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Monday after Sunday Prayer

(x = space)

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Monday after Sunday Prayer

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Lord,

What’s going on?

Where are you?

Where are we?

Are we lost,

Or it is that

So much seems lost

On us?

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Do we simply

Not get it?

We engine on

And sometimes there are wheels

Where do they take us?

Why should we make the trip?

x

Too many questions

We want some

Certainty,

Please

We want to know

We’re on the path to

Something good,

What we’re aiming toward

And heading toward

Is good

x

Good for prosperity

Good for wisdom

Good for relief

On our arrival

x

How will get there?

Do angles light the way?

And yet

Some part of us must be

Agnostic

Must question

Doubt

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We have to assay

Whether it’s treasure

Or rust

Or rusty treasure

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To take

Simply admire

And walk on

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Into future

(into Tuesday)

To the next site

A challenge

The next prayer

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C L Couch

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Beware of these Streets

Photo by Andrew Gook on Unsplash

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Missing Church

(x = space)

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Missing Church

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It used to meet

In buildings

Who’d have

Thought

That would be

Novel, given

Centuries

Of scary-high

Structures with

Ornaments that

Trod through

Ages’ worth

Of styles,

Of schools

x

But then,

Before

The buildings

There was nothing

Formal but

The people

Who met in homes

And basements,

That is,

Tombs

x

Cathedrals now

Are cyber

While the

Pandemic surges,

Though we wish

To have our

Lofts again and pews

And pulpits

Or, for

Some, a room

Big enough

For all of us

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I don’t know

If there’s teaching

Here about

Where we

Meet—that it

Doesn’t matter,

Maybe

x

Two or three

The standard,

Maybe

Really

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C L Couch

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Photo by Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash

St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Vatican

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Peace Talk

(x = space)

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Peace Talk

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What does God demand?

We say humility

In walking

That sounds good

We could let go our weapons

And the meanness

On our faces

And go our way

Not as if

Everyone’s our friend

But that the world

And the world’s God

Anticipates

Agendas,

x

Don’t make a face

That gets you beat

Or killed

And with a face

That says that, should we meet,

It might go all right

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The thing is

And I guess you know

This is a rule

First for the strong

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C L Couch

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Micah 6:8

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Photo by Timothy Barlin on Unsplash

(nice face)

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2

Love Song of the Mendicant

(x = space)

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Love Song of the Mendicant

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I sit by the side

Begging bread for my bowl

I drink thin liquid,

Hoping to sustain me

Is it Egypt

Of long ago,

A curb in Cairo

Or in Rome

Or New York City?

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We dream,

And in our dreams

We look for many things

Gold, perhaps—

More so for love, I think

The love of God

Of one another

Of those we know

And those we knew

Who have been away

For a long while,

Now

x

Now

We wake

And everything begins again

We are cast outside

By the world’s demand

To beg for bread

And something cool

To drink

And that, with enough,

We can share with

Others

In our group,

With our family

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Viviane Okubo on Unsplash

Palhano, Brazil

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Chaotica

(x = space)

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Chaotica

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Lord,

It’s a good day

For normal praying

x

In churches everywhere

There will be choruses

That say it right

x

But my prayer

Is cacophony,

Nothing regular

Or regularly rhythmed out

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I hope you will forgive that,

All the off-pitch, off-key

Murmuring,

Uneven humming through

The perfect angel-layering

Of formal prayers

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But I need you;

I need your company

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You could simply sit close by,

And maybe we’d say nothing

To each other

And somehow know

Eternity is hearing

Everything as it should

x

Everything that’s needed

To respond just right

To an uneven,

Lopsided,

Person praying badly

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Out of place

In whatever place

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C L Couch

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x

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

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2

The Problem of Pain

(x = space)

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x

The Problem of Pain

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It keeps other things

From happening

It freezes us

In case the next move

Should hurt more

We get caught up in

Indictment and

In judgment

We want the world

To stop hurting so much

This way

x

A muscle pain

We can get over

Even headaches can be

Resolved (at worst,

through wishful-thinking

maybe Ice

maybe thinking

about ice)

But pain offers no answer

To itself

Perhaps because the

Only resolution is

From outside

From someone else

Who gets it

And who cares without a fee

With no assurance

Of divine guarantee

The odds say we’ll get over it

The odds say

That we don’t

There are too many ways

Of counting

x

Pain leaps us into an unknown

A life without

An anchor except the one

We do not want

And can’t control

x

Let it go

Let go life

Not at all to die

But in waiting

And in waiting

Doctors without doubt,

If it’s that kind

x

But this, the kind

That wears the soul away

Wait

And wait

And try to live

Fractured, meantime

Until someone takes hold

In a way that angels and grace

Have not offered

On this side

So much

Except perhaps

In mystics

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C L Couch

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The Problem of Pain is a popular treatise by C. S. Lewis.  A more narrative response to the problem is his A Grief Observed.

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Photo by Oleg Laptev on Unsplash

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Peer Review

(x = space)

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Peer Review

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Your stories are

Amazing

Amazing stories

Keep sharing from them

We need their wonder

That

Certain metaphors aside

And without exaggeration

Are real

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C L Couch

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Full Disk Earth, Apollo 17, 1972

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

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Inventory

(x = space)

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Inventory

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So what shall we say,

Shall love have us

Or hate?

Shall we hate our neighbors

For their differences?

Straightforward questions

On a day when nothing new

Is under the sun

x

But we can make it new,

Should we drain our scorn

Like pouring out

The rain barrel for

The change

Into nourishing places

That don’t need

To be so parched

Anymore

x

We can grow

And nurture other things to grow

Until there’s verdure

In the sunshine

And the rain,

Everything growing in balance

For the change

x

I write on an angry day

Because I have to alter it

I need my spirit

I should care for yours

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wolfgang Rottmann on Unsplash

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6

Red, Gold, and Green

(x = space)

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Red, Gold, and Green

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Friends are back,

And they will leave again

I come and go

As well

We are the

“Karma Chameleon”

x

There is more space

Here, because good people

Took some

Things away

To have new homes and uses

Elsewhere

x

Not all is well:

Headaches

Of all kinds

You know

I try to sleep

I try to write

x

But the sun is out

The humidity is broken for

A while

There is a-c and another fan;

There is food in

The fridge

And on some shelves

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Not exactly

Christmas in July

And, yes,

Christmas in July

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C L Couch

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“Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club

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Photo by Sonder Quest on Unsplash

Rockefeller Center, New York City, United States

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