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Favored

Favored

(a prayer)

 

So God

What will you have

My heart

It’s yours

My head

I’m not sure what all is in there

(or the heart)

But sure it’s yours

My muscles

All the nerves

The organs as they are

Some with extra parts

Some not working much at all

You want them

Sure

Okay

My spirit must be in there

Somewhere

Somewhere my soul

You want my soul

Dear Lord

All right

I don’t know how to turn it over

So you’ll have to teach me

Maybe it starts with this

Create in me a clean heart

O God

And renew a right spirit

Within me

I don’t how that happens either

Maybe I could learn this

From an angel

Or another agent

Of yours in the world

 

Help my unbelief

For the world that you allow

Is filled with snares

And I am good at getting caught

Unwrap the rope

From my heel

The chain around my chest

The mask that has no eyes

Over my spirit

Free me as you will

As you conspire

Maybe I could add to the favor

For another

 

Thank you for will

Though sometimes I think

I’d do better without it

Though to think about again

I’d hate the puppet string

(claustrophobic

or whatever is

the fear of being captured)

If my will is something else you’d like

All right

Gentle as a dove

Wise as a serpent

It’s all yours

 

C L Couch

 

 

Psalm 51:10

Mark 9:24b

(Matthew 10:16b)

 

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, United States

 

0

Plague Daze

Plague Daze

 

The day is Shakespeare’s birthday

The day he was christened

His death was around the same date, too

Someone took the head

From the grave

 

The governor wants to open the state

Though people are still dying

The economy is life-and-death, too,

At least to politicians

Corporate deciders

Two groups so out of touch

What do they know of life but

How to turn it toward a matter of

Control?

 

I feel the air

Reopening would bring

Simply to think about it

The lifting off the shoulders of

The weight of shutting-in

Factories open

Schools resume, somehow

All the pubs along the second street

Invite us in again

 

But readers of “The Masque” can

See the lunacy in attitude

Alone without a treatment

A thousand sixteen hundred twenty-two

Dead in Pennsylvania,

One state among

Many states

How is it where you are?

Do you want to know?

I don’t, here or there

I want to have a pint in Boiling Springs

As I’ve never enjoyed one before

 

But here and there it is

Now the announcement that

Certain testing sites are closing

Everyone it seems

Wants to be normal

Well, why not?

Why not, because it’s far from done

We’ve left it now a

Game of dodge-ball

Hope you’re not hit

Me, too

The danger is for all of us

All of us connected like

Scratches on an antique metal plate

A month away, we think we’ve had

Enough

 

C L Couch

 

 

Source: Esri; Johns Hopkins

 

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

 

5

Dirt Gospel

Dirt Gospel

 

I like earth

Don’t you?

Some might prefer concrete

I’ll take a covering of pine needles

To walk upon

Breathe air that’s evergreen

Then move out to an open

Space of grass and rock and dew

That takes us home

That would be a day

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Gabriel Jimenez on Unsplash

 

0

Lamentation

Lamentation

 

God,

I glean the earth, it seems

Looking for seeds and other parts of plants

The farmers and the birds

Have missed

It is late autumn, and I

Wonder what is mine

What I deserve, if

Even these upon the ground

That two tries

Wouldn’t take

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Dave Francis on Unsplash

 

2

Surprised by Grace

Surprised by Grace

 

God

I love you

And I wish for

I don’t know

It’s not as if you’re in a lamp

Three wishes?

Not enough

So grant me what you think is best

The million tax-free dollars

Will wait

Unless

Unless

How about some love today

Unbidden, even without

Expectation?

