Every Time I
(you, we)
Every time I
Feel the
Spirit
Moving in my heart
I will pray
But I like it
When it moves outside
The heart
Also
Not as proof or evidence
But as
Communion
That spirits are merging
Venning at least
For faith
And sometimes simply for
Delight
Then spirits
Move
We sing and dance
Among the trees
And you wonder from
Where those
Strange lights
Come
In the woods or
Over water
Or horizoning desert
Ridges
Where there might be
Air
Or other medium
For breath
Bursts that
Might be daunting
Maybe
Also invitation
Dance with us to
Say
We move as lights
Be moved
C L Couch
Photo by Nick de Partee on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Revival
x
Litany
Reading and response
Perhaps an antiphon
Might it happen in the forest
Where leaves are hymnals
And the altar
Is a clearing?
The supplicants
Are independent creations
Of all kinds
Petitioning for food, water,
Or the succor of the soil
x
The forest as cathedral
Is nothing new
As metaphor
I wonder if each clearing
Is a parish
While alongside (in
earthly terms)
The desert
Is a church so vast
That all the Notre-Dames
Might fit within
With room for more
As if to invite
A wider awe
By people
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Thomas Ho on Unsplash
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(x = space)
x
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The Salton Sea
x
I’d like to go into
The desert
Because I don’t know what
I’m saying,
Which isn’t true:
I lived in California
For a time
Went to the desert there
Saw the stars
At night
One day went to Palomar
Never got to
The Salton Sea,
Not knowing what I would
Have found then—
A miasma of
Mismanagement shown
In rusty signs and
Rotted beams
Or tries at reclamation:
Burying
Dead animals
Nailing together boathouses,
Pubs,
And homes
Maybe re-servicing
The Navy base
Maybe putting back in
All the water
That used to be there,
That kept
The crafted ocean
And habitation
Viable
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash
x
Dry Prophecy
There’s something dry in prophecy
Desert-cool
East of me
Asian
It’s alluring like a deep-blue night
Above the clean edge of dunes
Though I guess you can’t have a desert
Without scorpions
Fair enough
Prophecy stings, too
Ask Jezebel
Ask Ahab
The writing on the wall
(that’s Babylon
that’s Assyria)
In the hostage-taker’s home
Was done in perfect shape
Perfect color
Was a right warning
Though it needed interpretation
So desert prophecies go
Many are clear
Read the mothers
Many are understood in a hermit’s cell
A coracle against the world’s tide
And is only useful there
The rest might speak to us,
Eventually
Breaking from a timeless place
Into an houred day
C L Couch
https://lifeondoverbeach.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/amma-theodora-this-present-age-is-a-storm/
clcouch123 
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