The Ascent
Creation
Foundation
Re-creation
What remains the same
What changes
We cycle through
We break the cycles
Or they’re broken
For us
Inventions all around
Adaptations
Also what is newly made
With materials of Earth
Sometimes of us
The controversy
What might we interject
Though we haven’t changed a generation
On our own
Except in that
We have more things
Sometimes for more time
And then fill the time with
Pursuits
Playful
Progressive
Or vainglorious
Are we stages
Phases
Headed toward a final place
A seeing place
A hearing place
A place to touch
And on
Which could be battlefield
Or a launching platform
To meet divinity’s wider hand
As we are
Able
Having chosen virtues
Carefully
And as a better planet’s people
A world
That we made better
Also
Maybe first
In
And of ourselves
C L Couch
Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
Manic Monday
(and don’t panic)
God sang
The song into creation
The lion did as much
And our holy words
In works
Imply
We are created
We are that song
Or its interpretation
In darkness
And in light
And the bestowal
Of a garden
With the first object lesson
For the teachers
That the garden
Stands
For something we
No longer have
While we must work
In labor
And in labor
For
What we got
Each era is a lesson
We could say
And maybe they progress
The human ages
Which is why
We say
They’re ages
(we get older)
We grow
Some
We adapt
Physically
Some
Though not as much
As one might think
For as long as we’ve
Been here
And this might not be
So much by us
As by
The touch of God
God knowing
We’ll need adaptive parts
As we go on
(grow on)
What do I know
It’s Monday
And I’m feeling existential
With the blues on electric pages
Making less sense
To me
(than could it be
our music style)
Than paper
With its white
And off-white
Receiving of
Our pen strokes
Painting
With black ink
C L Couch
[note to me and now to us
so what’s this poem about?—it’s about thinking and writing, yes, really about both]
I am having trouble with the blue lights on computers. Or the part of the lights that are blue. Or maybe feeling blue. I think it’s both.
The result is that I’m even more recalcitrant in using this thing. This vital thing. I’ve had to use it for a while then rest my eyes. Rest my eyes upon the rest of the world.
So if I’m worse about responding than is typical (and typically it can be pretty bad), then I’m sorry. But as the emperor said quite uselessly, there it is.
--Christopher
Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash
Nous existons. Vraiment.
Apology of the Annoyed
Immortal
Invisible
And sometimes
That’s annoying
And at other
Times
It hurts so much
Not to see anything
Hear anything
By what is pressed upon us
That we can see
And hear
Even emotions
And our thoughts
Seem more real
More touchable
More holdable
Sometimes
Ghosts
You know
In stories
Seem more palpable
Than your presence
As we say
Everywhere
Why must you be unseen
Why must we count
On evidence
In nature
So that our faith is challenged
By a storm
Or flood
Or quake that kills
Why we might have to guess
At your approbation
The source of an eruption
While we must flee
The valleys
Where we live
Below
You are inside
Somehow
We say
And how really
Does that work
Unless we invent them
Or turn out
To be
One of the few
Who hear them
Say
Joan Dark
There are no voices
Inside
But our own
And we fill up the inside
With organs
Thoughts
And feelings
So where is
The space for you
We say
Your word is in a book
In many books
Though books are still
Unrevealing
‘Til we open
And read from them
On our own
Or in the forum
Hear
Someone officially
Say
This is the word of God
And truly
Is it so
The glass is dark
Which might be the metaphor
That helps
You’re there
You’re on one side
We might see movement
Guess at mystery
Find faith
Ill-shaped
By what we see
And cannot see
Or hear
Should there be sound
As well
And could we guess
That you might be
On our side
Of the glass as well
And by your presence
(guessed at)
Might believe
You favor us
Not our side
As politics
But simply being here
And you are here
Was there love
In your making
Things
And making us
With apparatus
For induction
Deduction
To figure out
That is
Through impulse
Too
And instinct
Gained
Conditioned from each day
We encounter
We experience
Make wisdom
Or simply know
Without knowing
How bits
Of the world are
Through what we have
And what we use
And what is used
Of us
So much a kind of
Instrumentation
And what for
To know there’s something more
Than us
We know
By simply
Living life
As its own evidence
And proof
Within
What there is
In all forms
And shapes
And differences
And energies
It might seem
Life proves
That you exist
And because
We are more
Than what’s inside the shell
(the blood and such)
In faith
There is more than us
And this more
Might be you
C L Couch
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” is a hymn.
