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Scrap Book

Scrap Book

(6 June)

 

Cotton, leather, metal, glass

Plastic would come after

The things of Earth are drawn out and used up

As if the jealous ground would never notice

 

But this is the way of war

It doesn’t care about the ground

That will receive us

Before, during, and after

 

Creation cracks

Under the weight of it

And the blackened sky

Over boiling water

Earth will receive it all

And close it up

And maybe set to heal

 

We are done

The Earth is done

Afterward, there will be

Some kind of peace

Grandfathers come home

Grandmothers come home

To be black-and-white remembered

 

C L Couch

 

 

Unknown or not provided – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16455209

The beachhead is secure, but the price was high. A Coast Guard Combat Photographer came upon this monument to a dead American soldier somewhere on the shell-blasted shore of Normandy.

 

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Heart-Hardening

Heart-Hardening

 

Ritual

How I make the coffee

Special spoon and all

How I keep the heel of the bread

Until it’s next to last for a

Treat of butter and honey

How I read with glasses

And a bookmark,

Set and ready

How I start the car

And how I turn it off

Nothing takes more time

 

It’s simply in a pattern

Not for memory

Or recall,

A way to think on what I have

And how it was made at first

And by whom

 

We’d call it sacramentalize, I guess

To have a name,

A verb

To keep it active, keep it fresh

 

From time to time, these actions might

Remind me

Of church

And what used to happen there

 

C L Couch

 

 

psyberartist – church ruin, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25828665

 

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Myth Taken

Myth Taken

 

A real myth

Something of the story that is true

A point for evangelism

The apology that says not sorry

But here’s something

Maybe I can explain

Maybe you’ll take to heart

Because the head is fine with it

 

Patterns

Northrop Frye

Joseph Campbell

The story told

Again and again

Owned by groups, changed

According to experience

Embellishment

Because of what has happened

 

Our town was spared

My child cured

Weather wiped us out

We saw vengeance

Someone died

We were no longer sure

 

Now risen like

An older story

Of the truth

We believe it now

We’re amazed

We’re taken back

We’re scared

But we are certain

 

How much of myth

Is easing fright

Attitudes made bold again

Through explanation

 

I take salt that I’ve spilled

And throw it over my left shoulder

The devil who is hiding there

Is frustrated

And I’ve found a use for useless salt

(I don’t do that for pepper)

Now if only I could use the milk

I’ve spilled

 

It can turn sinful

Or start that way as strategy

I want my neighbor’s land,

To enslave the family

 

In storyland, we think there’s solace

And there is

With myth, we now know things

And we do

 

C L Couch

 

 

Shinwa no Mori (Forest of Myth) by Taki Toru in Izumo-Taisha, Shimane, Japan

 

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graceland

graceland

 

god’s grace

I don’t know how to write about it

as ineluctable

I don’t understand it as a gift

a safety valve on condemnation

a release from hell without

the harrowing called-for

 

we sleep

(perchance to dream)

we wake up into heaven

more than grace for meals

more than meals

more than food

or any sustenance on earth

’til earth renewed

 

for now a taste

that, distilled through mortality, is

a taste that saves

remarkably, a savor

of the lord

 

c l couch

 

 

 

Photo by Kevin Bluer on Unsplash

Nellim, Finland

Moon and Northern Lights Glowing Through Trees

 

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Returning Gifts

Returning Gifts

 

Praise the Lord

And all that is in me praise the Lord

Or something like that

How can I praise such a thing as God

When I am such a thing as me?

To God be the glory

How can I glorify

When I am so small,

And my voice is broken?

I know the story of the smallest angel

In the movie, Fred Gwynne as

Mentor angel talks of his mother’s

Brown bread, when all

Were mortal

 

But in the young one

(newly angelified)

There is purity

And innocence to give

As gifts in the small box emblemize

What have I like these?

 

And wouldn’t I look at you

To say there is so much

Because there is—I

Guess I need to understand

That everything with life has worth

Even if itself it were a gift

I can turn it over

(so can you)

And that’s the act of service

And of love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay

The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell (1946)

 

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Signs for Objects Already Fallen

Signs for Objects Already Fallen

 

I feel the weight of it

I’m sure sometimes you do, too

A day that starts out wrong

Things falling over, nothing but

Difficult associations

As we try to pick them up

(things and associations)

Everything drops

And I wonder if

We have the strength

To gather it all in again

And up off the floor

 

In my culture, it should be a Monday

Flush from the weekend, we

Wouldn’t notice anything that

Fell

 

We’d chalk it up (like scores for

darts in pubs) to freedom,

When we could choose

What to do

Only a day ago

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

 

3

Light and More than Lack of Light

Light and More than Lack of Light

 

I caught the band of early morning

Before sunshine gave way to clouds

A dark day, probably wet

 

Spring can be this way

And though we’ve had too

Much, some part of the rain is welcome

Especially against the lack thereof

 

Tensions between light and dark, wind and

Still, practical and useless, beautiful and

Uninspiring, although

 

Abstract dichotomies don’t apply so well

The light is useful, so was the dark

We need the rain; we need it to be dry

Spring and fall for life

 

Sometimes division doesn’t work

And the better thing to do

Leave the pairings multiply

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by kolibri5 from Pixabay

 

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Call Me

Call Me

 

Anytime, we may

Open our eyes

To see that God is watching us

Not so much to judge us

As to love us

Judgment comes, but love

Abounds

Grace like that in dancers’

Movements

 

God has seen it all

And despite that

Despite all of that

There is love here

And everywhere

Love that will wait outside

Until invited in

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Flemming Fuchs on Unsplash

 

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Gracious Living

Gracious Living

 

Patina

A pretty word to use

To means that

Everything is covered with

Inattention

The problem with high ceilings is

That they are out of reach

I don’t turn on the overheads

Because I don’t know how

To change the bulb up there

(how many English majors

does it take)

So I rely on table lamps

And a floor lamp I got for free

Because you get what you pay for

And it stopped working quite a

While ago with the local

Electric shop closing back then, too

(less than one, we’re changing

all the time)

 

Perceived, synchronous connections

But I moved in when I did

And to this place

With a high ceiling

Where I don’t go to change the light bulb

Incandescent, CFL, LED, or otherwise

 

The tall space helps with claustrophobia

That I didn’t have back then (one

too many visits to the hospital)

Maybe providence takes over for

Synchronicity

 

The watchmaker’s watch

Still creatively involved

So that moments in time and

In all the choices

Are imbued with grace

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Johannes Wünsch from Pixabay

 

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