(x = space)
x
x
Dona Nobis Please
x
God
I wish I knew a round
And had a choir
Volunteered
x
A canon in the better sense
For meaning without questioning
The bias
x
I guess
What I really mean
Is to write the round
For exigence
A canon for the evening
Fluidly
To welcome stars
And thoughts of rest
And afterward
Retire
With notes to welcome dreams
x
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Adam Ulrich on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
look! up in the sky
x
a lunar people
even now and then
to appreciate
the harvest moon
the supermoon
that was an arc over us
last night
and shall look good
big
that is
above us
all this evening
while it flies
round with marks
we make things of
above
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Form
x
God
I love you
Even though
I’m unsure of the terms
Or attitude
How to be both
Obeisant and
Democratic
x
See
You’re a monarch
Absolute ruler
Of the universe
(more than He-Man
or She-Ra)
While for now
To mortal lives
You’re also
Frankly
Invisible
x
I may say
You’re in the wind
Your fingerprints the bark
On trees
And all the patterns
Helix
Hexagons
The nautilus
In nature
x
We may say there’s evidence
I may say
And I believe
The wonder inside everything
Indicating
A wonder-maker
x
And there are words for you
As you speak
To Adam
Eve
And prophets
Though you tend so speak
Through agencies
Especially after Eden
Still
We say your words
Which is all right
For me
x
You are layered
Through the books
And we must read
And listen
Let it sink
Through layers
Into our own deep places
Reemerging
Into peace
And promise
x
We are surprised by joy
x
But who are you
And how are you
An image
In what ways
x
And how are you
Today
x
How is it to know you
And to live with you
Really
We wake to a clock
And then what
Should happen
x
There are domestic
Possibilities
When Jesus says
To wash and comb
x
When mourning
To offer in the temple
Our poorer
Open selves
Then give
What for each of us
Corresponds to the
Widow’s mite
x
We know you count the hair
Track the falling sparrow
Offer bread
When sinners offer stones
Plus you prodigally receive
Whenever we return
From profligacy
Spending our inheritance
The gifts you gave
And what we have
From the world
All gone
And only we are left
As shells
Needing frankly
Food and water
x
And then you give us
Feasts
While the righteous and the stern
Glower
While serving
x
There is that stream
Of course
We wander by
So I guess you somehow do that
And in some form
So we might walk
Together
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Luke Ellis-Craven on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
his hundred acres
x
I know so little
and there is
so much to do
in a Loggins Pooh
way
x
fashion us a tree
with someone’s name
outside
make sure a supply
of sweet stuff
is laid in for winter
spring
summer
fall
watch out for Rabbit
who might be coming by
having taken count
and found full
containers missing
x
but mischief
in the wood
is allowed
no one is bereft
for in the following chapter
more supplies appear
everywhere
they’re needed
x
and we have tea
beside the tree
and all of us are there
even the boy
with buckled shoes
and such fondness for the bear
while I am looking
for my own
x
c l couch
x
x
with thanks to Milnes, father and son
x
photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Eighth Day
x
O God
I exhale your name
That has no name
Nothing catchy
For a slogan
Or a following
x
Plain
Supreme
(like pizza)
Simple without cunning
The closest thing to name
Because we need a name
Otherwise
There is no signifier
So that creation
Stands alone
As its own testimony
To our senses
Of the creator
Back of it
Before
Underneath
To carry through
The secrets of the universe
Navigating rings
Of everything that orbits
Or otherwise transports
x
God without a name
Who’d rather not have one
Though Moses
Insisted
For his
Sibling people
x
God without a name
Vacuum for power
The designer has designed
To share
First with the host
And then for
Nature
Than for the rest of us
Who also need a name
For show
Of praise
Rather than manifest
Through only
Breathing out and breathing in
A life
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by La Pájara Azul on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
osiris rex tremendae
x
we brought back part of an asteroid
today
while I was in church
what do you know
it happened anyway
I caught the replay
people near the capsule
sample in a box?
blackened spacecraft back on Earth
now left alone
(and I gloss
these are preliminaries
then
a bag
not a box)
and now someone should consider
quarantine
I’m sure someone has already thought of this
uh
we wish those closest
well
x
c l couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
Invitationing
x
It is a gray day
Perfect for
The Spirit to come in
x
A visit by a fire
With the Fire
An easy day
Made glorious
Through interaction
With the presence
Of the Lord
x
Hosted by
The human heart
Watched over
By the human mind
x
The visit lasts forever
Or it may
It depends upon the labor
Of the Spirit
And our own
To relent
To the exchange
Timeless
Over time
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Lord Hears
x
The Lord hears
Our prayers
We don’t how they’re
Tallied or remembered
If there’s a meeting
On each day in heaven
When and where
Angels receive assignments
Even discuss
The timing
x
Each word is heard
There is no requirement
We may ask in faith
Or doubt
We might be easy in our words
Or difficult
Say something
It is heard
x
It might be yes or no
Though the Lord is more than
Binary
There must be many ways
To answer prayer
Materially
Abstractly
With small mechanical change
Or simply in an attitude
Encouraged to endure
x
Good is still pretty good
Without the bad
There is a learning value
We suppose
But ask for what is needed
And think about
Confession
And thanksgiving
x
Dear and
Amen
Is not
Are not
Required
Say either or both
For a beginning and an ending
Or you know
Don’t
Leave the prayer suspended
In the air
For someone else to catch
To carry with endearment
For another’s hearing
And response
x
There’s always something next
Pray badly
Stutter in your heart
Speak
Or simply think your prayer with God
Pray what Jesus taught
As a responsibility
An affirmation
x
But however
The words go
And whichever
We will be heard by truth
And responded to
With love’s
Practicality
And maybe by our reckoning
A miracle
x
Listened
And responded to
The transactional nature of the world
Confirms
It points the way
Creation’s creator
Reckoning perfectly
Providing something always
In return
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by whoislimos on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Gospel According to the Birds
x
Books are wonderful
Black tracks across the page
Birds to say
There’s something here
Someone inked our talons
And we have walked on lines
Somehow
And there’s a message
Someone overheard a gospel
Before we were
Put back on our branches
Ancient pens
And when we’re gone
Our larger feathers go to humans
Who are
Surprised by grace
To leave a message
Whispers of angels
Like the ones who took their wings
To guide us
In our flights across the page
x
They take the credit
Though we guess it is their story
More than ours
We need to messages
No gospels
We emerge into life
Knowing how to fly
How to listen to impulses
The small glories
We would never hide
Or cease in all our starts and stops
From praising the creator
You can hear us
Humans
Our song is perfect
Without lessons
Or egos
Or prevarications
x
We could say praise us
In our stories
We know better
Without knowing
We fly
We sing
We know
God loves us
x
x
What is made by birds walking across skin that has a third opportunity?
The answer is a page whose words resemble tracks upon vellum made by animals once alive, whose skin is stretched for a second chance at life, so to say, bearing a story now to offer life for a third time, especially if the story be a gospel.
This is the kind of riddle that literate medieval people enjoyed together, literate meaning mostly monks, the kind who kept texts that had not been destroyed in the fall, thus saving what was left and what could feed into new nourishing, again to say, mostly in Europe a new civilization
The birds talking is not typical back then but my idea now. And Aesop. And Aristophanes.
Sorry, teacher can’t stop chirping.
Old English riddles are found in The Exeter Book, a volume discovered that had served as a coaster and something for impatience to glide a knife into (or why anyone would drive a knife into, along a book). A not-hiding glory to be plainly found, opened, and discovered.
x
Photo by Mehdi Sepehri on Unsplash
x
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