(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
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
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
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
Te Deum
x
I pray to God
And Jesus
Rarely directly to
The Holy Spirit
Sorry, Spirit
Though it seems
I’m talking with you
All the time
As an indication
A reality
Of indwelling
x
You are the nearest
The closest part
Of God
In fact, in me
While I know
It’s three in one
But for all I know
It might be
That you are the part of God
Who is the most patient
Part
(indwelling)
And who somehow
Loves me best
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Savvas Kalimeris on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Drafting into a Welcome for Rosh Hashanah
x
It has
Sundowned into
Tishrei
Rosh Hashanah
x
Now into
A count of five thousand
Seven hundred
Eighty-four
x
The new year
Turns the calendar
Adding one
To five millennia
(a few centuries
away
from six)
Together
As a people
x
We have liturgy
Reading
Hearing
We have the word of God
Visit
And then send us on our way
x
Our way together
Responding to the invitation
Of another year
Of seasons
For dancing
Mourning
All that is required
x
There are lessons
As we need them
x
A thousand died on Maui
Ten thousand in Libya
More than
Less than
A counting for
A necessary tally
As with those who fell in battle
Tallied in the texts
Of old
x
The wars waged with nature
And too often
With each other
x
And yet how many born
How many here
Grown into this family
Of long life
Together
x
And each one matters
Fallen
Risen
Breathing
Or having given up on breath
For what is next
x
Each one matters
x
Maybe
There are other
Older
But we are
A five-thousand (going on six)
Years-old people
Plus one new day
x
Ancient and new
We are
We work
We play
We pause to rest
We go again
x
(So)
Remember who we were
Remember who we are
This year of blessing
As we have it
Inside which
We’ll part
And come together
As required
Meaning it as celebration
Too
x
Sundown into sunrise
Go our days
Here and now
For we are here
We’re now
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Veronika Diegel on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Artist of the Beautifuler
x
Ain’t life grand
And all we behold
Upon the Earth
Above
Below
Inside the ground
And waters
Of the Lord
The glory of first days
The foundation
For our virtue
Or our sin
For we must admit
We can do both
x
So much is
Left to us
It always has been
As far as we’ve known
An always
Our time
Anthropocene
‘Til a robot age
Take over
Sighing lubrication
Into ancient joints
That keep the world
As if
We were coming by
Again
x
That the god who made them
Will forgive them
In the failure that they own
In the fight against our future
That we
Not they
Had lost
x
They can renew themselves
And mostly
They are standing by
x
C L Couch
x
x
a bit of science fiction
x
thinking about City by Clifford D. Simak and the after-war chapter (on Earth) of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
ring
x
God is here
thank goodness
God is there
in Ukraine
in war
and Morocco
split earth
many lives taken
x
in the hundred-plus
degree days
in Texas
for those
trying to live there
and before the hurricane
call one Lee
while we are in ships
on land
securing
waiting
knowing there will be destruction
during
and after
re-life-building
keening
grieving
for the loss of us
anywhere
x
we still wait for freedom
God approves
and works resistance
and diplomacy
risks offense
Jesus was offensive
and still turns
the heads of certain people
x
souls
and daily lives
devotion on a string
that breaks
that someone cuts
to ruin
or to barricade
x
God persists
in presence
in numbers
yes
God has the Earth
all given satellites
and other worlds
but take it one by one
even
with respect
and certainly with truth
the kind a Pilate
may not know
or want to know
x
debate
sure
work your fallacies
and jaw agendas
or shut up
shut down
look at the world
with any
and all senses
in all seasons
x
God is there
you won’t believe
and it’s a place to start
like rain
to put out our fires
snow to cool the deserts
or fire
parametered
to thaw the frozen
x
listen
talk
give up
what must be given up
yes
me
too
x
enough grammar to share
and all civility
that’s dignified
respectful
God will take us there
as in the wilderness
the chaos
we can no longer
count
because the crazy overwhelms
sometimes
x
God is here
sorry
we can go rounds on this
or leave it go
experience it
or not
we could step over this
to save in our ways
that are constructive
building up
that is
tearing down what only
tears down
x
love and live the rest
even God might say
that is enough
for now
stepping around
certain stanzas
that divide
unusefully
not for distinction
or thick conformity
x
rather the unique
formal
free
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Wish for Songs to Be Enough
x
Love, love, love, love
The Gospel in a word is love
Love each other
Sister, brother
Love, love, love
x
(with a little adapting)
x
Dona nobis
All the songs
We used to sing
x
Often away from buildings
On retreats
A time at camps
Sometimes with circles
In the woods
Even farther away
A distance from our cabins
And the lodge
x
I thought these
Were sanguine places
And the songs
Well
They meant something
And I think they did
And they did
Though there were leaders
Sweating out the details
While we sang
About the program hours
When
They’d have to let us go
Let us be ourselves
A little
For a while
x
It didn’t matter
I wouldn’t be me
For anything
Too many inside things
Contradicting
Outside complacency
While adolescing
x
Then I would return
To find out
The lyrics didn’t matter
The guitars
Or a cappella
Hands in hands
(tentatively)
Singing of no boundaries
But freedom
In the Lord
That
I guess
No one believed
We were on hold
Is all
For part of a weekend
Then return
To homework
And
All of our prejudgments
We had gotten
From our parents
And each other
x
Sigh
Youth groups
And time away
And when away from that
Seeking the green
Leaves and breathing
In and out
Among them
With the better oxygen
Provided there
x
Then back
Always back
For a retreat
There never was advancing
After
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Michael Krahn on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
Recent Comments