rich
(not Buddy though the music’s cool)
if I can’t
know God’s will
though I ask
then
maybe it’s not that I should give up
asking but
that I should change the asking
its parameters
per se
to know that God is there and hearing
and speaking as God might
in large and infinitesimal ways
and
I don’t get it
Well
I don’t
and can ask pardon for my not being attuned
but still wanting to serve
like Merton’s famous prayer
I guess
about not know direction but hoping
that a willingness to travel by approval
might
bring approval
even pleasure
from the Lord who
then
might speak if Thomas and I and all
who aren’t in synch
might go
not recklessly
since
we have our codes and liturgies
for attending and asking
best we can
formally
and then to stay in dialogue
the spirit of it
anyway
to say
like Tevye
maybe
that and to indicate at first
that it’s okay to talk
to ask
to guess and to complain
even to posit
being wealthy people
though wealth is relative by kind
and
degree and following
and maybe
wealth is having daughters and a village
on the edge
and
rich to have our lives in love and faith
you know
by God
c l couch
Thomas Merton’s well-known prayer begins: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please You does in fact please You. . . .”
Buddy Rich was a famous, fantastic drummer.
photo by Vitalii Khodzinskyi on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Be, My Soul
x
Be still
(imperative
second-person subject
that is
you)
This
That doesn’t mean
Don’t move
As much as to quiet
Everything
x
The rush of blood
The frantic function of our organs
The ragged parts of breath
Meaning
The ragged parts of spirit
x
Smooth out everything
For a time
And in that time
Hear
More than ears
What God might say
Or you and God
To each other
x
C L Couch
x
x
“Be Still, My Soul,” a hymn by Kathrina von Schlegel (1855)
x
Psalm 46
x
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash
x
Apology
Sometimes I look into sky
There can be clouds
More viscerally when it’s stars
We see bucolic things
And we should
But sometimes it falls back on me
The sky, the stars
And if one can feel vertigo
When sitting still
Well
I’ve tried to imagine it all
And it has smacked back on me
The universe, as if I’m told
Cannot take me now
Don’t even try
It’s not yours
Someday, maybe
You’ll know your place
And your way around
C L Couch
(too beautiful, too much)
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1707a/
Nykea Aldridge
(Chicago, Illinois)
She was a mom—I
Have to say was—on
Her way to school
To register her child,
Her younger charge
In a stroller Nykea
Was also attending
She was shot and
Killed; two brothers
Are now charged
There’s so much I don’t
Know, but we know
This:
Parents should not
Die this way, nor should
Anyone
clcouch123 
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