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The Sacrifice of Isaac

The Sacrifice of Isaac

 

What is remarkable is the presence of the angel

Who stayed the hand of Abraham, bearing

The knife or whatever would be taking away

 

Isaac from his life

And is it remarkable

The surrender of the spirit of the son

To be carried away from the promise not of prophecy

But of parenthood

 

It happened

It would never be forgotten

My father took me to a place and set me down

To steal my life

Rams could not do this time

I must be the sacrifice

 

He is the offering to God

For what

Sorrow of the people

Plea for repentance

Future abundance in the land

 

Is it enough

To give up himself,

The words promised his father and his mother,

The dealing out of Ishmael,

His mother

 

Once sacrificed, always gone

Even spared, what should be left

Of hopes and dreams

And a father’s guard

If not affection

 

What is left for Isaac:

Was he blinded by the presence of the angel

Suffuse with the strength and majesty

Of God’s own following,

Will he live in love and faith and

Aspiration for a lifetime?

 

So much later, David weeps for Absalom

We might also wonder about the tears

Of Abraham

Relief, sorrow, the temerity of

Surrendering all sides to

Barter with the future

Of a parent

Of a people

Of a child

 

C L Couch

 

 

(caption) The sixth-century C.E. floor mosaic from the Beth Alpha synagogue, in Israel’s Jezreel Valley. The mosaic lay near the door, so that anyone who entered was confronted by the scene. Walking from here to the apse, visitors crossed a large mosaic zodiac and then a panel depicting a lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron), menorahs, and the Ark of the Law—the same objects that accompanied the Akedah image at Dura-Europos 300 years earlier.

(from) https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/binding-sacrifice-isaac/?mqsc=E3987540&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDDaily%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=ZE8A9JZ80

 

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And Does It Take a Sabbath Day

And Does It Take a Sabbath Day

 

And does it take a sabbath day

To have a larger thought

To encounter feeling that goes

‘Round the world

 

Maybe it does

Though the Lord knows

I can make my own

And, like entitlement, could call it

Anything I want

Though usually it’s Friday

Maybe Thursday

 

I used to retreat and rearranged the week

I’d go out on Thursday afternoon

Stay through the night

Often not sleeping, maybe by intent

My own dark night of the soul

Then I’d have Friday to go downstairs

To meet with the director

We’d talk of Francis and Gerald May

And would I train as he did

So far, I haven’t done so

 

All that has ended, as I guess it had to

Not because of miffed occasions

I’m not sure we ever had a one of those

But because mortality calls unevenly

And those of us are left

To fill in steps like pulling in

Loose lines on board we weren’t expecting

Never are

 

I must do now for me

Chaos, order

Void, abundance

I don’t arrange these very well

But they are big

Like large thoughts on a sabbath day

Friday or whenever

 

I must find my own way home

Find more company than this

Than these

Sensations, wishes, little more

Not to fill in emptiness

But something hale to

Place over the pain

Like a well-timed blanket

On a cold, cold winter day

 

When I couldn’t go out, anyway

To find the house above the creek

On made-up sabbath days

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://12footcwc.org/

 

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Clergy Sex Abuse

Clergy Sex Abuse

 

I don’t know how to sound

Holier than thou

When thou art rancid hate

And destruction of a soul

 

It happened to me

It happened to you

I know some of the names

Maybe you do, too

 

They truck with intimacy

Allowing it to slip from God

Into human spirits

Trusting

Even to think the pastor boring

Well, there is another kind

 

Earth weeps enough

And why would God need more tears

From God’s own

Relegated

Abrogated

To the underside of things

Unto the part of us that’s shocked

Broken

Alone

 

C L Couch

 

 

Anil Kumar

HeartBroken – Tears are the Baptism of Soul

 

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An Eighth Day

An Eighth Day

 

If we were given

an extra day,

would we play?

 

It if were announced,

a day that wouldn’t count

for acquisition,

a gift of food and air

and water,

a day when no one could

wage war

or victimize another,

would we play?

 

Would some say

not me,

I’m too urgent,

I have to impress,

nature to command,

so many things to hoard

and wielding bellicose conversation,

I will not play.

 

Well, go home, then.  You may

have a room in which to

exist; nothing

will work, and there will be

no toys.

 

Angels will referee, if need be,

though mainly they’ll be waiting

by the fields, near the water,

at the table in the

houses that have

family rooms

 

to help, to pass out balls and

gloves and discs that fly,

to spread out the board, play-cash,

and tokens

while everyone gets the piece

they want to play.

