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Fixing Morning

Fixing Morning

 

Lord,

I don’t know what

To say or do

Thank goodness for the

Autonomic processes

I sit here, tempting frozenness

Fruit of depression

And anxiety, I know

Though like gout,

It could be an exigent bout

With indecision

 

But decision-making requires

Quantities,

And I have none

Feeling beaten around by

The world, because I have been

What is left?

 

Then I look outside:

It is a pale scene

Morning light-blue, yellow light

Upon some branches

Other branches in the shade

Though the leaves are waving green

As if to signal spring, perhaps

Officially some weeks away

 

While, I’m sorry for ingratitude,

I tend to savor

Seasons as they come, anymore

(dreading the extremes—

why did you make these?)

So a sign of spring is fine

Even a comfort (thank you) but

Not a pressing need

I tend to love even when they’re difficult

All times I have

 

So if this pastiche outside

That only I behold has been

(and maybe not)

Arranged at all for me,

It might be an invitation

You know (I know you know),

To sit up,

Eat the toast,

Finish the coffee,

And move on

 

It looks to be a lovely day outside

And if I leave the noise inside

I’m sure I will hear birdsong

So much better

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

 

1

One-Sided Catechism

One-Sided Catechism

 

Lord,

I wonder Tevye-like,

Lord,

When will I be rich

And healthy enough

To take it and relish the

Easy pleasures of the

Earth?

 

When will I be young again

(and in so many ways

the first time)

To have a spirit free

Of mortal weights

Or maybe a few

To start

Of the more pernicious

 

To be rid of

So I might leap the

Barricades of illness

And of penury?

 

When, O Lord,

Will you love me less and

More than enough

That I might walk the world

In ignorance with

Something in my pocket

For a change

(more than change)?

 

I know you love me, Lord:

Would you make that at least

A little less challenging?

 

Well

(exasperated sighs),

I’m waiting, Lord

Please

 

C L Couch

 

 

kamshots – Fiddler in Darband, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19976441

 

0

Young Athlete in Pain

Young Athlete in Pain

 

Lord, I don’t know what to do

The pain is bad

Shall I try hot or cold?

But it’s all kinds of muscles

The ones I think with

Play with

Occasionally make love with

Everything hurts

Everything is bad

That’s pretty simply put

And how I think

And how it feels

I don’t know what to do, Lord

Please help me

I don’t know if it’s an angel

Or a miracle

Or simply something I haven’t thought of

I don’t claim to be smart

Not now

When pain takes over

And my thinking’s overloaded

 

It’s not going to be a good day, is it?

A good year,

Good life?

How hard have I made it all?

Forgive me, if I’m faithless

Forgive me if I’m rude

It hurts is all

It hurts very much

And I get sidetracked or benched

(or bench myself)

From my better calling,

Please speak to me again

I will try to hear

And if my ears don’t work,

I have other senses

 

You could even tell me in a dream

Though that’s hard for me

I tend to think that dreams aren’t real

Once I’m awake

Even ones that have me wake up

Crying

 

Hear my voice, O Lord,

Even when I’m not speaking

I’m sorry, I should really believe that

You will reach out to me

It’s not magic or a game

 

It’s your way of being perfect

I must believe

I must love

 

It’s just that it’s really hard today

It was hard yesterday

I don’t know about tomorrow

 

Help

Sometimes I don’t know what else to say

 

Help

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30082359

Marta López being treated off the pitch at the Spain Handball All Star Game 2013, held in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid, Spain.

 

0

Visible and Invisible

Visible and Invisible

 

The Lord sings,

and there’s a world.

The Spirit shimmers, and love

all inspires.

The Child touches one and then another,

and everything is better.

Healing and teaching,

death and resurrection.

 

There are other personages

in other stories.

I like well enough this tale of mine, which

comes from a people I must own.  I am

content mostly to do so.

 

I want to learn more and more:

to hear the single notes

that rise into a melody

of sacred time

for sacred dance.

 

And everything is better.

 

C L Couch

 

 

CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125333

English: Coptic crosses in Philae Temple of Isis. Aswan, Egypt.
Français : Autel chrétien dans à l’intérieur du temple d’Isis à Philaé. Assouan, Égypte
Image taken by Gilles RENAULT
0

Prayers Pressed into Service

Prayers Pressed into Service

 

Oh, Lord

Not an invocation

Oh as a sigh

I love you,

You know that

Your people not always so much

But I try

And the world you made

We have sliced into it

Turned the pieces into fiefdoms

Pressed it in vices of all kinds

To render bits of gold

And abrogated power

From the rightful

And the fearful

Greed taken in handfuls

Lifted into stolen light

Slides onto the floor

To be returned to Earth one day

Though the guilty do not see that

 

When will we be whole?

