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The Necessary Shadow

(x = space)

x

x

The Necessary Shadow

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If we

Turn toward light,

We’ll need some shade

Not the kind to throw

But that kind that is

Provided by

Glasses or

A hand over our eyes,

Better still by

Trees inspired by

Craters on the moon

x

Unmoored,

The light might take us far

If our eyes will need contrast

Even shadows

Providing shapes

Familiar or strange

Along the way

x

I’m not sure that

This is death

When it might be something new

That will bring us home,

Afterward

The end of an exhausting day

As at work

Or an amusement park

x

Light and darkness

Shape and shadow

Strenuous meditation

And there is such a thing

x

The quiet life is not

An easy one,

Given the world

And our natures

While listening

Is hard as well

And nothing automatic

x

Listen for the litany,

Expression and response

Between root and branch,

Wing and song

Listen for the turn of

Earth and the stretching

Of the band with

Its own satellite

x

We are part of all this interaction

The universe a living place

For us

Life in life

All loves excelling

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Thomas Richter on Unsplash

x

“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” a hymn

x

1

Dark Heart

Dark Heart

 

Light, bring me light!

It must be nice to call for it

A monarch

Then expect it

If I want light, I’ll have to get it

Not to complain

I have matches that strike on anything

And it’s one payment of my bills

That’s current

And now we have the bulbs

That light and last

That are expensive

That is a promise of investment in

Illumination

As for what’s inside, I’m unsure what to say

We say or see each new idea

As a light

A symbol in a balloon

A cartoon moment without words

Light to curse the darkness

Say the Christophers

Because darkness isn’t always bad

We call them the Dark Ages

We called it the dark continent

Though that was agenda

And racism

The agenda of racism

Belief to form a profit

Over people

Maybe we do better with the heart of darkness

Maybe not

But that is the end of light at the horizon

The entrance of the Congo

And the human being

And who is the main character

If not the continent itself

That without restraint

(another sort of character)

Ruins each of us—

And whose restraint

 

C L Couch

 

 

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1899 serially in Blackwood’s Magazine, published (whole) with other stories in 1902

 

The mission of The Christophers is to encourage people of all ages, and from all walks of life, to use their God-given talents to make a positive difference in the world. The mission is best expressed in The Christophers’ motto: “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

https://www.christophers.org/

 

Photo by Nathan John on Unsplash

 

0

Lumen

Lumen

 

And if there might be something brief

Through which some color, texture pique

Something that says, let’s hope awhile

Let’s take the light

Whate’er we can

Let fire our receptors to

Ignite incumbent senses and

Help those withal

 

We have our space and time

And time to find inside

And when we can no longer bear

The creature in the garden will return

To make it right

At last

With everything contracted in

First promises

First days

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Driving through the tunnel, the lights alongside, guiding our path beckoned me.

 

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Spacetime

Spacetime

(as a single word, a thing)

 

I’ve been learning

About this

I’m amateurish

But it seems that it’s a gift

Of fluidity

Against intractability of

What we take for

Metronomic living

 

I could take a trip

Come back still alive

Barely older

When the cure has been invented

And those on Earth might

Wonder how we

Lived so long without it

Then recall

By my spaceship evidence

We didn’t

 

Light bends

Takes its time around galactic clusters

Because it’s needed elsewhere

Later than the normal pace

Allows

Or maybe it’s a cosmic celebration

Of forlorn parts

That, folded,

May come back

 

You see, it’s faster and it’s slower

More wonders to be added

More paper in the capsule

More pencils by the cosmonauts

Who already learned

To write upside-down

 

Fear not

Schools will expand

Along with all the options

Requiring machines

To be stretched into curves

Reshaped into marvels

Potters know the way

 

Each moment will be new

A little chaos is good for everyone

And twisted into tapestry

So that everything

The cosmos and our lives

Is also home

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash

Calgary, Canada

Fairy Dust

I believe

 

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Wrought

Wrought

 

A new way of thinking

That’s what we make

Well, we make the frame

The content of new thinking

Is up to you

Which I mean in the best way possible

Fantastic responsibility

To move yourself

And your people

Forward

 

Maybe help with the first of these

So many layers added al the time

 

There was gray light

And I turned it on, and the lamp

The bulb

Changed light to gold

Like Rumpelstiltskin’s straw

 

It might rain

It might be on the way

We’ve had some downpours recently

But the forecaster says that

Our water table’s low

 

Good time for participation

For new things to fall

To wash the world some

Offering nourishment to the ground

And those who live upon it

 

It means grayness continues

Though we can have better light against

The darkness

Through craft

And letting go the work

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Raheel Shakeel from Pixabay

 

0

Lent 11

Lent 11

 

It’s easy to feel pent up,

If not overwhelmed

 

Our world tells us to keep moving

And that’s fine

 

But if the wisdom-writer’s right,

Then there is a time for all things

 

In that, a time to let all

Movement happen all around

 

While we savor what there is

Or step out

 

Because it’s also time for

Taking up what is close by

 

Just behind the shoulder

And it goes unnoticed, even when

 

It presses from wherever

Time to look again

 

To hear

To touch

 

To taste

To smell

 

To pick up and take in

Like a newfound work of art

 

That otherwise might have only lived in dust,

Which is not living at all,

 

Lost to light

But now

 

Like this (dusted off),

We can

 

Enter into

A tasking of illumination

 

C L Couch

 

 

Adamantios – Own work

Attic (aka garret, loft or sky parlor) in Berlin, Germany.

