A Quiet and Unquiet Day
(rest and restive?)
Have an especially good
Day
You need one
And you deserve one
You’ve been working hard
And putting up with
Things
You need some rest from everything
That presses
Lift those burdens
For a while
Recline your mind
Loosen the strings we say
We have
Inside our hearts
Or over them
As if the organ were a base
For a lute
A frame
For a harp
Drink something you know
You enjoy
As it courses through you
And then eat something
Pleasant
Slightly indulging
Though without doubt
For nourishment
As an objective
And now companionships
Do you want any
Or is it quiet
In the day
That you prefer
That
Maybe you’ve been craving
Without knowing
‘Til you have it
For some hours
If so
Then treat yourself after
The surprise
Reading something
Writing something
Or have a day
With nothing
For a stimulus
Beyond
Mere ingestion
While you ruminate
Or not
On what’s at hand
It could be taking stock
Only if you wish
Or must
Have a need
As in counting inventory
Gauging quality
Of what is stored
By its effect
On mind or heart
Or overall condition of
Everything internal
And to an extent
External
As in
Image and perception
Whom we cast
To the world
And who we want
To play for
Real
What is real
Take a day to figure out
Think on good things
On what among them you might have
On what you need
You might already have
For another surprise
Or what you need
That’s calling
Through its absence
So maybe take the day
And let it have its
Serious parts as well
And sorry
Wake up a little after resting
Think of something
Think on good things
What you have
As well as what is good
You need
And should have
And can get
Keeping in spirit
And in mind
That love does not exist in isolation
That there is good love to keep close
And problematic love
You might need
Well
Frankly
To cut off
To free yourself
Free someone else
Liberty
At last
Which is the truth
As well as
The law of liberty
And love
And so have the day
Both
Restful
And momentous
If you will
And if God listens
When you say
Hear me
I send my words with
Thoughts
The kind that
Heaven-go
C L Couch
(3.3.98)
Photo by Sneha Chandrashekar on Unsplash
Brave Peace
It’s Friday
I don’t want
To talk about the war
Ain’t gonna study war no more
Especially
The war inside
That causes all the troubles
On
The outside
We let the inside
Get away
With so much
Nonsense that is
Nonsense
That gets
To destroy so much
That we were counting on
The way
We count on
Things
Such as air
And sometimes
Heaven help us
Boredom
Why do we let
Invisible
Get away with so much
To say
There’s a war on
And it means so much
Because
A life is gone
And then another
In a heartbeat
Save there is
No more
A heartbeat
And everything’s in pieces
Gruesome pieces
(if you are not
there
but have read All Quiet
on the Western
Front then
you know something)
And also
Walls
Machine parts
That we counted on
Like air
And I guess
That is the thing
There’s no more breathing
Or there’s
Barely breathing
While the world after
Might remain
Quiet
For a half an hour
Or so
And then resume
A way to war
(to study war)
Or maybe
With diplomacy
Or blooded on
The face
eventuality
A way
To rebuild
After war
Though too often
Then
To knock it down
Again
As if hell’s game
Should never end
Except
In final judgment
When the children
(of all ages)
Of beatitude
Shall own
Peace-making again
Outside
The sermon
For the fact
Of sight and sound
Of war
And having chosen
Anyway
The one
Not taken
As the narrow way
And shall there be an echo
For an echo
Inside heaven
And on
New Earth
I don’t know
Here’s one
I note
And now another
To be counting
Or
Not counting
Might be overwhelming
All the believing gates
Regardless
C L Couch
Photo by Shamoil on Unsplash
Sooners
Soon
And very soon
What a wonderful way
To say that
A promise
That we won’t have long to wait
Before the bad things
End
The good things
Might be realized
Unsullied
Snow
Without mud
Or slush
Beneath
And spring beside
Well
Whatever season
We might need
A place for each one
And whatever
Passes for meals
In there
And meetings
With a purpose
The only agenda
Love
A life
And such a life
Soon
And very soon
C L Couch
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3898658
is herein the shape of heaven?
