cool be cool
and it’s a lovely day
(to
love)
an irony
of gray
though we can remember blue
while we enjoy the cool
the low dewpoint
mid-August
while we’ve been keeping
record heat
until
today
and thank you
to
the God of gray
(to
love)
who brings
the clouds
and maybe spritzes of rain
to shine the leaves
that have
been looking up
and out
with us
for some relief
(to
love)
from all reliance
on machines
for cool
now
let’s
be cool
(to
love)
c l couch
photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash
A Little Monday-Morning Catechism
(from having the History Channel on)
warming up—
Did God make the rock?
Yes
Is God the rock?
No
now the heart of it—
Is the Bible real?
Yes
Is the Bible true?
Yes
Is the Bible story?
Is it myth?
Yes and Yes
Did the things in it happen
(ark and ark and such)?
Why, yes
Is the Bible also metaphor?
You bet
And fable (fabula), allegory,
song, and liturgy
It’s all these things
and more
It’s also real and true
a storybook
a manual for life
by first prescribing faith
Mostly, the Bible is
a story about God and us
How God moved
How everything was made
(and was good
work)
The morally static
cosmos
and then us
and then the sabbath
When God rested
showing us
that we should do the same
It is a special book
A series of books
A book of life
Truth or consequences
A book not without humor
too
(ask Balaam’s ass)
A book that saves
though
like most books
only through engagement
Meaning
read the thing
hear it
try to own it
even with all of its absurdities
that one might think
a holy book
should not have
but this one does
As it is
a book of faith
and love
C L Couch
Photo by Daniel Morton on Unsplash
Squatter’s Right
Sometimes
I am tired
Of being inside me
And I wish
I could be inside
Someone else
Which is a wish
I guess
In fact
To be
Someone else
Someone with fewer troubles
Or another set
At least
For interest
And maybe with resources
Inner and outer
Better to deal
From
Both places
Someone who’s with others
More
Who doesn’t have a solitary
Occupation
At least
Not so much
Who’s maybe traveled some
Beyond the Thoreauvian way
Who’s maybe
Been to Spain
Or the Bahamas
Maybe
To Ireland
I don’t know
And there are continents
Besides
Someone
Who’s much more comfortable
With the world
Than I’ve ever been
Who’s
Comfortable with clothes
And cars
And such
Who doesn’t mind technology
And doesn’t question everything
And there it is
The rub
The prick
The thing that brings up conscience
With the issue of
Allowance
Shucks
Back to where I am
Go through the eyeholes
Back inside
Deal with whatever
Through whatever senses
For
I cannot
Take the place of another
(theirs is due)
And I have to ask into
Everything I’ve listed
For a better life
And at what cost
Than what
I’ve had
Sigh
And there we are
And I am here
C L Couch
Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash
Tune in Tomorrow When You’ll Hear
So far
I’ve eschewed
The news
(and
chewed
on other things)
Though
The time will come
On the hour
I shall hear
And you shall
Hear
If you are with me
The tolling that tells
You really
Ought
To know
What’s happening
Though yes
Some avoid it
For a style
But there is Gaza
And is the deep South
Where we know
Where we have
People
All of us
Have people
Things are happening
Difficult
And tragic
Tearing
(tearing)
Both naturally
And
Making of a siege
Aberrant
Of what’s natural
What’s in the better part
Of all our natures
And either way
(and
both)
The floods
The washing of the states
Of all the wars
Not clean
But leaving
Unresolved
The land
And everything
Smashed
Or rescued
To return
Upon us
And by us
Titanic
Rushing
Then
Defeated godly
By the Earth
First and
Last
And if tuned
In
(unLeary)
We shall hear
Of these
And then lean back
Into a frank
A kind of wounded
Normalcy
For the hour
Following
C L Couch
Image by Vectronom Studios from Pixabay
a few poems for Sunday that for some—well, many—is a longer day not by the count of hours (minus seconds adding up toward Leap Year Day) but the clock that reckons with the strings of heart and mind and even metal, also pendula inside
A Monk Still in the Suburbs
Were there bells
I would not know when
They first struck
An hour
So ignorant am I of
The schedule of
A Book of Hours
Matins
Vespers
The in-betweens
And all-arounds
I have books
I can consult
But I don’t have the instinct
Bred by a lifetime
Even a part
Of a lifetime of devotion
I pray
But it’s my words
I read the Bible
When it suits
When I’m needing to find something
Or researching generally
Out of admittedly
A long life of following
And interest
But I can’t leave my cot
Lift up an over-
Robe (a cowl?) to don it
Over me
Place the hood on the right side
Of my head
So I may see
Then scoot myself in
Silence once again
Toward the chapel where we assemble
(peers and I) for
The first readings
The first rhythms of the day
Much worse
Were I a hermit
With accountability
Beyond a bedside clock
Perhaps
Next to which
A psalter gathers dust
But not the novels
Let’s face it
An anchorite I’m not
