long season
(means lengthen)
day of ash
season of thought
also season of service
and of
sacrifice
though all seasons behoove
today
ash on foreheads
ash made
from last year’s palms
and might look like a cross
for a while
then those who say
sorry
you have dirt
on your face
I thought you’d want
to know
c l couch
photo by Randy Laybourne on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Difficult Sky
(hard to read, to navigate)
x
Today is
Strange
In our little corner
Within corners
x
Particles are falling through
The sky
x
They could be sleet
They could be hail
x
Either way,
Like a warning
Not that we feel apocalypse
We mainly feel the strangeness
x
And that might be the warning:
Today is strange
Be ready
By not being ready
x
And it’s Ash Wednesday
So try to make
A Christian meaning
Out of that
x
Well,
Christ came to save the world
And this day needs
Saving
x
But simply go inside,
Which might be enough of
A measure
With no need to go all
Soteriological
x
Wear the ashes:
Outside, they might run
x
Inside, they might
Instruct
In safety
And in contemplation
x
Or leave your foreheads clean
And think about the ashes
On the inside
(of the inside),
The way thinking might be
Sectarian
Or universalist
x
Either way
If you permit,
Have a good, ashy
Gray day
x
Sunny where you are
Perhaps
Or raining
Or another kind of storm
Still for liturgy
Or hearts or minds
Gray day
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
On the First Day
x
Ash Wednesday
Let’s have ash
Upon our foreheads
Crosses that will smudge
And that’s all right
Throughout
The day into
The evening
For the season
x
We say it’s for remembrance
Of death
And our mortality
But our foreheads are warm
There’s temperature beneath
And all the little crosses
Bearing small,
Smudged,
And living
Testimony
Everywhere
x
Not bad for evangelism
Contraindicated for a show
Rather a story of
Black, loving humility
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Impositions
x
The palms are burned
From last year
And ashes are prepared
To go on foreheads
All day long
As Lent begins with ashes
As reminders of mortality
x
We might not
Understand mortality
Since we want to live forever
x
Which might be the impulse of
Creation
To want and think the days
Will never end
As we live
Tomorrow into tomorrow
Without concern
Until concerns are imposed
x
Wondering what do we know
Of immortality
Except that we think about it
A great deal
When not ignoring
Thoughtless into tomorrow
x
The assurance of faith
Stories of coming back
Visitations
Apparitions
Scant stories
And the few that are detailed
x
Regarding intimations
Life catches up with impulse
What happens
We’ll know
We’ll know what we know
Assurance of faith
Or amazing-grace
Surprise
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by William Krause on Unsplash
Burnt bushes and trees in Sardinia, Italy.
x
Ash Wednesday and the Season
Day of ashes
Reminding us who we are
We are ashes animated,
Which means there’s more:
Bone, sinew, organs
Inside (protected)
Blood coursing through all
An ocean’s molecules
Navigating life
Between the shoals
Ashes and water
Oil
The additives made holy substances
As well
We come to wine
The liquid and the metaphor
We still must commune
Even in a season of reflection
Many gaze upon the surface
No one throws a stone
Our sacraments are quieter for a time
We sleep
We wake into a cloudless day
With shadows only of our making
A cross, an x
A smudge
You’re got dirt on your forehead
Yes, and underneath
It is adama
For each one of us
There is no Jew or Greek
Some welcome the silence
Some will fidget
Most of us stand in between
Time to think on it and feel it through
The water of the heart
We should sheath our weapons for a time
Let them rust a bit
Every one on all sides of
The many-hedroned Earth
Let us call a truce for forty days
There is a promise that God’s rain will not
Destroy all people
There might be treachery,
I know
But what is better than to trust a little
In a season’s time for knowing
Everything anew
In an unshadowed light
Perfect gray
For seeing enough detail
Withholding judgment for not knowing
The rest
A time of trying in all ways
Our gray season has begun
Drink in and taste it differently
Our servers are mortality
C L Couch
Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay
Living Ashes
(6 March 2019)
Ash Wednesday
Day of ash
Start of Lent
A slowing time
As in lento when the music
Slows
Because it must so that the fullness
Is appreciated
Cigar ash
Ash rising from an evening fire
On the hearth inside
Or ‘round a ring in a sponsored place
Where campers meet
To sing
Or tell stories
All of which, like music,
Can lead the pace as well
Ashen face
Missing blood and signs
Of lively living,
Ash that’s left of things
Incinerated
Blasted in a furnace of white heat
‘Til blood is dried, marrow has cooked
In bones
And inorganic things released
Of familiar substance
Until only unringed nuclei
Are left
A mystery for spectroscopy
Livened ash
We are reminded
Adama
We return to earth
But keep in mind what
We are now
All the substance, all the motion
We can own
C L Couch
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA – NASA Satellite Captures New Russian Volcanic Eruption, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51484278
For the first time in 35 years, the Plosky Tolbachik volcano in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula erupted on Nov. 27, 2012, sending clouds of ash to the height of more than 9,800 feet (3,000 meters).
The Heart-House Has Been Scoured
Ash Wednesday
Wednesday for ashes
Woden’s day
Ragnarok
An apocalypse in folklore
God-belief
Has happened, we might
Say
Then gods dissolve without our
Faith, their
Angels cannot fly
Their agencies become the dust
Of skepticism, disbelief
The province of agnostics
Seeking secret
Knowledge
Those who believe that God
Is alive
I believe
Will take the ashes on our brows
Not because God is gone
But to make detritus
Of our seasonal
Distractions
The fatal kind that
Render clear sight granular
So we put the ashes
On the outside
Above our sight
So that clarity might be learned
Vision restored
To faith
A time starts now toward remembrance
To think and feel
These
And live
C L Couch
Ash Crosses and Social Networks
Ashen Wednesday
(liturgical need)
You have dirt on your
Forehead, the student says
I wanted you to know so you
Don’t walk around all day
That way
But I had just come from
Church (an early mass), and
Wearing the dirt (the ash)
All day would be our routine
If I had to guess, I’d say the
Room is mostly learner-
Populated with evangelicals
With maybe an honest
Agnostic or two,
In which (for all) formal
Understanding, knowing of
Old church practices would
Not be prominent among or
Within
But any church that survives
In turn gains its own
Orthodoxy,
And we spend time after
Noticing the dirt, talking
About spiritual habits plus
Other rituals
My church is trying this,
Someone observes
Yeah, my church, too, another
Notes
And so together in discovery
It appears—newer evangelical,
Independent communities
Reviving treasured actions
Of the first church,
The one ablaze at Pentecost
Reviving in the church is good:
There is great precedence for
That
And for all of us on this new
Day, we find new ways into
(To share outside)
A faithful, ancient season
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