Evidence Unsee
God
Our hope
Our refuge
We need to say
We need to sing
Because the world-storm rages
All about
And we believe ourselves adrift
So easily, so often
Every day
Because we are only, well, you know
And in the way we do
We must
Rely on what is, like perjured
Testimony, inadmissible
In human courts
C L Couch
(image from Pixabay)
(in the title, I left off the n to make a new word in the Old-English, English way)
Small Reveries for a Tuesday Afternoon
The coffee pours like witches brew
Twirling steam as in a cauldron
Or frozen nitrogen,
Disassembling
For a movie or a manufactured haunted house
How can I help but think of magic
And then
A million years ago
I don’t know what was happening
No one does except
The players and, well, you know
If one can speak playful of one’s
Creator
There was no time
No word, machine, or measure
There was no language but
What was spoken in the trees
Or as the water met the oxygen above
A dance of air
Creatures spoke
We know, we study their voice boxes
And the whole thing about the trees falling
In forests without our presence
Yes, they make noise
As nearly all things do
Our attendance is not required
Our participation does not make belief
We may try to lock up faith
But like ancient sounds
That happened without us (I’m saying)
Faith has a purpose for all senses
We can shut it out
Its existence remains unaffected
And all songs, all expressions of it
Persist
Yesterday, today, this moment and—
Until apocalypses—
The next one
The final time will measure
All things unmeasurable
And render choice a quiet science
All pointing and all chances done
Because what has been signaled
Will arrive
Though grace will last, I think
Up until the consequences
And a little after
In the denouement of
Revelation
We may choose
Once more for forever
C L Couch
This picture shows a fossilized dinosaur egg. Just below the dinosaur egg is a ruler to help get an idea of its size. Dinosaur eggs have been found at over 200 different sites around the world. For more interesting information on dinosaur eggs check out our dinosaur fossil facts page.
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/pictures/dinosaurs/bones/dinosauregg.html
Invoke the Fool
Sometimes a fool is needed
A clown of God
Call the fool
We are foolish in the wisdom of the world
These parts are nothing new
But I don’t like the notion
Of my own foolishness
I trained in clowning once
Wore the clothes and make-up
And took my act out there
You know, where you are
It was all right
It didn’t hurt
And I didn’t hurt anyone else
Maybe we did some good, together
But it’s a squeamy feeling, all the same
Not to talk
Not to eat or drink
Were not the hard parts
It was the openness to whatever:
I might be laughed at
Though that was the point
But, depending on the working preposition,
With or at?
Then there was
The brittleness, the fragility
In scorn
But faith is something funny
Faith in me, faith in you
Faith in God
Faith in humanity
Faith in Earth
No evidence required
But that we cannot sense
The more we demand material,
The more we lose the energy
Lopsiding the equation
Fair is foul
And foul is fair
But it’s not that even, either
For faith finally
Is not a seesaw, evened out
But requires all
All we have to risk
For something evidenced so poorly
Who would believe this anywhere,
Anyone
But a fool!
C L Couch
notes
There is a sad and beautiful story by Tomie dePaola called The Clown of God.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
—the witches in Macbeth
(image)
By ingawh, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45210850
Stratford Upon Avon
Saint Peter on a Sunday Afternoon
The Shoes of the Fisherman
Is on TV
I doubt I can help but watch
An old film, yes
I imagine too stodgy and too staid
For a reboot
I’m relieved
I should read the novel
But the movie engages viscerally
As sometimes movies do engage us
And we with them
A pope is elected
Cyril, first from Russia
In the Cold War
And for all time
As I understand the story
Cyril came to Russia with Methodius
Wanting eagerly to share the Gospel story
And found
So many tribes at war
First, then, they imposed a language
So that all might speak and
Might be heard
Cyrillic
Sounds mythical,
I know
For our time, an allegory
Rome is eternal, so they say
And the Vatican seems that way as well
I wonder
The church is not the pope
It is the people
This is not new teaching
A billion people
I could be one of them
C L Couch
Lord,
I don’t know what I’m doing
I know I often act misdirected
But where is the magic
The spotlight that tells me
I’m in the right place
And on the good way?
