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Calliope

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Calliope

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What is the song

In your head

Just now?

Mine is “Song Sung Blue,”

Because everybody

Knows one

Sometimes it’s “One Voice”

Sometimes it’s

“Color My World”

Now you know

Where I’m from

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Sometimes

It’s a theme

From a movie

Or a show

TV or Broadway

But if I stop

To catch it,

There’s always

Something there

Always music

And that is something

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C L Couch

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Pyrophone of Georges Frédéric Eugène Kastner (1852–1882).

By photographer unknown – Hermann Ludwig von Jan: Johann Georg Kastner, ein elsässischer Tondichter, Theoretiker und Musikforscher – sein Werden und Wirken. Breitkopf & Härtel, Band 2, Teil 2, Leipzig 1886, p. 308, Digitalisat (Internet Archive), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25667386

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Three, One, Three Again

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sorry, long

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Three, One, Three Again

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Creator, savior, guide

Maybe I understand the trinity

Maybe not

They are lively

And immediate

They are at work all the time

And understand rest

They commend a sabbath

And the days on either side

They are all efficiency

And all love

We have access to them

And, as teachers and advisors

Not to mention

God,

They nudge us

All the time

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What kind of commanders

Legions at their call

They give us time

And patience

Before anything like

A final battle

Victory assured

I mean in this moment

We wait and wait and wait

Or, worse, deny

While they withhold rejection

Until the moment

Past the moment

Before judgment

Should decide

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They give us time

Keeping everything at bay,

Which is love

All love

Splicing revelation

Tailoring salvation

For each one

Each encounter

How wondrously and thunderously

Special

What kind of God

What parts of God

Can do this

And then do it

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Hear, O Israel

And all other nations,

Catch them in the human heart

Live as one

Each one as all

Repair the ruin of the Earth

There is so much faith

And good work to do

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They are mild

They are also Armageddon

What kind of love

What kind of God

Three then one

Then three again

They live in constant relationship

So should we

Within the parts

Of ourselves,

Each one

And then

Altogether

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More than one in one

We can have that, too:

Remember might

Remember love

Both mingled in each moment

Quicksilver

And slow water

Everything that moves

And tries to rest

They show us the way

To give us something every day

Then just after our last day

After work

And battling

And sabbathing

To lead us home

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C L Couch

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Maybe it’s not my tradition, but I mean to be respectful of the Shema.

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Temple of Edfu, Egypt

Photo by Jeremy Zero on Unsplash

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Escape from Afghanistan

(x = space)

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Escape from Afghanistan

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I don’t know how it is

To crowd myself

Inside an airplane

I don’t like heights

I don’t like the

Closed-in feeling

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I don’t know how it is

To climb upon the side

And hope that

The massive vehicle

Will stop

To let me and mine in

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But this is life

This is escape

This is relief

And so they pack

And so they climb

Something starts moving;

It is the hope

Of leaving

Where we are

To anywhere but here,

Which we think

In the moment

In the crisis

Must be better

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I might surrender

All my fears

To try for something

That might

Take me through

The filtered sky

Of what has been

My home

Or simply

My assignment

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C L Couch

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My escape from Afghanistan on a US military plane: ‘It was total chaos’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/aug/19/my-escape-from-afghanistan-on-a-us-military-plane-it-was-total-chaos-video

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NO EXIT

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

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Deal-Making with the Lord

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Deal-Making with the Lord

(sigh, didn’t work for Moses)

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Lord,

The stomach feels

So tight

I’d like relief

Though

Really

At the source

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All my troubles

I can’t escape

Them

Though I could

Escape a few

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And is

Escape the answer?

Probably not

(worse the

luck)

I imagine there is

Something

By the way of

Resolution

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But some things,

I think,

Can simply

Be made better

Call it grace or

Miracle

Or one side

Of a pledge

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Please, Lord,

Ease

The pain

Give me days

Without

The consequences

I’ll work

On the rest,

I promise

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ella de Kross on Unsplash

New York, NY, USA

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Encounter

(x = space)

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Encounter

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Is there a spiritual answer

To everything?