One touch of your hand

But it’s not time for that

These are still our moments

To be righteous

To be fair

To be calm

And calmly take it back

Our will, our loves

Our control

Our world

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Gregory David Harington (user Gregorydavid) – Own work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1907630

 

0

And Does It Take a Sabbath Day

And Does It Take a Sabbath Day

 

And does it take a sabbath day

To have a larger thought

To encounter feeling that goes

‘Round the world

 

Maybe it does

Though the Lord knows

I can make my own

And, like entitlement, could call it

Anything I want

Though usually it’s Friday

Maybe Thursday

 

I used to retreat and rearranged the week

I’d go out on Thursday afternoon

Stay through the night

Often not sleeping, maybe by intent

My own dark night of the soul

Then I’d have Friday to go downstairs

To meet with the director

We’d talk of Francis and Gerald May

And would I train as he did

So far, I haven’t done so

 

All that has ended, as I guess it had to

Not because of miffed occasions

I’m not sure we ever had a one of those

But because mortality calls unevenly

And those of us are left

To fill in steps like pulling in

Loose lines on board we weren’t expecting

Never are

 

I must do now for me

Chaos, order

Void, abundance

I don’t arrange these very well

But they are big

Like large thoughts on a sabbath day

Friday or whenever

 

I must find my own way home

Find more company than this

Than these

Sensations, wishes, little more

Not to fill in emptiness

But something hale to

Place over the pain

Like a well-timed blanket

On a cold, cold winter day

 

When I couldn’t go out, anyway

To find the house above the creek

On made-up sabbath days

 

C L Couch

 

 

http://12footcwc.org/

 

1

Lord,

Lord,

 

I don’t know what I’m doing

I know I often act misdirected

But where is the magic

The spotlight that tells me

I’m in the right place

And on the good way?

 

Came out of nowhere

I just heard that phrase used to

Sell something

A cliché, but it’s poetic

Really

Out of nowhere, ex nihilo

Philosophy

But isn’t that how you create?

Out of nothing appears

Matter

To set new flesh upon a wound or

Fill a gulley in the desert with

Water unheard-of in the

Season

 

Out of nothing I was made

The spark in emptiness that fused

A spirit to new cells,

And I am here

Though you’ve always been here

 

And I can’t say I understand that

How you are in the charges

Of my neurons

And the pulses of my heart

And over Earth

And through the universe of chances

 

Although I still feel useless

And pathless

For the Gethsemani contemplative

It was enough to know

Random instincts somehow speak to

Providence

 

That isn’t me

I’m not so smart

Or self-sufficient

 

Maybe

He wasn’t, either

We both want to know

And what do we find out?

We wander an agnostic landscape

Step toward uncertainty

An answer in a

Moment

And for the next,

Maybe

 

Will that do?

For us, it has to

And bold enough, if cautious

To go beyond the mortal shell

To tread in a fossil sea

To take a walk on Mars

 

C L Couch

 

 

Mars by Curiosity

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040628.html

 

1

Present

Present

(note—yes, I saw the movie recently)

 

Nature and human come

Together for a sabbath day

A wilderness of possibilities set

Apart for eternity

The beauty in Amherst might

Say

 

(she’d say it better)

Today I might be walking—

Will you walk with me, too?

Only if the crowd—will

Not be walking with you

 

A host of dashes hers to call

She commands them

Connections between words and a

Cosmos of actions

Options that will satisfy

Her divinities

 

We try to be friends—Emily,

The Lord, and I

But there is majesty in others and

Other entities to which

We must relent,

After the final time

 

C L Couch

 

beauty in Amherst

Terence Davies on the Hugeness of a Confined Life in His Emily Dickinson Biopic, ‘A Quiet Passion’

 

 

0

Psalm 41, steward’s song

Psalm 41

steward’s song

 

You are God

Female and male

You are king

 

I am servant

And for work

I am steward

 

We are bound

Guardians and

Keepers

 

Whose lord

Returns one day

To take an

 

Accounting

What was made

And shared

 

For what we’ve

Possessed

Earth-infancy

6

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