To Serve with Love
(and what more)
I am very tired
Lord
And what do you have for me
Anyway
To try
And in the promises
Accomplish
Until the will is to move
Something else
Along
And there is a part
To play in
That
And with unknown others to complete
And so
Let my service for you
By
Your will
Maybe have
In part
Divine surprise
And if I suss well
Be
Satisfied
With the enormous will
I do
Or will not know
If in
A cloud
Of unknowing
C L Couch
Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash
(The Cloud of Knowing is a medieval text of Christian mysticism.)
A Plain and Fancy War
I’ve made
Notations
On the weather
Even risking
A mood
Based on the same
While all the hundreds
Are new victims
Anywhere there’s war
Or war
On deck
As if to step up to
The devil’s plate
In a game against a team
From hell
And this is stupid
Reasoning
So far
Foolish metaphors
Of weather
And of games
While in the east of east
From here
And west in Asia
So much is brewing
Like
The witch’s
Stew
That at this time
Is also fanciful
All because
I do not want
To face
With my face
And what's behind it
The real death
The ghost of war
(un-
metaphor)
Come
To haunt again
And everything
That schemes with it
Famine
Hopelessness
Annihilation
Of the body
And the spirit
To win more souls
For hell
Though for now
It’s destruction
Literal
Destruction
That matters most
And
Yes
The devil’s work
In strategies
And I can’t keep from this
I guess
The rhetoric
The discourse
When we have no mouths
And if we had
What we would have said
Gone ignored
And then frankly
Horribly
Set
To detonate
And then
Explode
The tangling
Of war
The limbs
The lies
That both must soar
In gruesome pieces
Through the battlefield
Certainly before
And after
Without doubt
When
Generals and presidents
Defend
Without forfending
And this is one place
And there is more
In more
Places
With all the consequences
To the body
As we say
And the soul
Cliché for closeness
And the truth of things
We must have one
And have
The other
Losing one
Or both
A battle
On the plains
Or any parts of middle Earth
With all the forces
Human and human-like
Divine and like divine
Assembled
Frankly
Like Megiddo
And now
To consider
What shall happen
C L Couch
Photo by Zihao Wang on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Nicene Intention
(universal method)
x
God is God
And God becomes
Human
And as God and
Human
May serve as the
Mediator
Both in between
And on both sides
A sacrificing
(needn’t be done)
Remarkable
Negotiating strategy
To be in the middle
Also moving
Through each side
x
It’s real
It’s blood-won
It involves an intimate
Awareness of
Divinity and
The temporal through sin
And loving everyone
Inside everyone
Bring to bear
Reconciliation to the table
All parties
With a nod
That meant
I died for this
For you
For everyone
And everything
On sides
And at this table
One way or another
Now
x
Call it an altar
Or a cairn
A memorial
A space
That existed with all spaces
Before Sarah
Before Abraham
Before Buddha
Or Mohammed
(bless the name
and bless all names
approved)
And we have much to do
Then and now
Though now
For the mortal side
Is fair
x
Earth shall be fair
As a result of this
Mortal and divine
Working out
What is good
What is victory
What shall be the means
To believe in
And proceed from there
Toward Earth and us
In paradise
In time
Now
Then tomorrow
Breaking time
In fact
So that we have primal
And evermore
Perfection
With all wonders
Wonderful things to do
Each moment
That bears
And shall express
Forever
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Grace Shall Abide
x
What is grace
But surprise
Wrapping us
Inside a storm,
Bringing us to
Unnoticed shelter
Where there’s
A song to sing
Through thunder
And a light
So much steadier
Than lightning
x
The ground
Might tremble
But we are held as
Much as we
Need to be for
Safety until morning
When should the
Storm rage on
Or anyway,
Grace shall abide
x
(fine)
x
coda
x
Not a human
Agency; we do not
Dispense it and
Should not
Deceive ourselves
Nor about cost
Or which
There’s none:
x
We ask,
We receive;
Maybe it comes
Anyway,
A wild and loving
Trickery, fit for
Storms and then
In quiet moments
When a song
Rather than a curse
Can be,
Might be
Heard or
Received through
Other senses
x
d. c. al fine
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash
6 Boulevard du Palais, 75001 Paris, France, Paris
Concert à la Sainte Chapelle
x
(x = space)
x
x
Watching Science TV
x
How the Universe Works
“Dawn of Life”
(4.5)
Mars had life back then
(it was a viable planet
could it have sent some life
to Earth?