Came out of nowhere
I just heard that phrase used to
Sell something
A cliché, but it’s poetic
Really
Out of nowhere, ex nihilo
Philosophy
But isn’t that how you create?
Out of nothing appears
Matter
To set new flesh upon a wound or
Fill a gulley in the desert with
Water unheard-of in the
Season
Out of nothing I was made
The spark in emptiness that fused
A spirit to new cells,
And I am here
Though you’ve always been here
And I can’t say I understand that
How you are in the charges
Of my neurons
And the pulses of my heart
And over Earth
And through the universe of chances
Although I still feel useless
And pathless
For the Gethsemani contemplative
It was enough to know
Random instincts somehow speak to
Providence
That isn’t me
I’m not so smart
Or self-sufficient
Maybe
He wasn’t, either
We both want to know
And what do we find out?
We wander an agnostic landscape
Step toward uncertainty
An answer in a
Moment
And for the next,
Maybe
Will that do?
For us, it has to
And bold enough, if cautious
To go beyond the mortal shell
To tread in a fossil sea
To take a walk on Mars
C L Couch
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040628.html
Parting Storm
(Good Friday,
while rain falls)
Tempests of dread
Over waves or
Maybe upon towns
Or fields or where
Any once had met
Storms have many parts
Forget the question if
It makes a sound where
There is no one to hear:
Storm sounds
(Makes noise,
Goes deep)
From the first
Crashing, splitting, thieving
Maddening descent
Of all the elements
Calling for chorus
And rebuke
Within or under
Land and water, as if
Newly and terribly alive, and
Where both converge
In savage contested
Bordering
Dying sets in, life strives
Against
Waking day of uncertain
Force, fearing that
Maybe faith no longer
Holds
Falling with night
Following Simplicity
Faith is not stupid
But it has to be gotten
(Be-gotten)
And owned by anyone
I can’t think of an
Authentic tradition
In the world of faith
That does not have
Its scholars
Faith is smart
With aspects of intelligence
That keep generations
Dealing in the finer
Points of interpretation
And practice
This work is nuanced
And important
But faith itself
Can be caught, cared
For, and grown
By anyone
For the blind can see
The deaf can hear
The lame can walk
The path can be traversed by
Whoever each is now
Whoever each is not
In fact, the less the better
To possess
On the way of faith
(drafted before an officer was shot
many times in Philadelphia, the
shooter claiming the cause was Islam)
Muslim Tribulation
We live to follow God,
to know the will of God
and continuously prepare
our lives so that we might
follow that sacred purpose
and intent.
There are religious
destroyers everywhere
in every tradition. But those of
us in unreasoned extremes—
these are sadly, specially alight
in the world just now.
We want peace. We believe
most do.
We want to be neighbors and
to welcome those into our
homes. But our hospitality is
challenged now of its
authenticity.
Do you want to be defined by
The remnant cause of woe?
Certainly, you don’t.
And neither do we.
We want our lives of faith
to delight our friends and
all those near us. Please
remember this.
We want to think
and believe
the best as well.
Four. One of my six words. And the image of the Celtic knot with imposed heart. What do they mean, and how do they work together? A paragraph about this is the assignment, I think.
Four
There’s a fancy word for that Celtic sign, which reminds of the fancy word for phobia of the number thirteen. I chose the word because it implies existing through relationship. Four is not one and certainly is not zero. Four is more, and four works because it is in companionship. Four have come together. Four isn’t that important symbolically in religion or folklore. I mean, there are things it can represent, though other numbers do more and are better known. So four can be more personal and intimately appreciated. The Celtic symbol of the Trinity is old and represents a merging of two ways: an ancient world of many gods and the world of the one God come to be known and loved. The Celts themselves had to give way to the Romans regarding religion—I mean the Roman Christian Church that made the Celts give up their Christian understanding—and for a time this symbol went away. Or was hidden. But it’s back, telling us that worlds and understandings deserve their time. And older insights need not be thrown away because something new, even better, comes. After the first day, I chose the symbol with a heart imposed upon it. The heart for me is paradoxical. It is vital for understanding faith and life, I do believe. But my heart is diseased and struggles to function in the center of me.
clcouch123 
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