Nor a peer
For any monastery
I am brother me
At best
And sister me
As well
And if I have a robe
It’s for the shower
Or I might find for fun
Something Jedi=like
You know
For Hallowe’en
But I believe
And I reflect
I study and I read
(with eyes I have)
And pray nearly
All day long
In dialogue
Simply not according to
The holy schedule
Time Amok
And have we
(have I
yes
though sometimes
I tire of I
maybe you understand)
Thought so much
Of the world
Today
A water main has broken
In the town
And we (locally)
Must worry over
Boiling advisories as well as
Promises
Of timetables
And yet in Gaza
A place was hit
A school turned to a shelter
And some sixty people
Inside
Perished
And there’s a push at the border
Of Ukraine and Russia
With no doubt
A pushing back
While Iran wants to attack
Israel
Over the death of one
Of its own
While Israel
Closes in on itself
While keeping allies somewhere
Too
And in how many parts
Of the planet
‘Sides our own
Is there great flooding
With the consequences
And quake
And fire
Enough inside our cycles
Should we add them up
We could compose
New lists
Of plagues
For letting people go
Which is to say
It’s quite a world we live in
A planet we live on
And we have technology
To follow
More than ever
Better
(stronger
faster
Colonel Austin)
And
Hey
The Olympics close up soon
With all the claims for bragging rights
Displayed
And soon the second set
Will start
Impressive
Being second
(they try harder
as I think
Hertz or Avis
used to do)
Goodness
All the filaments
To make a globe into a lightbulb
Illuminating
All that may be seen
Unobfuscated
By agendas that go hiding
Certainly
I mean more than eyes
And also ears to hear
Or counting each one
All our limbs
For those for whom the count
Uniquely
Goes
(as these next Olympic exercises
show)
With what we have
And haven’t
Se may sense
And we may suss
Adding all we might receive
And so
Abstractly make
A world
To fill in with all the physical we know
And thus have
(from inside out)
What in school is called
A worldview
Our sense
(using sense)
Of how things are
And are perceived
And how we are
With these
Weather
Conflict permitting
Maybe we should each
Take a walk
A little ways
Today
To think
To feel
To probe on this
Like sonar
Radar
Laser
Microwaves
To find the Earth
That’s ours
Where we left it
Or where we pick it up
Anew
As if
Regardless of our age
But trying
Anyway
For the first
Time
Speaking for Joel Chandler Harris and Well Me
I don’t know how correct
Br’er Rabbit is
I mean
I read the Wren’s Nest
And I see the photographs
More so
I want to get
The colors right
That Uncle Remus lay
With Mister Harris
Behind
But it’s
You see
A memory
On records
(those flat black round things
we used to play
that have come back)
And we would hear for hours
About Br’er Bear
Br’er Fox
Br’er Rabbit
And also of the Tar Baby
Black
But what do you want for tar
Which is to say
I want someone more
Expedient and also longer than I am
To tell me
What’s all right
Down South
And in the Yankee land
To keep ol’ Remus in my head
Which by the way
He won’t be leaving
Anyway
Though I’ll hush up about it
If I should
C L Couch
Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash
alonely
who sang that song
you know
that in a crooning line
about
being so lonely
and who was it
sang
that naturally
is lonely
and how awful is it
really
how far
against the law
all right
if one
were better nature
we would each
have one’s own planet
and we don’t
we have
interlocking parts
quite
frankly
maybe starting with
our fingers
we see into
something
when
we see
into
each other
eyes
not required
we have tingling senses
spider-people
when
we’re sure that someone’s
in the room
with
us
and
yes
of course
we have our voices
that
talk
that reach
through space
or on some paper
through
machines
again
voicestrings
unrequired
we get across
somehow
a message
when
we’re dedicated
to
the messaging
even
urgently
we find each other
speak
silent
say
we need to say
and yet
the bodies have their skins
and in
no way
can we be
each other
and when not
together
there is one
alone
surroundings may not matter
and isn’t there
some goodness there
sometimes
in face
when we think of it
quite often
and shall
the hour
go well
in which we think
reason
consider a resolve
to this issue
and that
one
(sometimes that one)
goodness
we might
write
you know
(you know been
known
to happen)
and so
the goodness
even of the Lord
who made us
one by one
even by one
sometimes by minutes
in between
the twins
of things
the Lord shall
love us
one
by one
by one
and
yes
for sweetness
when
we’re all together
by the way
and by the way
of all things
showing that we’re joined
on planet Earth
in systems
solar
in all companionship
through which is ringed
frankly
the gravity
separate
ringed together
cosmos
c l couch
photo by Elijah Hiett on Unsplash
Debby
the storm has arrived
our part in it
the water runs
through branches of the trees
as if the branches
sponsor
and organize
a fountain from the sky
out front
it’s hard to see