Actually, it happened

Yesterday

Someone brought some

Food, not because

I was in trouble

But because of plenty

And of friendship

That’s love

For a story

Maybe for a

Thousandth night

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by miniformat65 from Pixabay

 

6

The Golden Tree

The Golden Tree

 

There’s a golden tree outside

I’m not sure why

It isn’t autumn (late April),

No time for anything to turn

Maybe sunlight is passing

Through half-leaves left

From winter,

A batch that somehow clutched

Though the colder seasons

 

I don’t know, and in

A good way I don’t care

It is a patch of gold I see

First thing on looking through

The slats of mini-blinds

(don’t care for mini-blinds),

A gift of gold for no reason other than

I happen to look outside

First thing,

Catching rays through

Angles of the buildings,

Lighting up what otherwise has

Been a sullen street

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Simon Harmer on Unsplash

 

5

There and There

There and There

(and back again)

 

The moon is blue

The sky beyond is bluer

I wish I knew a torchy song to sing

Something that might work

In a film noir

Or at the halfway point

In a musical revue

 

But in a time of hobbits and

Of elves, this night might

Be converted into singing,

Storytelling of another kind

With fires sparked

By magic and with other, eldritch lights,

With fire in the eyes

Of those who trill laments

Of epic heroes lost so long ago

 

But, sigh,

We are in the backyard

On some chairs,

Cast-off lumber from a project

In the pit

And there are sticks

For cooking marshmallows

And maybe we don’t sing

Except for little choruses, here and

There

 

With no lament except

Too soon we will have eaten,

The fire will have mostly

Died, our extinguishing the rest

The best next thing we’ll do

Is sleep

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash

Fire Pit

 

2

The Dailies

The Dailies

 

God, you give me this day

Give us this day

Sounds strange, now I think on it,

To be saying it so late in church

Since we’ve already had the day

For a while—thank you

For giving us this some hours

Ago

 

I guess the gratitude’s still in it

And a God of kairos shouldn’t mind

But what is daily bread? Bread?

Food? Any food?

Water? Something else we drink?

Is it to have enough only for today

So we should pray again

Tomorrow?

The Israelites could not keep the manna

Miracle it was, falling from heaven

Like that

But it would not keep

They really had daily bread

 

And is that now for us?

Give us what we need today

Help us not to hoard against tomorrow

Give others daily bread as well

We know too many won’t have it

Maybe this is a trespass of the one

Who prays,

Who has bread for today

Who might have some to share

With those who might pray yet still go

Without bread

If so, it isn’t a trespass like the one

We should forgive

We should ask to be forgiven,

Then to share the daily bread

 

So that prayer and all things magical

Might have substance on Earth

Such that everyone may pray

For food and air and water

And then have it

 

How many Shakespeares would we save?

How many Achebes?

Which is not the point but

Could be a boon for all of us

Simply keeping someone else in

Bread, of all things

What we have every day

While others starve

And die

 

Then if a Morrison should thank us later

Or a Cervantes or Sun Tzu

A Dickinson come out the house,

Daily will have some status and memory

In inspiration

For the world

Or you and I will have bread

With a little more to share with someone

Else

To re-create it all tomorrow

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bank Phrom on Unsplash

Print Is Alive

 

5

Love in the Time of Corona

Love in the Time of Corona

(I wonder, really, how the beer is doing)

 

It’s not a good time

To be sick with something else

Even though it is

I mean, the current, awful thing

Is still untreated (though

there are indications)

And a sinus infection can be

Treated

I talked with my p-a

Because we can’t visit face-to-face

It would have been a video chat

Except my sister whose machine

This was

Dislikes the video component of her

Work and so disable the parts

On this computer so that they cannot

Work again,

And I don’t blame her

 

So we talked, Emily the p-a and I

I got my usual scolding for not doing

Everything I should be doing

(I’m not brave as much as I’m poor),

And I agreed to be taking everything along with

The new thing

Getting some kind of cuff to track

My pressure and my pulse, which

Must be worse for everyone

Just now

Plus the reward of an antibiotic,

Which is how it feels to me even though she

Dangled nothing as a prize

 

So maybe by the end of day

I’ll be resupplied and newly supplied

The stress will be better, my eyes,

And the infection

(better for infection meaning gone)

Be as well as I can be with

Everything ongoing

 

C L Couch

 

 

with thanks and apologies to Gabriel García Márquez

 

Love in the Time of Cholera – Wikipedia

Love in the Time of Cholera (Spanish : El amor en los tiempos del cólera) is a novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez. The novel was first published in Spanish in 1985. Alfred A. Knopf published an English translation in 1988, and an English-language movie adaptation was released in 2007.

 

 

Photo by Stéfano Girardelli on Unsplash

Brasil

Native American guardian totem

 

3

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