2 poems about the new season (more or less)
Bouncy
God
It’s yellow Friday
With blue and brown
On deck
It’s
Spring and time
Not for the metaphor this
Time but
To really
Play some ball
Training
Then the opening
We each can do this
Batter
You know
Up
And I’ve switched audience
Though aren’t you
Always there
(for
an excuse)
Forgive me
And allow me to say
Maybe
To everyone
About
Gospel of play
And did you plays as you ringed
And then rounded
Creation
Maybe
Keep us
Safe
In this new season
Knowing that our choices
Make the difference
Even if
And when
We could turn our will
Toward yours
A wheel
And a wheel within a wheel
But I was thinking baseball
Pitches
Running
And then
The coming home
Green
Workaday
And extraordinary-day
New
Season to you
And to you
Amen
Freedom Ring
The Liberty Bell is cracked
And there were more
Bells
At the time
Ringing freedom
While now we have
The broken bell
For show
And there is wisdom
In admiring the broken
Toward
Kintsugi perhaps
Or to leave in
Pieces
Sometimes for further lack of use
Except in small beholding
Or
When a sizable
Cast bell
To dream on ringing
To dream really large
Sometimes
C L Couch
Photo by Joe Richmond on Unsplash
The Body Practical
The human body
Is impractical
I mean
It’s working well enough
Until it isn’t
But what we really need
In addition to nominal
Health
Is an option for gills
That fold away
Until we need them
And we need
Wings
That keep
And when unfurled
Remind us as we fly
That God favors
Us
In making us
And we
At the very least
Owe the favor in return
While we are soaring
And at other
Times
Plunging
Also with delight
Into the depths
C L Couch
Photo by ibuki Tsubo on Unsplash
rest in God
(the habit)
rest
in God
and what does that mean
to rest
and sleep a little more
a little more in depth
and
to have dreams
and to dream well
or to dream of true struggles
that by
daylight
we must live through
and
where’s the resting
maybe it’s to nearly nap
to lie down
or lie
back
think easy
find the divine though easy
almost
fall asleep to thank
and then go down
in safety
for a while
or maybe
it’s
an attitude
for decision-making
to be at peace
even
in this meeting
of a board
or with a family
one person
two
or twenty
and in the situation to have
still-thinking
thinking through in an allied way
not
alone
but with others
who might not all
in the room
yet still
still
we know are present
rest might mean embrace
an arm around
and how can God do that
though
the maker of embrace
without doubt
has a way
to make it
think
make it feel
make it hope
and make it love
(also the inventor
of
love)
so rest in God
and maybe in each other
rest in God
c l couch
photo by Squids Z on Unsplash
“Lotus”
Jiediaosha, Shenzhen, China
Prayer in Search of a Liturgist
And if we pray
Should we find a service
Or something
A box
As it were
In which to keep it
Give it
A liturgical home
A formal place
To live
Like a tabernacle or
A reliquary
Or may our prayer
Rise to the trees
And that’s
Enough
Not even to find a nest
But leave the tree’s tendrils
To aim
Even for soaring
Blue then white
Then to the black of space
Or
Un-Claudius like
Might it be helpful
For a prayer
To descend
Into the ground
To talk with
Seeds
Or to the ocean floor
For octopi-like things or
Expulsive vents
Or to go down
To a kind of nothingness
That you are Lord of
Too
Directionful
Directionless
Might prayer go where it needs to be
Where it un-needs to be
For your approval
And
Somehow
For application
Even without much more
Than itself
By itself
To consider
By us
By tree
By space
By Earth
By depth
By you
C L Couch
Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash
(Claudius in Hamlet declares “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;/Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”)
Typing Calvinist
Relationships
I’m not good with these
At these
Look at me
Alone
While typing
Word of Earth and faith
As if
I know
At least I have good sources
To go to
And
Yes
This is a solitary act
Traditionally and
Typically
Insofar as that is an operable excuse
But what
Do I know
Whom
Do I
Know
And I don’t know and this
Is doubt
Or course or sometimes when
I refuse to listen
To God
Or you
Or anyone
Too busy with that log in my eye
To see
The virtues of
My sibling people
(who are
all
people)
And while the log means a good challenge
It can be excess
Self-preoccupation
Too
But
Finally to set this down
To set anything on an electron page
Nonetheless
To be
Picked up in an archetypal way
To read
And to respond
This must for you
For all of you
And all for you
There is no reason
Other
Self-expression
Sure
But not enough as we might say
That we are good
And that