(symbolism unplanned—synchronicitous?)

 

0

The Skiff

The Skiff

(Advent, anytime)

 

It’s the twentieth

Now we count for real

 

Will we have peace—

Will Bethlehem be accessible

This year

 

Peace in the heart

Might be all that’s left

Sometimes it must feel that way

And, honestly, it’s a good place

To start

 

Accent on the time

To find the quiet

Or stop the world another way

Pause it now and then

 

Five days

For remembrance

Make it our own liturgy of

Supplication

Over whatever waters we might have,

Still or stormy

 

Reaching for, and as,

A beacon through the mist

That’s joy

 

C L Couch

 

 

By laszlo-photo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/110887318/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5948809

In the early morning, a fishing skiff remains docked on the waters of Santa Marta Bai near Soto, Curacao (Netherland Antilles).

 

0

Air and Space Museum

Air and Space Museum

 

Light and space

It’s physics,

And it’s Arabic

It’s need

A vision helping me get by

In a crowded world

That doesn’t breathe enough

Plants to air

Us to carbon dioxide

Back to plants

It goes ‘round, and when

Done right, it’s good

 

I want to be at the Alhambra

Or the Alcázar

Without the Christian overparts

Not to abandon faith but

To find it in the beauty

Of healthy building

 

I don’t know how to reconcile

The tyranny that built it

 

Somehow-dimensions cast to God’s own

As if the architect had been

In Eden when

First designed

All was lush

With light and air

Imagine a veil

Blown under the arch

Of all creation, which was

The promise of

 

How close we might get

Toward living with life’s own

The movement

Without angels yet

To keep us out

 

All is green behind

After we rest, breathed upon by God

We get to go inside

 

C L Couch

 

 

File:Alcázar de Segovia-9.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

 

0

three poems about light

three poems about light

by C L Couch

 

 

The Light We Make

 

White lights

Illuminate too much

I don’t like them

In headlights or in overhead neon,

Especially

Where is the dawn

That softly cascades on all

Things below

If it’s an emergency,

That’s one thing

But for day-to-day, why

Can’t we have gold

Freely delivered from

Heaven’s treasure

Or more homely manufacturing?

 

Better the dawn, I think,

For inspiration

A glimpse of visioning like

Angels,

A reason at the start of day

 

 

 

Galadriel Comes to Rivendell

(a Middle-Earth lyric)

 

In a penultimate age

Galadriel comes to Rivendell

To toast with Elrond

A Elbereth Gilthoniel

Whom shell they be meeting soon

On the first shore

Of unending

Once upon a timeless time

And everlasting

 

Well done, the half-elf declares

I knew you were hiding by

The gate

Hidden by my host, she corrects

They would not bear

To evidence my presence

So far from the

Golden wood of home

Where, alas, Celeborn remains

 

But ready, comes the declaration

From the host, back to the

Final battle,

Always ready, and she smiles

 

All our allies had not yet

Arrived

I would have gone to them

 

You would have commended

Or commanded all of us there,

I wonder

 

I would not have said a

Word

 

The authority of your magic

Is the message

In elvish silence

 

Even better, I think?

She sipped

 

And so they talked, old friends

As much as majesty and crusade allow

While the night inside faded

Outside a new day already

Transpiring

That would no longer know them

Might they leave

 

Yet a hint of Hollin

Goodness might remain

Where they once passed

 

[all the rest is benediction and epilogue]

 

So their time

Our time

An age between

Rises at dawn

Under a yellow, mortal sun

No longer blessed

By characters

And presence

 

A benediction before

They leave

All doors open wide

To welcome gratitude

Or rudeness

Mortals’ choice

 

An eagle’s blessing

Then all the keepers of blue flame

And light we cannot bear

Are gone

 

 

 

Misfit

 

The lights of heaven

Are too much for me

I cannot manage

Pure light that has other

Texture

 

I need light gobos through wisping clouds

And trees,

Dressed in motley by

All earthly forms and shadows

 

In the shade

Is fine for me

Though not in formless dark,

Please

 

Readiness for paradise

Means new lenses, I suppose

Like focusing kaleidoscopes

Or tracing light through prisms

I will adjust

Or be adjusted

By perfect agencies

Gate-keepers,

Heaven-defenders

Who see all clear

For ages, now

So will you

So will I

 

 

 

lantern

http://www.jesuitas.co/homilia_2121.html

 

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