the one

funny how we take the names
without
the origins

Christmas
Easter
today for Maundy Thursday

and then there are days whose words we know
outside
and could wonder why they’re used in here

thinking of what’s good
in
Good Friday

Maundy is the shortening of the word
that means command
not given
as
suggestion or option
though our wills must be involved
to have our ornery way
if nothing else

will and ego

some
days to think we could do without these
submit to good before the start
and use the spirit of our drive
only
in accordance
with the virtues of creation

no
falling needing or
have happened

Perelandra

while the directives were not hard
or even
new
but given by God’s child
all grown up
to people
all grown up

that you
that I
that we love each other

and
by the way
we’ve given a new rank with God
to be called friends
now

and know our faith in God this way
as a relationship with feeling
as in mind
and spirit

the mandatum
the command
mandate
to
love
and to remember we are friends

before events that follow
that are awful
not
the prayer but bleeding perspiration
intimate and earnest
lack of interest to take up the hard parts
of the world
to bear
and for which to sacrifice

one
of these
anyway

the one of us to save
the rest
beyond the human part
to God

and model perfectly what we might do in life
to
take on imperfection
as well as pardon
to try
to love that way

one savior
whom
and with so much
simple and profound
to follow

love one another
you are
my friends

c l couch


photo by Piotr Łaskawski on Unsplash