Is not enough
C L Couch
(Protestants like work and Calvin liked grace and also Mary; I don’t know enough of Hobbes to say (hah), though I do think most good things go together--say, spirit and flesh; faith and work; readers and writers (when both are good or trying good); voice and text
and with apologies for abstruseness)
Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash
the familiar way we used to speak
God
you’re here
but there is such a dullness
between you and me
could be an unmoving field
I put there myself
even
unknowing
then to wake to it
and wonder how the barrier
got there
maybe it’s mortality
maybe it’s greed
I’m not sure I know
maybe it’s difference
as in
I’ll come over to you when it’s easy
when the way is lit
thy word
is a lamp
I’ve heard
and are the thees and thous allowed
the ironic use of you
we have let go
the intimate
the way one would say
and has
said
how do I love thee
thou dost prepare
and I should let thee
love
allowing that thou
loves
for creation’s thine
and love's
and so is
mine
c l couch
it used to be that thee was the close way to say you, which is why thee was used in making the Authorized Version and in language overall; ironically, we think of thee and thou and thine as a formal way if at all, and we really don’t, to write and talk and such
references to the Old Testament, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare allusion in the photo
photo by Landon Parenteau on Unsplash
Aspen Trees Growing in Saskatchewan Summer [given title]
permission to pray on our own
I might not have said of
God
directly
how many pages should be read
and then
recited
for the people
what colors robes
to match the season
or may I say somewhere
dear God
say what is real to me
and
then
amen
however I should say that
given language
dialect
or situation
and between these
will you hear my love
of others
and
respond
accordingly with my knowing or
unknowing
what
or how
c l couch
photo by Roman Melnychuk on Unsplash
Dragobrat, Драгобрат, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine
altar call
we can’t approach
without
some sibling feeling worked out
so
we’re told
like Erev
before perhaps
the
Yom Kippur
and yet how empty be the churches if
chancels must wait
for
close conflict
or
the like
must be worked out first
before we resuming
carrying
a church-gift
say
our tithe
though many of us
chance
and
to confess
to keep the gift and moving
toward
the worship center
where
the convicting love of God
does not dwell more
but
knowing our score feels
more
c l couch
Mattew 5:23-24 (or consider other prodigal narratives)
Photo by Martijn Veldhuizen on Unsplash
in the big inning
in Jewish and in Christian
lores
there are creation stories told
more than once
and in parts
many times
even Jesus
said to be there
calling the beginning of the essences
become
reality
and there are stories of us
and how we came to be
and way
made one perhaps
made two
without doubt
a sin of consumption
followed by
what might be more a problem of
division
then to rationalize mistakes and so
prescribe the direction
they must follow
all three
all four
for God had made that rock
that God could not
move
because like biased gravity
God’s will
must be mediated
by God’s will
that is leant by God’s
love
in love
and in joy’s promise
all was made by God and to the host
and to the cosmos
and to us
and after all the dreadful plan must work
there is like
Pandora
one thing left
the second thing of tripartite
things
being faith
and love
and to fix the world
is hope
say
faith the reason
love the means
hope
the vision
as in why bother in the first place
and this is lore
and this is
myth
and we interpret as we guess
from our experience
and there are many stories
we should read and respect them all
to know
beginnings
explain the present
situations
and
(via
hope)
respect the promise of the future
that
tells us how to believe
and think
and act
respecting all traditions
in their dovetailing
and as they work out
to reveal in time
(both
ways)
the first and final reasons
revelations
n.b.
and
yes
I know that you might want
to say that God’s not part of this
no more
and we are on our own
and maybe always
eschewing partnership
as if Michelangelo should have no faith
and the lone
wolf
an honest perception
though it’s not
wolves living together
monogamous
in families
that
despite the isolation earnestly
perspective
there is more joining than a separation
more
that are joined
than all the pages of betrayal attempt
to testify
and
the main message that
we’re on our own
we’re not
c l couch
photo by Shishir Iyer on Unsplash
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