 

Everyone gets chosen

everyone feels first

everyone gets a turn;

agendas are released

and for a change, all genders

and colors are assets like

winning extra turns.

 

The cosmos will keep quiet,

slide over to tomorrow.

When it’s time, we’ll catch up fine.

After our eighth day

for play.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Nyla Moss, an eighth grader at Polaris Charter Academy, plays at Kells Park in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Andrew Gill/WBEZ

For West Side Students, Playing Outside Is Protesting Against Gun Violence

Linda Lutton

May 26, 2017

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/for-west-side-students-playing-outside-is-protesting-against-gun-violence/3f7a4cb7-ec1c-4cc4-817e-3ee5e5ca865a

 

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Pilings

Pilings

 

I live by piling things

Maybe you do, too

If not, you’ve saved yourself

From a lot of dust

It’s the books

 

I’m gleaning, though the

Stacks remaining still look

Awfully tall

And the size of some

What made me think I should

Have texts as sizable as

Tables?

 

And here’s the thing:

I need shelves

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsp

 

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Fairytale Ending

Fairytale Ending

 

As we read more

Learn more

Or seek the next sensation

We know they ended poorly

Tragically and violent

The ancient tales

Who sanitized them, I don’t know

Not Grimm, maybe Perrault

And Hans Christian Andersen who wrote

His own

Let’s not fault him

The contemporary cleaning crews we know

Let’s not revile

Who doesn’t wish for happy ending

Really, if you could craft your own

If you could have the one

If you could have the promise

That the next day will be better than

The present

While the one you have today is pretty good

Wouldn’t you

I would

I think you would, too

 

C L Couch

 

 

Por MykReeve on en.wikipedia (edited by Aqwis) – Image:Broadway-tower-cotswolds.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2575797

 

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a note from me to you

I apologize for not doing my part in corresponding with you.  My pet care sideline (unintentional) expanded this summer with more dogs and cats to look after (since my friends know I don’t go anywhere).  Sadly, regarding pets, I have to share that Old Dachshund, subject of poems, died a few days ago.  He was old, and ironically (physically) his heart got too big.  Old Poodle walks around my sister’s home, looking lost.

In addition, I entered a new world of pain this summer.  It’s nerve pain, I guess.  Or so they think so at the doctor’s.  It now moves from my left hand (leftie that I am) up the arm into the shoulder, up my neck, and then behind my eyes.  All this has slowed me down more, added to the slower pace I have to take due to heart disease.

Could I sound more pathetic?  I don’t wish to.  I continue to write because I have to.  And if I write and then post, at least I’m doing something.  I do want to be in touch with you more, however.  If you simply “like” my work without comment, that’s fine.  I’m grateful.  If you read and never note anything, that’s fine as well.  That’s the first reason why I share anything.

I hope your August has been good and September is even better.  Thank you!

Christopher

 

4

Treasure Trove

Treasure Trove

 

We’re surrounded by things

Not always ours

But I think it’s good

 

Those who can have things

Everyone cannot afford acquiring

Maybe should be the subject of

Our conversation

 

Things mean ownership,

And ownership ties us to life

We can go too far

As so many of us do, for

 

Things don’t deserve attachment

That is treasure-madness

Everything is temporary, after all

 

I sit in a corner of my life

And wish we could talk in person

Having a drink in a favorite cup

You find what I provide acceptable

We hold forth, even outside cyberspace

And maybe make notes

After

 

We have a fine time

Promising another,

Knowing we will follow through

And we own a little more

Now having something of the strength

Of normal wealth

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://thelorienlegacies.wikia.com/wiki/The_Lorien_Legacies_Wiki

 

 

1

Sum-sum-summertime

Sum-sum-summertime

(summing up a season)

 

It’s the end of summer

And I think of picnics

And camping out and camping

Whose root word means

Field, I think

I think of all the food I had

Outdoors

And mostly enjoyed

And it makes me wonder about all

The dirt I’ve eaten

How many pounds by the end

Of each lifetime

Several pounds, I’m sure

Maybe more

I don’t mean to be gross

I don’t think it is

For good or ill, we inhale the planet

We consume its parts

I don’t mean a gluttony

But symbiosis

We need each other, the Earth and I

We are a reason for each other

An empty Earth does little good

Less so an absent home

In any season

 

C L Couch

 

 

the image is or was from the site of New Hampshire State Parks; while there are many fine images there, I couldn’t find this one of them

The New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation : Camping

 

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