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Sometimes It’s Penance

Sometimes It’s Penance

 

I’d rather write of beauty

In unlikely places

Alleyways and freckles

Left-handed people

Curved things

Where everything is straight

Wild violets and dandelions

Saved before indifferently

Cut down

 

But there are people doing

Ugly things, who

Must be chastised

If not by me, by someone

And then there’s me

And the ugly things I’ve done

I’m going for redemption

Within my grasp

Like the exceeding heaven

In my faith

And literary tradition

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

St Marys, Tasmania, Australia

A red poppy pops its head out through a park bench in Saint Mary’s in Tasmania Australia.

 

 

9

The Irony of Summer

The Irony of Summer

 

After the first official day

In late June,

The daytime will be

Narrowing toward winter

 

My child mind

Thought the long days

Could not end, and might

We have some more, please?

And we did

 

My grown-up mind

Is, however, taxed

Imposing accuracy and will

Since the longer light of summer

Will go more briefly

To each sunset

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

 

5

Tree-Thinking

Tree-Thinking

 

There are trees

Blues between the branches

Angled yellow lights

Slicing shadows

Day’s possibilities

 

At night,

The shadows, you know, will be longer

Sky’s light will change to silver

Trees will seem rougher

And the buildings,

Though they’re not

The night has

Possibilities

Remembering

Not the daytime but its own

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

Melbourne VIC, Australia

Tree Bark

 

5

Narby Not of Narberth

Narby Not of Narberth

(though his human mother once lived nearby)

 

Narby’s gone

I’m sorry

And I’m sad

He was a foundling from the beach

Community of the Outer Banks

He lived for many years, cat-wise

He was the definition of

A scaredy-cat

New people in the room caused him

Not to be there, anymore

He had a strident yell,

Maybe so that he could cross distances

Telling his human family

Hey, I’m in this part of the house

Come take care of me

 

He was blackish and small

He had an older brother from the beach

A year before

This cat was more a dog

He loved to eat food

For cat or people

Probably for dog

He was huge and round and gray

I figure that

The two cats had the

Jack Sprat and his wife thing going,

Though they were boys

 

Narby received a yurt one year

That’s what it was called

(it was for cats)

He liked to live in it

I think imagining

He was on the roof of the world

In Nepal, that is

Wishing everyone away

Except when he was hungry

 

In recent days, he had declined

And today I got the phone call

He was not my cat,

But I will miss him

Sometimes I cared for him

Sometimes he almost sat

Upon my lap

He had a quiet purr

Sometimes invoked,

Which also quieted the

Catly rebel yell

 

As I say for all I know

Departed

Narby, welcome home

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bekky Bekks on Unsplash

Cologne, Germany

long live the life street art cat

 

3

Moonwalk

Moonwalk

 

I’d like to walk

Along an empty shore

It’s been a while

The matter of

The ocean and me

 

There might be a ship out

Toward the horizon

It could be morning or afternoon

At night would be okay

Though on this side

The Atlantic’s glory is in morning

The sun rising behind

A water world

The ocean owning everything

The land a sprit behind me

 

Now is everything

Remade with primordial clarity

The best that it can offer

Or maybe in my eyes

Creation’s lines are blurred

That’s all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Yuriy MLCN on Unsplash

 

8

Behind The Mask

judithnilan's avatarStoneFire

June 9, 2020

It wasn’t intentional. This mask we wear is a consequence of being born into this culture. We all got one. And while we like to believe we were born into an enlightened set of values and aspirations, many of which are written into the founding documents of this country, in fact we are born into a capitalist system and society. It is those values that have largely and disproportionately shaped our masks through the influences of materialism, abuse of power, egoism, greed, and enemy consciousness. Yes, our core values of equity and social justice and knowing that all life is sacred are still there. It’s just often hard to see them behind the mask.

So many elders, especially indigenous elders, and wisdom keepers around the world are telling us that COVID19 is not an enemy but a messenger. And the message is highly spiritual. We are being…

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1

The Funeral of George Floyd

The Funeral of George Floyd

 

I knew a man

Named Jerry who

After a funeral said,

I look at it this way

He’s gone

And I’m still here

His wife tried to shoosh

Him, though I suppose

There was truth in

What he said,

If not the saying of it

 

He’s gone

And we’re still here

Prayers to heaven might

Release him into

Further bliss, so some

Doctrines say

We can do that here for him

 

But all the rest

Is us for us

To take part in a life after

The fact, the death

Of all we could have known

We’ll acknowledge

Even celebrate

Laugh a little

Wish we could laugh a lot

We’re no good at this

 

There is an expression

To choke the life out of it

A program

Or a promise or a pledge

To take it literally

Upon a person

Outside of stagey melodrama

A Darth-Vader move

Is never having been sublime

But move the

Ridiculous to an absurdity

Of evil

 

Might we be

Angry at a funeral?

I think we might

But be sad first

Make crying space

For tears and any keening

Let him go

And never let him go

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by William Rouse on Unsplash

 

4

Painting by Numbers

Painting by Numbers

(pandemicism)

 

I’m unsure what to say about

Those who die today

Saluting nothing

No cause but the spread of a disease

We will number them

We’ll try

Then we’ll try to

Turn them into issues

On platforms

Of lies,

Of anything but names and

All the parts

Of lives

That some carried

And bear now

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

 

5

Call to Worship, Invocation

Call to Worship, Invocation

 

Good morning

It is good we’re here

To worship God

A day that God has made

And placed us in

And we are here

Not all of us

Not all of us within us

Our better hearts or minds

But it is a hard time, you know

You know

There is illness

That has taken us

That we’ve fended off

By sheltering,

Those who can

There are fires across the nation

We’ve been burned

Assaulted, robbed

Hurt in inside places

Where the wounding is

Harder to bear

Everything

And how we’re here is mixed

Some met in the distanced room

More with a technical

Connection

How shall we worship you today,

Across imagined wires

Or separations where we sit

When we are, in fact,

So many parts?

God understands

Our attitudes,

Who better

Who better to forgive

And with perfection

God takes us, one by one

Now altogether

In our twos and threes

Or larger groups,

Unified by unreason

Since we cannot shake each other’s

Hands, which is hard for

The Presbyterians to order

 

Welcome us,

Our presence into you

This time

And always, when it’s harder

In the challenges come after

We worship you

And if we don’t know how,

Write us notes in the sky

Or scratch a gospel in the ground

Or help us with what we have

We’ll try to do our best

Finding humility to face you

A cessation of agendas

We’ll speak

But, O Lord, righteous Lord

And all perfection,

Help us listen

 

Selah

Amen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

 

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