In addition to I’m sorry, apology also means explanation and defense.
Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Lean To
x
Tomorrow is the solstice
Light a fire
At least inside
To illuminate
The difference should
We notice
The Earth
Starting to lean
The other way
x
Toward spring
But through the winter
First
At least in this
Our half the sphere
With summer
To the south
Where
Who might also wonder
What we’re doing
Upside-down
x
A fire
To light up
To redefine the shadows
Make them sharper
And more welcoming
For shadow-beings
And the
Shadow parts of us
x
The Earth should turn
All worlds should turn
Since
In turning
There is gravity
And life
And with so many
Moving
Lights
Boundaried by dark
So that both
May show the way
x
Through the seasons
Of the cosmos
Back to our minds
For reasoning
And imagining
Our place
Ringed inside everything
And the part
We cannot contain
Even inside ourselves
Because the abstract
Hook
Containers
With the infinite
For reason
And imagination
x
Rendering all borders
Malleable
If not changeable
The way the seasons
Change
Yet look
To stay the same
x
We are changeable
Unchangeable
Like Earth
And everything we lean on
While it leans
Like an invitation
To try something
Maybe straight
Like equinoxes
Maybe bent
Like the invitation
In the solstices
And all the life
Moving foundation
As it were
For the inventing
Co-creation
Inside
In between
All the round
Seasons
Leaned into
Also
Broken
Wondrously by
New days
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Sarah Tona on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Poetry and Senses (3 poems)
x
x
Upstart Clay
x
God will help us through
By being quiet
Leaving all the noise to us
Except the wind
Maybe the water that descends
To strike the surface
Maybe on the ancient
Mountaintop
That moans
Or the young one that must explode
Or pushing geysers through
The scalding
Earth
x
So there
God might be noisy
After all
To take a part in all this
And remind us
Of the presence
And natural participation
Of the maker
And the making
Which is us
Fashioning our noise
Into making something
Too
x
x
The Color Wheel
x
There is yellow
There is red
Then blue
There are the colors
In between
Orange
Purple
Green
And there we are
x
No white
Or pink carnation
For a crayon
No black to see
Though depending on perspective
Black might be suffuse
x
We love our color wheel
Couldn’t get along
To see
Without it
And the colors might turn concepts
To explain
x
To touch sometimes
Though there is no distinction
Doing that
To smell the color
Which is to smell the paint
Nothing to hear
Unless the wheel
Be turning
And there is humming from an engine
Or a supplicating gear
x
Imagine Earth the wheel
Us the fashioners
How are we doing
Are we colorful
Do we six colors
Bordered
Unattended
Or do we mix and blend
And have a globe
Outstanding
Then when turning
Make a noise
Send a message
To the others
Here we are
Introduce us to yourselves
x
x
Wheels within Wheels
x
Wheels within wheels
That had been said
As it’s been invented
With clay
With metal
In the mind
Over centuries
x
As a metaphor
Plots within plots
Every smaller
Going out
Ever larger
So that families
And nations
Are affected
Even over thrown
Reinvented
From parts left over
Rounded
And toothed
To have new rhythms
And redesigned
Noise
x
Wheels that press
Or parts caught
Inside gears
Or there’s so much pressure
So much lack of space
That something crushes
Unless so difficult itself
Breaks the gear
Breaks the wheel
x
And someone
Victor
I suppose
Must rework everything
So that we’re round again
And might make music
This time
As we turn
Through space
And time
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Eighth Day
x
O God
I exhale your name
That has no name
Nothing catchy
For a slogan
Or a following
x
Plain
Supreme
(like pizza)
Simple without cunning
The closest thing to name
Because we need a name
Otherwise
There is no signifier
So that creation
Stands alone
As its own testimony
To our senses
Of the creator
Back of it
Before
Underneath
To carry through
The secrets of the universe
Navigating rings
Of everything that orbits
Or otherwise transports
x
God without a name
Who’d rather not have one
Though Moses
Insisted
For his
Sibling people
x
God without a name
Vacuum for power
The designer has designed
To share
First with the host
And then for
Nature
Than for the rest of us
Who also need a name
For show
Of praise
Rather than manifest
Through only
Breathing out and breathing in
A life
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by La Pájara Azul on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Saint James
x
That’s good
Now will you add some O-s with me?
