New Calling
(sci-fi)
She had quit the complex
A while ago
A lay sister
“Mother” to the order
And the last one
Left
She had found a robe
Left by someone
Who had doubted
And she took
It
Wrapped it around her frame
Tightened the rope from which
Knots dangled
Then
Began her wandering
She needed shelter
Now and then
Sometimes finding a cave
Or what was
Left
Of a town
Sometimes hunched behind
A piece of wall that stood
While around
Hot wind or cold wind
Depending on the mood of Earth
Blew by
There was food
Mostly she tried to find
In
Nature
But would go with preserved things
If she must
She was no
Diogenes
She had no lantern
Though now and then
There was
A flashlight
She could use while the charge
Held out
And then the tube was
Useless
Unless she should need an abnormal
Straw
Now and then
Which she didn’t
She could make fire
She wasn’t looking for
The honest man
Another
Woman
Maybe
Other sister
From an order like her own
Another refugee
From ancient sanctity
In modern
Costume
Though regarding habits
And pardoning the pun unto
Herself
She practiced
None
No daily prayer
No minding
Of the liturgies of the hours
That she had often
Missed
Anyway
Due to exigency while
Mothering
The abbey
And now
She chose to
Ignore such things become
Anachronistic in
A planetary
Moment
In terms of humans gone
Mostly
She blamed men
Women wouldn’t do this
She had concluded
She didn’t look for God
For God must be
Allowing
Having let the world
If the human part alone
Go so far as to
Ruin
Nearly everything
And remove all company
Meaning
Companionship
So far
C L Couch
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
notes
lay brothers and lay sisters could and can take over practical concerns within monastic communities, while maintaining faithful identities avowed of their own
“none” would be another pun, regarding prayers at hours
of course, this isn’t real and isn’t prophecy (the future-telling kind)—rather Happy Hallowe’en!
Born Ready
There are two
Quite often
And some more
We work in company
Best of all,
It seems
I guess we’re made that way
Porous, with no corners
But with openings
Ready in the making
To receive
Atomic intentions
Molecules that move
From skin to skin
One by one
We each remain intact
But space and matter have
Determined
All the places on
Each one of us that
Are ready to receive
Like sponge to sponge
Life like water
Fuller for the moving
And arriving
Tidal pools that live
Along the shore
Of every cosmic
And each metaphoric
Ocean
C L Couch
Photo by Marcelo Rivas on Unsplash
Tide pools, La Jolla, California, USA
Sunday Morning after Sleeping for a Change
I’m not sure what to say today
It’s a sunny day outside
Clear and cold with an edge
Like runners on ice skates
The sun is winter-tilting, so
I can see enough
Not all the dust motes, thank you
But like the movie,
Everything Is Illuminated, all the same
I could make a point
But the day is its own
There’s meaning in the pattern of
The leaves against the window panes,
Enough philosophy for two
Whoever might join me
Who’s already here
No prosperity but the pleasure of one’s company
C L Couch
Observing the Sabbath-closing havdalah ritual in 14th-century Spain.
Unknown – Detail from a miniature in the Barcelona Haggadah, British Library Add MS 14761, fol. 26.
(Public Domain)
Everything Is Illuminated, a film from 2005, directed by Liev Shreiber, starring Elijah Wood
Nearly Mostly
Nearly mostly,
I try to find you
In the shortness of a winter day
In the length of a summer’s evening
In the annals of my life
That go far beyond my journal
In memories
In hidden places
I can only look for,
Such are the limitations
Nearly mostly,
I want to know you
I’d like to stay with you
Or you with me
Or we have coffee in a café somewhere
Along the edge
Away from chaos
Nearly mostly
Then when I leave
I’d like to go your way
If you’d care for company
And would consider me
Fit enough, at least for a while
Nearly mostly
C L Couch
CC0 Public Domain
https://pxhere.com/en/photo/1232581
Way
if we don’t care when we get there
detours can be interesting
we might not know exactly where we’re going
anymore
and so find ourselves in something
new
and it’s not a jungle
overgrown
we’re still on roads or, if walking, on paths
we’ll still see houses, trees marching
to greet us
maybe around the bend, we’d like to find
a castle in a wild place
a dragon perched atop, looking to tilt
fang against spar not for life but for
local reputation,
bragging rights at the public house
the thing about the road less traveled
is that others have traveled it
we can go it alone
singing Sinatra like a mantra
(ouch)
but everything’s been trod, everything’s a trail
explored many times by pilgrims
owning a variety of causes
we go to see what has befallen
to know what has been
known
in new combinations
and in company
I believe
Is best
C L Couch
Taiping Mountain Path in Taiwan
Image credit: Justin Jones
https://www.boredpanda.com/path-photography/
Dawn-Calling
Who calls dawn
One bird, two birds
I hope it’s at least two
No one should have
To call the new day
All alone
At such a time, there
Should be company
And, if it works out,
Friendship through
The morning
That’s how I’d like to
Start the day
With someone near
To know me now
When the day begins
clcouch123 
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