flawed

And screws up so badly

That according to the story

Has made us

The silent planet in the universe

Burning other planets

With what happened in the garden

And then

Going quiet

While the planet’s fate is determined

Of itself

Then there will be noise

But here is David

In Jerusalem

And there is great noise

Locally

That celebrates

That helps to consecrate

The presence and the symbol

And our rendering of faith

In holy God

And in each other

As neighbors

And a nation

The world will not know you, Lord;

And nations will fall

We could wish it were not so,

And we do

But not everyone will be there

In the sky

The circle won’t be broken

But our hearts,

Well,

They are other matters

It’s a Sunday feeling

For those who have a Sunday

And take one

Or on another day

We have been ransomed

From kidnapping,

From the prisons

Huge or small—all intimate

When they should not

Have to be

The world violates our souls

And yet we believe

And from the ashes

Of all sins consumed

At last,

We shall rise

Who choose to rise

The glory of the Lord

In homely ways

Inside the heart

We do not understand

How something so

Cosmically grand

Can live in something

So small

As our souls,

One soul by one

Then there is the glory

That we read about

And then imagine:

The universe made straight

While also bending low,

We with that

And all the Earth

That knows at last

This is it,

The certainty of God

In blinding presence

That will not hurt our eyes

And the song of angels,

Unbinded song

That should destroy

But will not touch eardrums

Adversely

The glory of the Lord

Clearly

All there is,

Compelling

As to break our souls

Though it will not—in fact,

We’ll never had been

Better,

Freer,

Then to get

Our next assignments

C L Couch

Photo by Christian Cagni on Unsplash

March 5, 2023 0

Magic Acts

(x = space)

Magic Acts

The day is

Here

And I am glad

And it’s a mess

And I

Am glad

Snow would vie with rain

Ice with streets

That are only wet

The wintry mix

They say

That sounds like salad

In a bag

I could select from bags

In the store

Thank you for

Messy days

Indeterminate;

I think I see

A patch of yellow and of green

On the tree out back

And now it’s gone,

That is,

The patch of light

And not

The tree

Yes, it is

Strange magic

Or I think it is

And I have a movie on

That I barely see or hear

Because

The day itself

Is more compelling,

And I can keep the background

Images

And especially the sounds

For the distraction

Of tinnitus

While looking better

At the black and brown

And white

And listening for wind

That pushes everything

A moving day outside

With patches

Now and then

Of yellow and of green,

Brighter parts

And shaded

While the sun and moon

Trade places

And is that not

(sorry,

kinescope

and nickelodeon)

The more compelling

Magic

C L Couch

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

March 4, 2023 0

Salut

(x = space)

Salut

The day has

Gone from blue to gray

And if so

That’s what we’ll have

But still it is the day

And it is ours

Not to possess

But to keep

As in maintain

Improve

In gratitude

A paean to the planet

Only gods who are

Not there

Desire;

Praise is fine

But better spent

In care

Like rearing children

Or taking care of grown-ups

In their ages

(maybe six and seven

out of seven)

In other words,

Do well by Earth

While it is

Under you and over you

And inside you

For planets

And our home among them

Circling stars

C L Couch

Photo by redcharlie | @redcharlie1 on Unsplash

March 3, 2023 1

haiku (more)

(x = space)

haiku

slow nature inside

plants grow in unsure seasons

ours darkness or light

unsurely outside

winter by a calendar

summer another

creature on a branch

cardinal or squirrel set

then fly or skitter

C L Couch

(like those earlier, these haiku can relate to each other, though I doubt there is a rule about connection; or each haiku may stand alone, which I guess is more traditional)

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

March 2, 2023 0