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Lent

Slowdown Season

(x = space)

x

x

Slowdown Season

x

Lent could mean

Anticipation,

If we would allow for that

In the midst of conversations

About sacrifice

x

Having given up

On chocolate, we need

Something to talk about

How about why?

x

Sacrifice for its own sake

Being good,

Don’t get me wrong

Though we can

Say more

About the season

About church

About reading

About us

x

Lent means getting ready

Or it might

Lest we forget

Why we gave up the chocolate

Or the coffee

Or, I don’t know,

What do people give up

Nowadays?

(maybe screen time)

x

It seems we give up

Something somewhat bad

Somewhat good

Maybe it’s the excess

We surrender,

Which a good ancient Greek

Will say

Is always good

A lifestyle to adopt

x

Well, we’re not here

To parse

We’re here, in fact, because

We’re unified

We want one thing

Even if delivery

Is holiday disarray

x

We want a happy Easter

With rabbits

And eggs

(rabbits who lay eggs)

And back to chocolate

Like a former friend

Now reconciled

x

There is more

But it’s not mine to say

You must, must not

It is yours to say

To own a resurrection

Shown in nature

Told as story

A question and an answer

Of belief

It’s yours to say

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Walk the Line

x

1

Counting on God

(x = space)

x

x

Counting on God

x

We are in Lent

That like “lente” should mean

Go slowly

(Holy Week might be

“adagio,” I think)

x

Lent is a Christian thing

And goes along with

Our preoccupation

For things forty:

Forty years our parents

In the wilderness,

Forty days’ temptation

Between Jesus and the devil,

Angels standing (flying)

By,

Forty days for seasons

There are more

x

Four gospel writers

Three angels meet with Sarah

(meet with Abraham)

She laughs with them

Isaac, Rebekah

With two sons

The sons are parted

As father was separated

From brother,

Two traditions started

Eve and Adam

Had two sons as well

One of whom

Need be remembered

On account of murdering,

First murder

x

I’m making up the factor

And where is ten?

Ten tribes to the north,

Two to south

x

Numbers must be important

There’s a whole book for them

In our traditions

But I stop

Just this side of numerology

Yet remembering, just now

That Arabs gave us numerals;

Before then,

Letters had numeric value

Cf. X, V, I, L, C, and M in Roman

Usage

x

Letters as numbers

I think that hurts my brain

What is the number in the name of God,

In the quotient

Or should one multiply?

x

We say three in,

But sometimes I must wonder

How many God might be

How many parts and particles

Go into one

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Makarios Tang on Unsplash

x

1

Partial Recall

(x = space)

x

x

Partial Recall

x

How many things I’ve missed

In the last few days

The Lunar New Year

Valentine’s

The birthday of my mother

She died thirty-eight years ago

Shrove Tuesday

Ash Wednesday

Diagnoses take their toll

x

Today the rover Perseverance

Lands on Mars

I should see and hear that

And all the other days

Will have gone by

Love in the time of plague

To contemplate while waiting

In her office

x

We go on

We sigh, we breathe

We go somewhere

Where there is no breath

Unless we bring it with us

Then we craft it

Inside something like

New wineskins

x

C L Couch

(2/18/2021)

x

x

Photo by Lucas Myers on Unsplash

Cinder Cone, United States

x

1

Lento

Lento

 

It means slowly, I believe

In music

Not with the grace of adagio

Certainly, not as picaresque as

Allegro

 

A good descriptor for these days

The lento season of

Forty, measured days

 

C L Couch

 

 

Golestan Shopping Center, Tehran, Iran

steady motions

 

7

Ash Wednesday and the Season

Ash Wednesday and the Season

 

Day of ashes

Reminding us who we are

We are ashes animated,

Which means there’s more:

Bone, sinew, organs

Inside (protected)

Blood coursing through all

An ocean’s molecules

Navigating life

Between the shoals

 

Ashes and water

Oil

The additives made holy substances

As well

We come to wine

The liquid and the metaphor

We still must commune

Even in a season of reflection

Many gaze upon the surface

No one throws a stone

Our sacraments are quieter for a time

We sleep

We wake into a cloudless day

With shadows only of our making

A cross, an x

A smudge

You’re got dirt on your forehead

Yes, and underneath

It is adama

For each one of us

There is no Jew or Greek

Some welcome the silence

Some will fidget

Most of us stand in between

Time to think on it and feel it through

The water of the heart

We should sheath our weapons for a time

Let them rust a bit

Every one on all sides of

The many-hedroned Earth

 

Let us call a truce for forty days

There is a promise that God’s rain will not

Destroy all people

There might be treachery,

I know

But what is better than to trust a little

In a season’s time for knowing

Everything anew

In an unshadowed light

Perfect gray

For seeing enough detail

Withholding judgment for not knowing

The rest

 

A time of trying in all ways

Our gray season has begun

Drink in and taste it differently

Our servers are mortality

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

 

2

Fat Chances

Fat Chances

 

You know, I think it might be

Mardi Gras

Crept up on me this year

Probably last year, too

 