Well, yes

But we are flesh and blood as well;

And muscles, organs, veins,

And capillaries

Sometimes need appeased

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The body keeps the feelings;

The flesh owns

All the senses,

And that’s good

It’s natural,

If limited

The soul is in here somewhere

Incited by a spark of life

That no one seems to understand

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We seem to house everything

The world, the flesh, and the devil

As I’ve heard

The answers are in here,

I suppose,

Which means that the answers are

In you—maybe

We could share

That would be smart, I think,

And comforting

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C L Couch

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These young guys were chatting at a cafe, where they caught my eyes. They were a group of friends having coffee and dinner together and talking about movies, videogames, tech and stuff like that. I guess you could say that these are the stories of our younger years.

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

Atrin Café, Ahvaz, Iran

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Lathes and Crucibles

(x = space)

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Lathes and Crucibles

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What shall we say to God

Between sabbath times

Or other times of prayer

Or times when none of us

Are praying?

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Shall we say

We’re rather tired, rather

Busy, rather occupied with

Real things—money and

Mortgages and relationships

(and these are real)?

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When God asks us, in

Turn, what have you for me?

Knowing he does not mean

Money or mortgages

Or relationships (not their

numbers, certainly),

What shall we say?

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But we were busy

But we meant to,

Well, you know

You know, you know the

World—so why bother us?

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Can we not put a peg

In salvation?  Can we not

Reserve a space for the

Apocalypse?  A room when

We hear you have

So many rooms?

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This might tear grace apart

Hope might cry

Salvation might be small,

Smaller in number

Than was planned

The mansion empty

With all our watches

At the door,

Just outside

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Why do we believe in God?

I asked my mother

Because people are afraid

Of going to hell,

She said

And there’s wisdom there,

Pragmatic

Though she had better faith,

I know

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Faith is not for empty wings

But for a heart and mind

And soul

To fly

The rituals won’t answer

When the angels (solid beings

rife with wings)

As on behalf of God

To bar the way with

Flaming swords

And molten tears, weeping

For God’s way

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The narrow way

That wasn’t meant to be

But for our refusal

Widened the other

Set fenceposts of denial,

Left out arrows

Of deception,

Tour guides with toothy

Grins

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Metanoia

Turning as in

Repentance

Paint the other way

(a pun in English)

We have time

For the sake of miracles

And grace,

There might be seconds

For the future

What you are going to do,

Do it now

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C L Couch

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(goodness, this is grim—but so is the news today)

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By H005 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8384955

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Machine Languages

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Machine Languages

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Too much heat

A killing metaphor

But for now

I have the benefit of machines

The kind that cool,

The kind that distract

I’m lucky

Don’t I know it

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In several months

I’ll need machines

The other way

And won’t I know it

To warm my food

To warm the rest of me

Against a northern

Winter

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I have to thank machines

That bide my time

That give me time

To heal

To forget

To move through seasons

In a constant state

Like quicksilver

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Like the cardinal

That, up here,

Flies through seasons

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C L Couch

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Cardinal diving down from tree.

Photo by gerhard crous on Unsplash

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After I Believe

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After I Believe

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I don’t know how

     to live for you

I wish I did

I know

     the Spirit is supposed

To guide me,

Though what are

     the steps to take

And practices

     to follow

I don’t know or am

     out of practice

     (hah)

Or never knew and need

Companions

     also in the flesh

To help me

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C L Couch

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Photo taken from The Nue Co. marketing campaign.

Photo by Finn on Unsplash

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Why Sometimes There’s a ? Mark

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Why Sometimes There’s a ? Mark

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The ending of a movie

Doesn’t say

“The End” so

Much, which

Might be just as well

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Stories go on:

An event has an ending

However it might

Dwindle

Toward an emptiness of

Time and company

While the next thing is in

Motion

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Motion, motion—

Investment of potential,

Expenditure

Of energy,

Profit of contribution toward the

Turning of the Earth

And shall we say it,

Joy

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Yes, using

The “eternal delight”

Of Blake

Amid the envying of

All unmoving things that want

To be introduced

Into the

Calling rushing of the universe

And so it seems

Never the end

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C L Couch

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On Set

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

Portland, United States

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