(x = space)
x
x
Ant Envy
x
An ant crawls across the screen
x
I haven’t smushed it
x
And I won’t
x
It’s springtime
x
Leave the ant alone
x
I know
x
The ant is never
By itself
x
It’s crossed three times by now
x
And I can’t tell
(too dark)
If it’s on the frame
Or does it go inside
Then out the back
The other side
x
Which is a perspective
And a journey
I would envy
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jonas Frey on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Our Days
x
Yesterday was
Ocean Day
And also many people
Many of them
Students
Wore orange not for
Protestants
But for an end
To violence
By guns,
The bullets inside
Guns
x
Two days ago
Was D-Day
When by the thousands
Soldiers landed
To take back
France from Hitler
And the rest of
Europe on
Which he had
Had his eye
And after a year
Of slogging
In a blood-soaked way
Town by town
Bridge by bridge
Europe
Was restored
If Germany divided
x
Days for marking–we
Have so
Many now
With added reasons
Each cause
And each remembrance
Just
And exigent
Even the silly,
Days for doughnuts
And cat breeds
We need the breaks
Sometimes we need
The money
Come from
Merchandising
x
Sometimes we
Simply want the break
An excuse for
Chocolate
Or for ice cream
For a ball game
A parade
x
A walk
A conversation
Or simply
To stop
And think about things
Differently for
A while
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
All Shall Be Well, Because She Says So
x
I have not talked of God today,
Which might mean
I haven’t talked
To God
As well
x
Dear God, what would you
Have for us?
What shall we do in this
Sad, broken world
In which we strive for joy
And sometimes meaning
x
What can we do
What can we choose
To make it better
To make us better?
x
Now and then
Now and again
Now and for the next time
No or yes
x
Past, present, future
We don’t handle these
We can’t
Maybe angels move through time
To carry news
That’s sure, having happened
Maybe to stitch
The interstitials
Not to fix fixed things
But things that flexed
Won’t change the larger movements
Of predestined pieces
On the table
x
With permission,
Save a few more
From the shipwreck
Withhold the hand
Sooner from abuse
x
Well,
This is wishing
And not prayer
We pray for now
Into the next moment
If bruises,
Not the cause
But the healing
And to break the cause
The chain of hurt
x
And, who knows,
Maybe a prayer
To increase what is right
Because there are right things
Simply not enough
For Earth to turn
In joy
And all our lives
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Snehil Jonathan on Unsplash
East Anglia, Norwich, UK
x
(x = space)
x
x
Hurry Up, Please, It’s Time
x
Time to pray
My God, you are here
Sometimes your presence
Seems so thin
Like vapor
In the morning
Then sometimes a
Numbered weight
Sometimes a fire
That frights
x
It’s how we imagine you
Though you are manifest
As you are manifest
Not invisible
Not hiding behind a tree
Awaiting human mischief
For a peak
You are not voyeurish
x
As it is, you’ve seen it
Heard it
Touched it all
Our antics are not of interest
Unless we should please you
x
That would be
A forest of content
With scenes of love and action
(love in action)
That would delight
In fact
And in fact
Of all the constituents
Of nature
And believers
x
Animals might pray
Might live in prayer
We must talk
Must confess
Must ask
Though, yes, we may
Keep it in the mind
Just behind
Or just inside our tongues
x
You hear us
Remarkably, some time
And every time,
Which is the miracle
The need
Even the requirement
To pray
For us to mutter something
You to hear
x
Sorry
Thanks
Love
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
(I take the title from T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”)
x
Photo by Alex Wing on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Church Going
(title from Philip Larkin)
x
Going to church
A dangerous occupation
Are they like paper victims,
Fluttering
Into the air
Like bulletins
After the bodies fall?
Are they easy pickings
Guns kept in holsters
Where allowed
Or left at the back
It’s church, after all
We keep our eyes closed
x
It happened in Georgia, Texas
Pennsylvania
(Tree of Life)
Now Nigeria
Over fifty died at mass
(defining now
the awful idiom)
x
Did they die for faith
Or were they easy targets
For a coward?
A criminal?
A terrorist
A war?