That’s gooood
And now
That’s gooooooood
The gospel
The jazz
Making everything
That is
You know
So created
And insinuated
(maybe with
a little slide)
GOOOOOOOOOOD!
x
Then we may
In the
Genesis world
With its poets be
Saintly, too,
And who knows
Maybe
(maybe a little whispery
for humility)
gooooooooooood
x
C L Couch
x
x
saying, singing (playing) “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson
x
. . .
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!
. . .
x
Photo by Leonard Alcira on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
something small series
(three parts, that is, three poems)
x
x
For What We Are About to Receive
x
Thank you
God
For what is small
For what is easy
To see
To hear
To guess a touch
A taste
And what is left
A smell
In likelihood
Or gentle appreciation
x
Flower
Bird
Child
Not to touch
But to leave alone
Unless the touch be necessary
Or requested
Of the thing
Not my agenda
Or the world’s
x
Leave the flowers grow
And the birds
And the children
Provide
Teach
Enhance
The opportunities
Hold them
When our own
Release them
To their own
Be thankful for the borrowing
Even beholding
As a work
Of yours
In a museum
Without walls
With working space
And fields for play
The sunshine and the wind
To enhance
The experience
All experience
That’s human
Sanctioned by divine
In the making
And the giving
Thank you
x
x
The Open Gift
x
Thank God for something small
Seemingly
Seemingly
Easy to love
As if we had received a gift
For our delight
The flower
Or the bird
Or a child
Given in labor
Pain
And innocence
Returning both perhaps
Charged to our keeping
But here is the gift
A moment for the beauty
And the truth
In our beholding
In what is revealed
From the force
Behind all forces
The presence
We may guess at
And not know
For sure
Thought we know
This moment with
The flower
Bird
Or child
x
They are not avatars
They are their own
They are not agendas
Though they are
Naïve messages
Of innocence
x
Realistic purity
On Earth
x
(part 2 of something small a series)
x
x
The Final Solution
x
And now
Praise God
For something small
With song
In appreciation
To adore
Creator
In creation
x
For all there is
And isn’t
And should be
(the Quixotic dream)
x
Take in the leave
Take in the wind
Take in a stranger
Passing by
In New York City
Millions
Not to see again
x
Until our sight
Be perfect
And unbidden
Sighting love
In focus
Blissfully
Agenda-free
Sinless
Indiscriminate
x
Find something small
To love it
Even a molecule
Considered
The illustration
From a textbook
Or a website
x
Thanks God for protons
And electrons
Neutrons
That have meaning
Though they seem
Without an interest
Of their own
x
But they are here
And all the rest
To bind
In gravity
Of love
And willingness
For unity
And one’s own identity
Everything shared
Nothing lost
x
Praise God
For something small
That’s you
And me
When you
Love of self
And the other
We delightfully have both
And all the time
One by one
Small part by small part
A miniature greatness
That is set
And to combine
To form out of apocrypha
Or apocalypse
The real thing
x
We’ll be there
Won’t we
x
(part 3 and probably enough of the something small series)
x
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Lonely Makers
(an accounting for geneses)
x
There is God
There is the Spirit
There has been Christ
As we have the story
There is Christ
Before Sarah
In fact
To speak to bring the world
Ex nihilo
Into something
x
The world was made in six days
Each day therein
An age
Such as the day of the dinosaur
Or the days of Camelot
Count twenty-four
God could do it
But there was void at first
Then light and dark
How shall one count
In that
Before the world of clocks
x
Christ speaks
And all is made
The Spirit moves
Behested to breathe life
After the first
Breath
Into the sky
Over the water
x
Abstracts are done
And then
The species
Of the Earth
Come forth
x
Creatures
With small spirits
Even
Our own
x
Breathed out of dust
To live
To make our way
To make
Our own
Shares in creativity
By will
Because later on
We ask for this
Alone
And alone
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Christine Kozak on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
Recent Comments