And in Conclusion
Believe or not
There’s God
It’s up to you
Wonderfully
Up to you
For faith
In what’s unseen
By unseen
But what’s evidenced
In
Nature
Even by extremes
More so
In love
And everything
Beyond ourselves
Affirming
What is in ourselves
That we know best
As flesh
Combined with
Spirit
My
We really are
Something
And should mean it
Fantastic-made
And beating certain odds
For now
To have been kept
And then
To keep ourselves
And we should know
The value
Beyond chemicals
The market fluctuates
Bur the worth
Of what’s internal
As eternal
Is forever
And the price
As might be reckoned
Also needed
By
The world
It seems
Paid
In faith
And love
And also paid
In full
Perfected in a life
Both human and
Divine
And in divinity
We pray
Our own spirit
And our flesh
Shall pray
Even with life
And life’s devotion to
What’s good
Resisting evil
And when giving in
To evil
Then returning
The question
Which is
Stronger
Which is more
At last
Answered
With wounded conviction
Scarred believing
And we may
Return
Or
Yes
Never having left
And maybe to eschew
When needed
Older
Siblings’
Attitudes
Toward prodigals
We have
We come back
And now
We all remain
In faith
Uneasy in the world
As uneasy
To the world
Which says
No evidence
No faith
According to our rules
Though evidence
Invisible
Like concepts
Be
Working all around
But
Speaking of invisible
To start
At least
Remember one’s
Great value
That is
Your own
And don’t forget it
Stay alive
Forgive
And be forgiven
Knowing that life and love
(unscalable
though scalable)
Keep us
And keep us going
In the valley
To the top
Depth
As well as height
And in the mind
Between
Then knowing well
Of one
Reach out
To one
And then another
And let groups
Of faith have strength
With courage
For each other
Goodness
Do I sound
Like an epistle
Well
Enough courage
In the one
To be
And more
To join
A model
Maybe
Understand of the one beyond
Or go the other way
Let the one
Be model
For you
And for us
Either way
Have faith
Remembering greater love
But keeping oneself
Precious
And unstained
Though knowing
That God loves
The stained
As well
And we should love
The stained
As with the wounded
All around
Such things
As shall be lifted
But for now
Need caring
As with the pristine parts
And also those
As practice now
For everything
All Earth
And heaven
Flesh
And spirit
Renewed
C L Couch
Photo by Ivan Bandura on Unsplash
a prayer
mother and father
heal them
and help them
help our family
and our friends
help all the strangers in the world
whom we do not know
but you know
through and through
c l couch
photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash
What Do Angels Eat
I suppose
The first and best guess
Is nothing
They are heavenly
They seem to work
Unflagging
What need have they for
Food
What then
If a need
And for an energy source
For we may say they are
Relentless
Yet wonder if
Their energy is
Eternal
They are divine
(before some choose
another way)
Though they are not divinity
And so might
To fancy
Or daresay
Need fuel
I wonder if
They might draw energy
From sources in the
Cosmos
That they both know
And
Throughout
Time
And without
Time traverse
Say
With delight
They might soar through
The atmosphere
Of Venue
Fill their wings
Like sails
With wind
From gaseous origins
They might digest
Of
Slingshot movements
‘Round the sun
Or borrow from the
Energy
From orbits of the
Many moons
Of Saturn
Or of Jupiter
Borrowing
From Phobos
Deimos
Or the satellites
Of outer Neptune
Or
Dwarf planets
They might know the molecules
That fill what we consider
Empty space
They might eat dark matter
Or visit to the other ends
Of black holes
And so feast
From what is there
And so
Inside the center
Of each galaxy
So be replenished
From so many places
Or maybe a dimension’s slide
Into another
Provides nourishment of
Meals
So-called
Out of the multiverse
They eat
Without the worry
Of measure
Until our measures become
Or of other worlds become
Adept
To catch them
At their food
And so have proof
Though faith
(foolish
you might say)
Has long
And even
Now
Requires none
C L Couch
n. b.
Maybe they are feeding
From the leaves
In trees
(who says what size)
That fall through fall
Or reach up from the ground
In spring as
Seedings
Other plants
Flowers
And with an irony
What we need
And take
As crops
For food
(CLC)
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
"Energy," by the way claims William Blake, "is eternal delight."
