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Clean Your Room

Clean Your Room

 

I don’t know what was the timing,

But every now and then it was

Time to clean our rooms

My mother said

I don’t recall how long it took

Things looked impressive, after

I never could keep

The look

I’m sure I wondered why

But now it’s people

(imminence and remembrance)

I have to sort

Place on a shelf or in a box

I’m not good at closing things

Walking away without

Leaving open cupboard doors

And drawers

(lids of boxes)

Leaving depths

Invitations

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

 

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Then Let’s Keep Dancing

Then Let’s Keep Dancing

 

I only knew one perfect person

And he was crucified, my father said

Yes, but then he rose, I might

Have said

It was the argument beneath the argument

Not a debate about

Points of faith

 

I didn’t know all the demons then

There are others

To learn

My father’s got the best of him that was

His joy and anything of wisdom

I never got the teaching I deserved

Any child deserves

 

It’s a long way past hate

Worse, dismissal

That became the only way to get along

Stranger, either way

Never a decent conversation

Decent as in real

 

I can only sigh about it, now

So much of it is dust

Like the Kansas song

Or the one by Peggy Lee

Every generation needs a song,

According to my professor

Something that turns

That turns us into mortal means

Reminds us we are seasons

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Alex Seinet on Unsplash

“Wind on Wheat”

 

“Is That All There Is” is a song created by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, famously recorded by Peggy Lee.

 

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After Reading, There Were Crafts

After Reading, There Were Crafts

 

This time and long ago

I was learning Bible stories

The story I remember best

Is the one in which the prophet

Was tested via

The priests of Ba’al

Elijah was a good one

So the contest went his way

We know where Jehovah sets

With the faithful,

Which is with the faithful

 

When I read on my own,

I learned much more about

The prophets who were not so good

The Bible told me so

Deborah and Gideon turn out

To be exceptions

Not to mention all the kings,

I think,

Who came into being against

Jehovah’s wishes, anyway

Against God?

Who would do such a thing

Who knew the Lord so closely?

Does it breed contempt,

After all?

 

Solomon was prosperous

David was loved

Though there was ruin in his

Realm and by his hand

War, deceit, rebellion, adultery,

And murder

Yet when Absalom was killed

Left hanging in a tree

(such an image),

I wonder if God did not weep

With David, waiting by the gate

For a better word

 

The lesson was extended into

Something with our hands

I remember best all the burdened-out matches

Glued to a cardboard shape

To make a cross

A cross requiring so much

Extinguishment of light to have

Now the finished product better lay

Against the wall

As a reading for Good Friday

 

C L Couch

 

 

Community Archives – HC02495, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76993143

Photograph by Robert McCormick of Belleville, Ontario, showing Mary Ritchie (lived 1842-1929, formerly Mary Holden) and her Sunday School class from the John Street Church, Belleville.

 

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And Now It’s Time

And Now It’s Time

(chronos in kairos)

 

And now it’s time

For something spiritual

Yes?

I’ve written about pills and cats

Not written together

I go to the first page each day

Thinking about soulful things

Soulful intentions, anyway

It’s not that I think the

Spirit’s far

Because she’s not

Or that I think I have to overcome

Mortal prevarication

Liking mortality, but I don’t think

It’s that

I’ll take each day I have, thank you

Something supernal’s coming

I have next to

No idea what

I wonder if the spiritual

Is under the skin

And hovering above

Deep enough for blood

In the air for breathing, too

Now I think about it, how distinctive must

The portions be?

 

Not to say against

Those who must have

Food separated on the plate

 

Though I like pushing peas against the

Mashed potatoes

 

I think also to say for me, perhaps for

You that

Spirit and soul, flesh and energy

The kind of energy

By Blake rightly claimed

Eternal delight

All things must be meshed together

Somehow living in this state

Today and I think

In the resolution of eternity

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash

Here we learned how to make traditional Chinese dumplings from scratch. Our group of 16 people each had a task to do and it was an assembling line for dumpling production.  A beautiful procedure . . .