Cowardice
To take on
A kneeling congregation of
Faith’s children
x
Who knows
There might be justice afterward
Selah
Amen
x
C L Couch
x
x
Nigeria: town mourns more than 50 people shot dead in church during mass
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
Briefly, the Apocalypse
x
The circle won’t be broken
Angels will hold
The breaking places
‘Til we get there
x
We’ll keep the world together
Until an ending that is proper
Appropriate for
New heaven and
New Earth
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by bhuvanesh gupta on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Happy Birthday, Church
x
The birthday of
The Christian church
Not the first day of Advent
In November of December,
Which is the birth
Of the Christian year
Itself
And from there the
Days of seasons
Counted,
Advertised through colors
x
Pentecost
That has a five in it
(to look at it)
For fity
And is a celebration
Out the Jewish culture
And tradition
(for Christians,
the parent culture and tradition)
But Christianized
Like Easter
Keeping the name
As well
x
I suppose the Christians
Own it mostly, now
x
Liturgically,
It is a day of fire
A day of wind, the kind
That carries fire
Destructive forces
Reined in by the Spirit
Even as the Spirit
Gives it, first
x
The church is born
From hiding
And from sorrow
That Christ has left
Two times
With promises,
That living in the keeping
Could be hopeful
But wears on followers
As well
x
Red helium balloons
Are not unusual
Or dances to resemble fire
(people
and balloons
can do that),
Movements
The like
We have not beheld
Since Palm Sunday
x
People could wave palms
Now;
They would match
The setting of
Pentecost events
In western Asia
x
There is the matter of
Languages:
The Spirit spoke to each
And more importantly
Those crowded
outside
(Why a crowd?
had a fire been reported? were
they for
the five-and-fifty festival?)
x
To each one (anyway)
The language of one’s own
Is what one heard,
A long list given
Of the nations, nationalities
Assembled
x
A confusion of clarity—what
Was said to each?
We could wonder—but
Peter rises
And in words clear enough
First excuses
The excuse of wine
(we herein are not drunk
it’s the morning,
after all)
And proceeds to talk of God
And of the child of God
And of the promised Spirit
For each one
(what we now call trinity)
Now for each one
Who asks
x
From this day,
The church grows
As any life might
After being born;
There will be a first debate
Too soon
Within itself
And first divisions
x
But there will be miracles
And the word does go around
Into many persons
By hearing
By conviction
By will for each
And water for baptism
x
Air for exhortation,
Land to carry missionaries
All around,
Ships that move as well
Upon the Middle Sea,
Which sometimes wreck
So that the persons there
Might hear of it
As well,
A word of God
x
A saving word
As any choose
To hear it often first
With ears
And always in
Another way
x
C L Couch
x
x
notes
5 June 2022
Acts of the Apostles, second chapter (though as with most things maybe read around)
“Easter” is not Jewish—though Easter often happens near Passover—but is Babylonian in origin.
“Pentecost” is for a Jewish celebration (Feast of Weeks, Shavuot).
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Table Round or What Have You
x
Something spiritual
Reminding us
That with us
Is the source
Of virtue
x
The old word for truth and value
Code of conduct
Worthy sometimes
Of self-sacrifice
x
Something good
Something clear
To understand and act
(transact)
x
A circle of faith
And goodness
Not for a holy grail,
Certainly not
For slaying dragons
Leaving them to fly above
Their homes
Or lie inside
In distant mountains
x
We have things to go for here
In valley lives,
Humanly quests
To help without romance
To dive in where it’s poor
Unthreaded
Trashed
x
And so to save the world;
Chivalrous
Or ill-mannered
Trying
(or trying)
Doesn’t matter
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Allowancing
x
Should the
Spirit lead
Should an angel say
So that we rest into
Advice
From listening
x
Pointers of direction
For the way
This is a response from prayer
Or simple stillness
Being still
Into the world, into night
Into the quiet blue of day
x
Whatever time
To step outside
To step inside
Creation’s bands
The movement of the universe
Let it ride
For us
For a while
x
We rest within
We rest without
We try to listen with disinterest
(not un-interest)
For a while
x
If we get something
It’s a gift
Treat with care
Treat with confidence
Now get up
Carrying the lightness of a gift
Into the world again
Into time
(kairos into chronos)
Into hours of the day and night
Into chores
Into decisions
Into life
Into peace
Or needs be war
x
Not worrying a win
But plainly things are better
If no new rewards
Maybe a win for all
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
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