through screens
and wide drops on the screens
their rivulets
translucent lines
that add
a close-in feeling
to a field
of fog
or mist
the falling rain
all from forever
flash-flooding
well
is flashing
as a warning
today
a kairos
to the organized
who have
a rush hour to maintain
it’s called areal
when the flood
be truly
local
when the streets become temptation
for drivers in cars
sure (drivers
that is)
it can’t really be
that deep
and really is
there are the parts
south and east
mostly
I guess
where like the ever-
rolling-stream washes crucial things away
like lives
and also stays
for days
I’m inside
dry on the second floor
I think
and with power for now
don’t think that I’m
not grateful
for I am
and hope you might be on the better
side of high and dry
as well
busy with bags
or something else or
wet
resting
from it all
I can only hope
straightforwardly
and
yes
and
pray
that you are safe
my dears
c l couch
photo by Ayla Verschueren on Unsplash
Well, I collapsed. Without warning. By the car, outside the store. It was hot and the lot was asphalt, though I was told later on that heat was not the reason (yet unpleasant). Ventricular tachy-cardia. For which I have new medication now, while adjustments have been made to the device underneath the flesh, as it were. And I lived in fear and nervousness while in the hospital, even though the people there were very good to me. It’s the “without warning” part that scares me in addition to mortality.
I exhale now; I sigh. What will happen. But I guess no one knows. Though usually one can guess depending on the current second and the next one, should we have it. And we live expecting that we shall. I have some extra air on me, which helps with the anxiety. Pills to take, then hours to count on and even bear up into a useful mound of current muscle that can be used toward something good. Some small service. Some smaller destiny.
I hear the rain against the window and am thankful.
Thank you. I mean you who hear this, too (who are frankly reading and are frankly reading), and mainly in the moment.
Thanks to you.
to eternity (even from here)
somewhere there was a first creation
first nothingness
first abstractions
of the light
and of the darkness
then the substances
of day
and night
and how marvelous
and then more substances
of water
then of land
and all things
in the water
on the land
how marvelous
an evolution
of grace
and power
that decided to make
to turn around
as on a wheel
an Earth
and on it
us
and then a day
to rest
also
to set the model
for the rest of us
(even
to invent
a weekend)
and also
set the model
for delight
for it was marvelous
all this making
and to set us all
inside it
over it
and with it
work
then play
astounding play
with muscle and with heart
(also) contributions
of the sixth day
or thereabouts
somewhen there was a first day
of creation
and among the things
made
was now
is now
the hours that we have
(nothing like sixty minutes
that are
a useful construct)
the time in the years
of the Lord
until the Lord say
enough with all the brittleness
of sin
and literal degradation
time for the re-making
into fluidity
and solidarity
that last
and do not use up so much
the graying molecules
with the withering grass
and flower
from the center
where mortality
has been dwelling
time for something new
marvelous re-making
(not like Fernando)
into the kind
of sloughing off of cells
that perfectly
shall feed the grass
and raise the trees
keeping inside
the new creation
and
who knows
we might get
to take part
in all this
wonder
(marvel)
like
sand between the toes
like children playing
knowing that this
serves
grown-up causes
too
children knowing this
for growing up
with new allowance
to grow up
a glorious day
as certain songs
have sung
and keep on singing
on the bitter ground
the tarny water
even
of the way
we have things now
maranatha
Lord
and as
Immanuel
be with us
as at Bethlehem
for birth
through all of the experiences
there
throughout western Asia
northern Africa
unto Europe
and the world
as we have marked it
finally
no borders as
seen from those of us
who get
to orbit
except for lines
of wonder
become only invitations
to the flesh of interest
colors that fascinate
with shapes
and textures
for our learning
in delight
for we keep learning
growing
through Parousia
and the new tasks
even exigent
that might be set before us
in what happens
now
c l couch
photo by Eugene Golovesov on Unsplash
A Sleep of Prisoners
A magnificent exchange
Of prisoners
By politics
Years in the making
Like many
Epics
What details we don’t know
What it
Took
To have this happen
By two countries
Cold with each other
In a world
So much more complex
Than what we knew before
(and how tired
must be
those fingers on the buttons
since the fifties)
It seems we can say fairly
Coming home
In whatever state
Whatever health
Free people
Once again
And may we say
Free
At last
C L Couch
Photo by Mario Scheibl on Unsplash
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