reasoning
(a prayer)
O God
Oh
God
(invocating
supplicating)
how are you
in our lives
how do your angels
work in dialogue
between
two sets of wills
your will
so elastic
as to have us
mess it up through
discretion
or what seems perhaps
an accident
or random thing
from us
and yet your will
predominate
your cosmic will
and will for all your spirits
made
and always
from the beginning
ending
and beginning
and everything between
so how shall we have our days
our hours
in ourselves
not pawns
but active players
in some plan of yours
one plan
and all of us
somehow
as parts
yet what we do
must matter
from the inside
to the outside
even the outermost
and is it miracle
or an extraordinary
definition
of happenstance
or some other medium
in which
we move
and have our being
and our choices
matter
they are valued
they turn into
the ultimate reality
and for our judgment
into paradise
how does that work
what stretches
most
within your will
that becomes a point of doctrine
for our lives
a code
for our discretion
well
what we know
is what we know
that our choices
make a difference
in a universe
of shared presence
manifested
so you choose
so I choose
so we chose
not in a vacuum
but some substance
our of
everything that’s real
the real
that is material
divine
individual
and overarching
if not overlording
oh
Lord
our Lord
how majestic is
your name in all the Earth
maybe an odd affirmation
(time to time)
when you
have no name
being I am
we have names
we have bodies
we have spirits
we have choices
and all of it
has value
part of your way
that goes in every
direction
where solidity
and spirituality
have room
for a plan
we don’t know part of
but in whom we are
the stake
we decide
we could always
learn the rules
(they are in many sources
universally)
then go so far as
to obey
c l couch
Psalm 8:9
photo by Árpád Czapp on Unsplash
2 poems kind of about brokenness (sorry)
When the Circle’s Not Unbroken
The Lord
Invites us
To the circle
Or the square
Or something oblong
Maybe
Rhomboid
To something
Maybe broken
For design
Or due to
Some experience
That seems
To break up everything
Fear
And anger
Breaking out
Without
The lines
To keep it in
To keep what might be loved
Therein
Though love remains
In the fragments
The Lord
Cares for us in these
And if the situation
Backs in
From extreme
The parts
Maybe come together
In a new shape
If partial
While we gesture
Talk
And work on fixing
For a while
Call it prayer
Call it Bible study
Call it therapy
Or medication
Every means
That helps
In measured
Dosage
And discretion
‘Til something like
Our circle
Even as
Something else
Shall come together
Maybe with a new
Amen
March on Two Left Feet
(or right)
The fifth already
Seems like
March is
The right name
The lion hasn’t really
Come
Though are there hints
Of lambs
Is a fair question
It’s in-between
A kind of academic
Purgatory
While the sky
And Earth
Decide
To fix the things
From winter
Into spring
We hope
The flowers undeceived
The planting happen
In its own
Good timing
That might have to change
Or not
Should good-guessing be required
By planters
Of all kinds
Who typically
Are breathing through
Northeastern cold
While waiting
For green seasons
To begin
C L Couch
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
Manic Monday
(and don’t panic)
God sang
The song into creation
The lion did as much
And our holy words
In works
Imply
We are created
We are that song
Or its interpretation
In darkness
And in light
And the bestowal
Of a garden
With the first object lesson
For the teachers
That the garden
Stands
For something we
No longer have
While we must work
In labor
And in labor
For
What we got
Each era is a lesson
We could say
And maybe they progress
The human ages
Which is why
We say
They’re ages
(we get older)
We grow
Some
We adapt
Physically
Some
Though not as much
As one might think
For as long as we’ve
Been here
And this might not be
So much by us
As by
The touch of God
God knowing
We’ll need adaptive parts
As we go on
(grow on)
What do I know
It’s Monday
And I’m feeling existential
With the blues on electric pages
Making less sense
To me
(than could it be
our music style)
Than paper
With its white
And off-white
Receiving of
Our pen strokes
Painting
With black ink
C L Couch
[note to me and now to us
so what’s this poem about?—it’s about thinking and writing, yes, really about both]
I am having trouble with the blue lights on computers. Or the part of the lights that are blue. Or maybe feeling blue. I think it’s both.
The result is that I’m even more recalcitrant in using this thing. This vital thing. I’ve had to use it for a while then rest my eyes. Rest my eyes upon the rest of the world.
So if I’m worse about responding than is typical (and typically it can be pretty bad), then I’m sorry. But as the emperor said quite uselessly, there it is.
--Christopher
Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash
Nous existons. Vraiment.
Lift
(the congregation sings)
Humble sign
Of
Ordinary execution
Ancient
Egyptian
Means
And then Roman
One by one by one
And two
We make this cross
Depict it
Empty
Or with Jesus on it
C L Couch
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
In Ev’ry Condition
Something spiritual
That
God is love
And that
This is
The hardest thing to know
The strongest
And most difficult
To know
And to apply
C L Couch
Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash
About the Praying
I haven’t
prayed so much today,
not yet.
Sorry about that.
Can prayers move back in time?
I think
they can,
not as an excuse
but to place them where
they’re needed,
God of where
And when.
Amen.
C L Couch
Photo by Ahmad Ossayli on Unsplash
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