 

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Animal Attraction

Animal Attraction

(4 October)

 

He loved animals

And, to hear the stories,

They had love for him

Ask the wolf about

Negotiation with the saint,

Garnering a good life in

Gubbio

Ask the birds who listened

To his sermon when no human

Would attend

Ask the rabbits that scurried near

His feet to have his company

(I’m guessing about the rabbits)

 

His is a portrait of simplicity

And of pain

To have the wounds of Christ

So specifically

Having unwithheld agony as well

I think he loved the world

His sisters

And his brothers

He sang to creation

Now Earth’s family sings with him

For this, the feast day

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Janet Meyer from Pixabay

 

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Cheeses

Cheeses

(Louises)

 

Oh, mouse

Poor mouse

You went swimming

In my coffee

Yesterday

It you had been more traditional,

You would have paddled better

(and at all)

You spent the night in my

Dish-drainer and now are hanging

On a hook with a cutting board that

Has a loop

But I’m sorry to say

You have been replaced

(at a cost of seven dollars)

Well, you dry

Then rest some more in your

Newly dry state

You may be the backup now

The new mouse is okay

I couldn’t write without it

Or you

The touchpad never working right

(or at all)

On the old computer

 

Microsoft, by the way, sent me a

Message that

Our operating system no longer

Is supported

The best advice to buy a new machine

And would I like to see some

Suggestions

 

Sheesh, would Microsoft like to

(you think I’m going to say something

now, and I’m going to say

another thing)

Give me a new machine

Surely, some holiday is coming

 

Microsoft would say,

We can’t afford to do that

To which I say, I believe

You could give everyone a computer today

(I mean everyone)

And still make profit

Enormously, tomorrow

I have a friend there

Maybe Eric would like to

Pass my suggestion along, or

Maybe he’d rather keep his job

 

Which for you, mouse, is neither here

Nor there

Rest, dry, then stand by

You never know

I never know

When I might have to call

The electric play

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by falco from Pixabay

hamelin

 

2

Two Things More Are Needed

Two Things More Are Needed

 

Grace as surprise

That’s a theme

I like to think of grace

As something

That can be still though

Typically must be

On the move

Like a metal spring

Or a hummingbird

Water

Or the human heart

Any heart

Still enough for recognition

Then it leaps

It has alighted

There is a knock

Small in the world

Like Thorin’s thrush

It will not show the way to

Dragon-hoard

But there is treasure

Like loot taken from a

Pirate in a story

Who does know the use of it,

Poor pirate

 

There is so much more here

And this story’s thrilling

Open it and read a page

Have someone read it for you

Watch for something on a branch

Or on your arm

Listen for a knock

Maybe you’ll let them in

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

 

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Spacetime

Spacetime

(as a single word, a thing)

 

I’ve been learning

About this

I’m amateurish

But it seems that it’s a gift

Of fluidity

Against intractability of

What we take for

Metronomic living

 

I could take a trip

Come back still alive

Barely older

When the cure has been invented

And those on Earth might

Wonder how we

Lived so long without it

Then recall

By my spaceship evidence

We didn’t

 

Light bends

Takes its time around galactic clusters

Because it’s needed elsewhere

Later than the normal pace

Allows

Or maybe it’s a cosmic celebration

Of forlorn parts

That, folded,

May come back

 

You see, it’s faster and it’s slower

More wonders to be added

More paper in the capsule

More pencils by the cosmonauts

Who already learned

To write upside-down

 

Fear not

Schools will expand

Along with all the options

Requiring machines

To be stretched into curves

Reshaped into marvels

Potters know the way

 

Each moment will be new

A little chaos is good for everyone

And twisted into tapestry

So that everything

The cosmos and our lives

Is also home

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash

Calgary, Canada

Fairy Dust

I believe

 

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Guerrillas

Guerrillas

(images on TV)

 

What do I know,

If you are one of these

 

If you are one of these,

I guess

You’ll have a uniform

You won’t worry over clothing

You’ll have a gun, no

Doubt

 

No doubt, it’s heavy

You’ll have ammunition

In bags with clips

Hanging from your belt

You’ll sink into the Earth, some

 

You’ll walk a great deal

Then stand still

There will be drink, eventually

And food

Technically, you won’t have

Worries over these as well

Pay, maybe

That could go to your family, maybe

 

You won’t have worries

You’ll have purpose

You can reclaim your ego

You can keep it in your pocket

 

Keep it in your pocket

No one will care

It is a matter of indifference

Should you make it through the day

Unless your leaders are unusual

Maybe

 

Strategically (either way),

It might be helpful if

(fewer supplies to use)

Some of you should die

More people seeking meaning

On the way

They might bring their own

(they won’t

they don’t have it)

 

Not much for recruitment (then)

Clothing, food, and drink

A purpose without will

No worry

No one should wonder why

 

No one should wonder why

The unformed ranks might

Grow, inflating individuals to

Little more than

Breathing

Waging, becoming small wars

 

How quickly it must feel

The first part so far

A way of life, so far

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bash Fish on Unsplash

 

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