though the soons I borrowed here are more from Andraé Crouch
(x = space)
x
x
Pastures Green
x
We ask you
You are near
To take us with you
After
As you let us go
Before
With this strange back-and-forth
The holding
Letting go
For the between
x
The life we know
Best we can
Or may
Given potential
And our choices
Matter more
Until
They done
Evolving to obedience
Rejection
Nothing more
x
To train like angels
To rebel
Like angels
To resolve
The war in heaven
So that admittance
To the new Earth
Is allowed
x
A heaven
Made for one
Which was hell’s agenda
Now thrown open
Like windows
Upon spring
From mansions
To interpret
A party in the courtyard
With victory overwhelming
All remembrance
Love and food
For news
Living water all around
For
Life and safety
Wings and colors
All released
For good
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash
x
The Green Pastures, a great movie, I recall (see it, hear it)
x
“pastures green” in the lyrics of “Brother James’s Air”
x
(x = space)
x
x
Consider It All Joy
x
Let the outside
Be awful
If it must
For princes of the world
Might have their own way
There
(not letting
princesses rise
by the way)
If only
There
x
Be good on the inside
Your own realm
Where you have willed
Let in
Avowed
God to rule
While you serve God
Servant
Steward before monarch
Even when pressed
Persecuted
Outside
Sigh
Sometimes devilishly
On the inside, too
x
Consider it all joy
The paradox of life and death
And resurrection
Final joy
Complete
And unrelenting
Even
In new tasks
Assignments from
A celestial magisterium
Or shall we say
The will beneath the crown
Of the Lord
x
Doing what God says
Because
The glass is clear and
We can hear
x
x
Consider it all joy when we must have trials, knowing that this testing of our faith makes endurance. And let endurance be complete even by trials so that we are whole, lacking nothing that we really need especially inside.
James 1:2-4 (paraphrased a little)
x
Photo by Sam Mgrdichian on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Devilry
(the passing mischief)
x
I suppose the devil
Is after me
In a suburban way
After you, too,
I imagine
Maybe there’s a strategy
Maybe the strategy
Is chaos
Lack of plan
To ruin all the plans
x
Temptation, certainly
And also despair
A bright life
Too bright
To cover all the rest
The real pain
The real faith
To get us through
x
The real hope
That’s in the jar
After all the evils
Have escaped
That move around
Outside
And try to set up
House or shop
Church or
Place of work
Lanes of traffic
Bars
Or at the store
x
More so the aim
To find a place inside
To take our rest
And better
Resolutions
x
It’s not a grand
Or grandiose
Establishment,
A studio
With garish sets
Ringed
By biggish cameras
Managed
By phantoms
x
It might look like
The nicest place
We know
Only off in ways
We can identify
Should we be ready
And aware
If only of ourselves,
Our close-in loves
x
Deviation
Hell
The hell of it
Is that it is a trick
As all the stories say
The diabolical
Looks like everything
And is
Nothing
Maybe sound and fury
For a while
‘Til the ending
As the better stories
Say
x
Give in
Or not
It seems easy, I suppose
The wider path
The golden opportunities
The promise of
A winning ticket
While the other way
Purportedly
Is narrow
But certainly accessible
And it gets wider,
Wide enough
For two or more
x
Not to moralize
But moralize
One way is always easy
Joyless
But easy
The other way gets hard
But promises
The peace, we know,
That passes
Understanding
x
Though we always
Understand enough
For the
Irascibility
(and ability)
Of will
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
15 February
(1925 to 1983)
x
Today is Mom’s birthday
Happy Birthday, Mom
x
I trust
The birthdays have been
The happiest
Of days
Since you arrived
And for the forever
That you’ve been there
x
Do you have a place?
Is it your own
With neighbors
And community close by?
I imagine walls
Made of bright wood
And a few
Favorite things
And a door that opens
Into spring
x
It is a dream
It is a hope
It is a formless prayer
Against the real joy
Better than my guesses
Of eternity
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by daniela de gol on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Mortal Timing
x
It’s cool today
Thank goodness
I am thankful
I guess I can’t haiku this
No artful three-line
Praise
Or only observation
Out of nature
Yet nature should be thanked
We are lucky in this hemisphere
Just now
North enough
And south enough
(ecumenically)
Praise fall’s invocation
Of bright colors
Praise the God
Who shows us grace
With autumn
x
Someday
The seasons mesh
Their virtues celebrating
All together
How trees will bear fall colors
While serving new life below
As spring
And summer
Under winter’s cover
We don’t know
(maybe there will be quarters of
seasons’ perfection)
But it is heaven
And new Earth
And these miracles will work
Like clear gold
In the streets of
New Jerusalem
x
C L Couch
x
x
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
Revelation 21:21
x
Photo by Steven Cordes on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
armageddon morning
x
all earthly alliances
whose treaties are for war
in violation
with a claim
to win the world
x
God will fight us
weeping
with the rain
no doubt of victory,
would rather gather us
on a field
for celebration
will take the victory
if we shall give it
insisting we are right
in no other way
x
dawn after
final skirmishes at night
surrendered remnants will
be healed
and taken home
surprising what was won
in defeat
who was the foe
we battered in the dark
who struck
who struck
we have forgotten
or will forget
with a will
x
the place is clean
Earth an altar
all other altars served
without knowing
the template
last sacrifices needed
and these weren’t
x
we will come home
quiet first
names
and wounds
the celebration shall come
later when renewed
x
when we awake forever
a universe
to get to know
and new assignments
x
there is a party
only for an age or so
inside new heaven
over new Earth
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Dan Senior on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
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