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Lent 27

Lent 27

(1 Corinthians 12:17)

 

We learn we are not an eye

But thankful to have it

I am many parts

So are you

So are we

And with others

Together

 

It is a body, yes

It has many strengths

Many colors

Many purposes

It cannot be judged

By standards of perfection

Unless we understand

We accept

That diminishment comes with time

That disabled happens

Sometimes from the start

 

Don’t add an automaton

To thinking

If it’s there,

Remove it

We are splendid

Like a galaxy

The galaxy of us

If not grace,

Similarly amazing

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Bryan Goff on Unsplash

Petaluma, United States

I took a short 20 minute drive the other night to one of my favorite spots to see the stars. It was exceptionally clear this night. What you are looking at is the core of the milky way. This photo is made up of 30 photos stacked and stitched together to produce this shot. I hope you enjoy it and that if you get a chance to look up at night and view the stars. I’m on IG @bryangoffphoto Stop by and say hi!

(characteristics of a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud)

 

1

Small Reveries for a Tuesday Afternoon

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

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/

 

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At 5 a.m., How and Why

At 5 a.m., How and Why

 

God

You are there

And I am here

The distance between us need

Be no more than a filament

The breadth of a capillary

A pulse between two nuclei

Or the space can be

The width of a world

 

That has more to do with me

Since no qualifying of divine will stands

Beyond the condition you placed upon yourself

For a savior

 

One who redeems as God and a person

Flesh molded with spirit

Majesty in ordinary undertaking

To teach, to heal, to live, to die in innocence

And then all will returns

In death defeated

 

It is a Christian way to know things

It might not be yours

 

But to God

I wonder how you stayed the angel

Who took the knife from Abram’s hand

But would keep it in the Roman plan

To hack a cross together

Display one who dies because

A decision was made

In Sanhedrin and handwashing

Not for justice but for status quo become murderous

 

Abraham was flawed, so was Noah

So was Sarah, so was Isaac, so was Miriam

Yet you made them whole

As all were knit together

Except your child

Who was you and yet was not excused from execution

Out of innocence

 

How do you mitigate your will

And maybe you never do

You allow yourself to bleed

Blood and water, liquids running life

 

You could have changed it all, and you didn’t

Change a thing

I am amazed and horrified

And would never lift my eyes again

Except

You promise joy and peace

And whoever have I been to argue with you

I must be content

 

Allow for Easter

For greater pain unknown anywhere on Earth,

Which splits the universe

And renders understanding into splinters

Of crystalline grace

‘Til grace is all that’s left

With which you save

 

With which you drag us into heaven

From drowning in deep waters

Filled with tendrils from wary sources

Always ready, in fact plotting

To bring us down

Away from light

From one day into eternity

 

I don’t get it

I don’t have to

I am here

You are there

And here

Closer in than I shall ever be

My God

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash

 

 

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Psalm 43, miracle-song

Psalm 43

miracle-song

 

a miracle of unexpected grace

 

I paraphrase while reading a

line of text, which in fact ends

differently

 

but maybe that is what miracle

is, unexpected science and

grace, an unplanned gift from

divinity,

 

which we need so badly (or so

well)

 

no judgment in receiving, who

is worthy (who is not), no more

than in evaluating the giver

 

something is saved, and that’s

what matters:

 

material of miracles making up

the rest

16

This Is What I Care About

This Is What I Care About

 

This is what I care about

Family—three brothers, sister,

Brother-in-law, sisters-in-law,

Too

 

Niece and nephews, two

Children in the next generation

Four dogs for now, no cats

I know of (since mine died)

 

Friends—those who have

Work and those who need it,

Who are healthy and who

Struggle to get through the

Day without so much pain

 

Neighbors—those who make

Up my community and those

Who try to disfigure it

 

Peace that hardly yet prevails

Love and grace that it might

Abound

 

God who doesn’t need me

But regards me as one part

Of creation, anyway

 

And you

 

For so many reasons

 

For I know that you care, too

10

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

(Petrarch’s writing signaled the Renaissance)

 

So when I love with all I am alive

Then we are introduced as I and you

Therewith you ask me ever to be true

We press out feeling into a heart-hive

And thus you try to make it all survive

A mystery of evidence, a clue

To why you need me to pledge us anew

And wonder why we can’t in peace now thrive

 

It’s fear, I guess, and I can understand

When all is eye that cannot see around

That life before is ever in command

Until fear leaves in grace might love abound

So, love, let love become a golden band

A flex of give and strength to fright astound

 

 

[A] sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/petrarchan-sonnet

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

2

Not a Trick

Not a Trick

Easter is a surprise, the
Rabbit out of the hat, one
Might wryly think

From where and when
Comes the trick-tradition
From Easter and the tomb,
I think, and Spring, generally,
In the land and from the
Time and place in which
Top Hats were popular

Something living retrieved
Out of nothing—something
Drawn out from the void

The rabbit is fecund (rabbits
Always are, aren’t they?),
The hat circular for the cycle
Of mortality, moving in
An immortal way

Hoping that, in coming ‘round,
One will pass the door to
Eternity, maybe to pause
There

Our magic with the rabbit
Is illusion—dedicated that
Way—but here’s what is
Real: the pure, created one
Has escaped the rounded
Maw of death, leaving (this
Time real) magic words working
As miracle

What is lifted now is living
Truth to behold

No applause needed or any
Desired, for this is grace

The cost of admission offered
Always, for all, a price to us
That’s free

6

31 January 2016 (in the global north)

31 January 2016
(in the global north)

I still wake up with jittery feelings. The sun is bright. The snow is melting down. Maybe I need it gone. But is that the boundary of my fear? I sit and look outside to see the beauty. I am inspired to come back and write a verse of two. Still, fear jumps inside me. At least it doesn’t leap. I’ll feel better, once I write a bit. Drink a hot drink, maybe take a pill or two pills. I know that on a good day my heart still operates in an iffy way. I know that what happened here was momentous. It’s momentous, still, outside. As in ancient Arabian architecture, I cherish space and righter light. Not simply looking out into amorphous glare. Rather the view of a virtuously bright and blue-skied world above with earth of desert browns beneath. Through arches made of genius and of grace, numbering the stars within each stone’s embrace.

I dream this is all easier, if not delightful, in a desert paradisal scene. Where arid becomes beautiful and free air moves through all, spirits borne and carried along. Maybe heaven’s healing wind will pause and wave upon me there, and I will feel and know something of the serene aspect of God.

Too much romance and earthly-bound, I know. But I need this. My fear frankly needs it, as does my hope and peace.

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“Adversity, Misfortune”

“Adversity, Misfortune”
(written with all urgency)

Is what it means
Malheur (thanks to
Collins), and there is
A certain story about
That (Mister Thurber,
You can look it up)

But the story that is
Written now can
Only add to the
First meaning

Set fire? No
Imprison any longer?
No
Militia? We have
The National Guard
(I know, national)

Grace, which translates
Closely all around,
Needs abounding here

Not perched in a
Distant tree, an
Observation pillar,
Waiting to return
To normal life

Not to blame the bird
The bird is natural,
Even as a metaphor

Grace is better
It takes “mal-heur”
To render it “bon-temps”
(Sorry if I slaughter French
A language I enjoy)

I am of Northwest
I am in Oregon (check
The names)

My grandfather built
Refuges like
Malheur (though I’d
Like to think he’d have
Checked the name)

All are right in this
All are wrong
Everyone back up
And change the stakes

Then everyone not further
Newly charged (please, no)
In need-corrected wrong

Everyone
Go
And be home

C L Couch
January 2016

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