Fat Tuesday

Fastnacht in these parts

Shrove Tuesday

Shrove another word for

Get the fat out of the house

Ascetic Lent is coming

Tonight we consume or share

Tomorrow we wear ashes

 

I know our cultures

Make much in making merry

Merry’s fine

Merry’s good

Maybe we’ll smile the smile of knowing

During Lent

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Amy Syiek on Unsplash

Boston, United States

An early morning stroll through Somerville I could smell the donuts … amazing! http://unionsquaredonuts.com/

(fastnacht in German Pennsylvania is also a food, not unlike a doughnut)

 

6

After Words

After Words

(Lent 41)

x

There must still be words

We’re stuck with them, I guess

Or at least I am

x

We could end here

Or yesterday

But we won’t,

Which is not a matter of words

As it is of life

x

Yet we should be ready

Now,

To pause when needed

Maybe turn the pause to play

Whatever is called for

x

It’s called for often

Snow day

Day in the sun

Comp time (whoever has this)

Playing hooky

(you can look it up)

x

Work will resume

With its kind of

Awareness, learning, deciding

Not in cryptic ways

Or inaccessible

Though recall that there’s a mystery

In pretty much everything

x

The kind that moves a martyr’s heart

And for other reasons, too, can thrill the heart

Of each of us

Of the sort like

Joan, Priscilla, Rachel, Esther

Judith, Hrosvitha, and Hildegard

Who found their way with God

While in the world

x

And for the Joans, Priscillas, Rachels, Esthers

Judiths, though I don’t suppose we’ll be

Naming anyone Hildegard or

Hrosvitha for a while

We may

We will

x

I don’t know, I think we’ll find

What we need

As long as we don’t keep the process to ourselves

Or the results

x

Anyway,

I thought I should say something once it’s all over,

Our Lenten experience

We’re comingling times and traditions

Of the end of Lent (for those still counting),

The Passion, the Triduum, then

Easter and the Easter season

x

I pray

Together and apart

These are all good for you

The way spring days, clean from rain,

Can be

x

C L Couch

x

note for the blog

Counting forty days from Ash Wednesday takes Lent through Palm Sunday, which might seem odd given the reflective nature of the season maybe abandoned in triumphant celebration.  But the count of days in Lent can take out the Sundays and Holy (Maundy) Thursday (when the celebration of the Eucharist occurs) and add in Good Friday and Holy Saturday to make up a count and observation of forty days.  Timing of events for the Passion and the Triduum might overlap this way of counting, and it’s also true that some have it (more or less officially, according to one’s tradition) that the length of Lent (even the sense of forty days) be taken metaphorically.

I guess I’m counting forty days from Ash Wednesday and let the paradox of Palm Sunday prevail.

Whew.

x

Photo Credit: Wikimedia User John Morgan CC-BY-2.0

0

Lent 40

Lent 40

(hopscotch-counting)

 

Try again

Sometimes it’s hard

Though not harder and less rewarding than

A life inside a cage

Kept without a lock

 

Some count the season from day one

As I have counted

Some take out Sundays, a timeslip in

The forward flow of days

Any days that might allow for

Contrary feasting

Some leave the season longer

And forty is a metaphor

For wilderness experience

 

If we count forty from first Wednesday

We are here today

Triumphal entry, as it’s said

As songs are sung

As palms are waved in happiness

And salutation

For the one who’s here

 

While our invested time is closing

A passion time begins

When blood with flow with water

In a garden, on the streets, and

Later on a cross

 

What have we done?

What do we do?

How many who are cheering now

Will spit the words out later

Broken of humor into mocking?

How many will be caught

And tried by Caiaphas

With a nod to Pilate?

How many, at least, will try war

The worldliest of ways

In bids for freedom

With endings still debated in

The courts of heaven?

 

Well, we have something

We have had our season

And know without expectation

Any more than making

That another season follows

It’s today

The end and the beginning

Celebrate

But keep the palm fronds close

Maybe contrive a reminder

For the window sill

Over which we view into

The next spate of days

And on into forever

 

Take us with you

Some things we do alone

So many more need not

Go that way

We may go another

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Peter Fogden on Unsplash

 

2

Lent 39

Lent 39

(penultimancy)

 

you must take time

to breathe

finish the song that’s been

going through your head

figure out what you were looking for

when you came into the room

(then find it)

 

pay attention to

what matters

which is not a scolding

but a happy watchword

paying attention’s fun

because you can (too) take the time

to gather in what’s pleasant

along the way

 

the thing is that the rest of the world

won’t stop with us, won’t take the time

except maybe to take it

and not give it back

 

choose something like a star

and Frost is right

we can select

from our own, something fantastic

that we’ll never keep

someone else could pick it, too

(we don’t have to tell

or make a fuss)

after all, what’s our own

but what is also shared

heart and soul

in an entire cosmos

 

the season ends tomorrow

with an entry into

everything that’s next

in practice and remembrance

we’ll have our parts

attendance won’t be checked

in any way that matters

(delight in grace)

but presence, well, let’s have it

as self-mandatory

 

vigil

and arrival

passion follows

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Mohit Mourya from Pixabay

 

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