my question
then the episode agrees)
Cyanobacteria
Turns green and then accepts
(takes part in)
Photosynthesis
Releasing oxygen
For other species
There are changes
And the theorist says
They’re random
A little taller, a little clearer in the eye
Both for better hunting on
The primordial range
I’m wondering
About the randomness
Changes for better living
(through chemistry)
But vital changes, really
Not simply for improvement but
For life at all
x
And if it’s random
Like a guess from the universe
To say, look at that, we made things
Better for that one
That kind upon the plain
That must needs kill to eat,
Then is there no touch
Of evolution, let alone
Of the divine?
No working out
Or through of human need?
x
These attributes are needful
It seems an existential crisis
(a crisis of existence)
To have left it,
Left the living to the
Throw of an indifferent die
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Sam Wermut on Unsplash
Stockton Sand Dunes, Salt Ash, Australia
mars
x
New Nicaean Thinking
Fully human
Fully divine
That’s what we say
In answer to an old debate
Whose contesters have
Been dust a while
And still we say it
Because there are those who
Who want only flesh
While there are others
Who would only have perfection
Inside a ghostly presence
I don’t mean Hallowe’en
When the veil is thin
But every day, impossibly
God is only flesh
Or a spirit
I didn’t realize
(and don’t)
That, perhaps attaining
Certain saving ranks,
God could be rendered
I suppose beneath the mitre
Or in a meeting room
Though God might be outside
In holy, wild majesty
Waiting for the conference to end
To show debate instead
In hurricanes
Or life inside the vacuum
Of space, waiting for visitation
There’s flesh
There’s spirit
They stand and move apart
Or somehow they’re conjoined,
Which would be awe
Try to understand a black hole
Or transcendent Pi
Find life inside CERN
Or the baby,
Once conceived
Maybe we’ll find that we can
Create amazement, too
(I think we’ve done it)
Maybe we’ll be inventing God
As Voltaire did or did not mean
To advise,
Or we’ll say it is a better machine
Matching the workings of
A molecule or cell
Nanobots
Realizing dispensation
Plenary indulging
C L Couch
Stanford Dish
What We Can Give
(and following)
Grace to you
And mercy
Though I cannot dispense them
(even mercy is borrowed)
I am not the source
And not to splinter things too fine,
Neither I think are you
But we know the one is
Source and giver,
Who releases memory to us
Of past performance
And of gratitude
As a surrogate, I can offer blessing
(so can you)
Though it is not mine (not ours)
To award
But mercy we can show
Maybe not as miracle
But hard work can come across
Splendidly,
Especially without invoice
There’s grace in that
Grace Act II
And now, the sequel
We can give grace
Our own kind
A human sort that is not
Of the Spirit
But which it approves
A love that doesn’t
Think of it as gift
Nothing to consider on
The page
But that which cuts through mysteries
To ponder,
Nighttime, candlelit considerations
No, in this light of day
We don’t deliberate the question
Simply provide the act
In, you know, action
That, aside, is enough of an answer
Maybe we own our kind of mercy
As well
C L Couch
Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
“music in the air”
Uber Man
Nietzsche misapplied
He is insane certainly
Though for the dead
That is no excuse
Merging of A-I with
Devilry (all tragic kinds)
Mythos and job
Conditions
Mindset foundation
Made of broken parts
And images, like
Rock upheaval when
Nature breaks in anger
Or remorse upon the
Earth
The driving’s done
Next civil movements
Decide and, at the
Last, enact
Salve released into
Chasms
Human libation
Offered in the cup
Divine participation
Hoped
C L Couch
Psalm 18
about the divine participle
(Note Advent and Lent have
Participle meanings)
Lord, you are action, you
Are acting
The active spirit in the
Cosmos and inside ourselves
As a participle or a gerund
(Noun disguised as verb), you
Are meaning in all moving
Within beauty, space, and time
All is sounding, finding
Depth; all
Is soaring, reaching
Height, as you are passing
Over earth and sky and star
And under earth and in
The core
Our mortal lives
In waiting
You are saving
Saving grace
Within our lives
Helping us
In our divining
Lord
clcouch123 
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