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Love Story

Love Story

 

I should be writing about

Love, as

I was challenged years ago

By someone who no longer stays in touch

(no response, and that was that

a mystery)

To consider love in all I do

I fail, naturally enough

But the challenge is still good,

Still salient, still on

How may I love you today?

I’ll share a few words and offer a prayer

When you’re not looking

And if all this sounds way too platitudinous,

Well, remember the word

Silver has an origin in there

Something precious without money

Without recompense

Except its own

Is this family?

I don’t know, how is your family?

But, yes, I think so as the family goes beyond

Blood and legal bond

And even then

 

And we are the bond of Earth

With other obligations,

Though starting with a love of planet

Ain’t so bad

I love you

And the you is you

And all the yous

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Renee Fisher on Unsplash

Manhattan, New York, United States

#LoveWall in Manhattan, NY

 

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Charity

Charity

(for normal people)

 

The old King James word

For love

It can permeate

In the old-fashioned way

A cloud of knowing

For a change

When giving has a cost

It isn’t easy

Whether it’s largesse

Or widows’ mites

 

Giving ‘til it hurts

I question if there is

Meaning in that

But giving as a passion

New kind of love

Not ‘til there’s nothing

There will come new rounds

But with awareness

There is feeling

There is healing

Florence Nightingale

Who sang not her praises

But encouragement

While wandering the battlefield

Clara Barton in the USA

Doing the same

Could you give that away?

I couldn’t

But I have a mite, maybe two mites

Someone may have one

It wouldn’t hurt

(so much)

Especially if I knew the story

 

I know, there is belief

Cynics are smart

And should have their way

While everything is suspect now

So it might turn from mindful giving

Into something mindless

Sometimes

 

Sometimes

Give anyway?

There might be something

In surprises

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Maheima Kapur on Unsplash

and is that the world turning in the center

 

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Love Is More

Love Is More

 

I should write of love

Though I don’t feel it

But it’s more than feeling

You know that

When all the shiny parts have

Been rubbed raw

And not renewed just yet,

There is something harder

And more lasting

Like the core of many

Planetary things

Firm even when molten,

Moving

 

There is something better

Down below that rises high

Over the surface

That will restore

What needs restoring

And keep the rest

‘Til newer-older things than us

Gild everything like

Armor over flora

All renewed

More lasting, amazing-strong

In miracle of what was

Fragility in beauty

 

Such is the skin of love

Even now

That doesn’t always feel

Smooth but lasts

Though nether something-else invade,

Infect with thorns

 

Something better went

Deep first,

Invested in the marrow

The body will come back

The better parts, in fact,

Had never left

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Andrey Grinkevich on Unsplash

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens & Meadowlark’s Winter Walk of Lights, Vienna, United States

Spikes

 

0

The Opposite of Magi

The Opposite of Magi

(for Epiphany, for any old epiphany)

 

The gift of the fools

The young who pay too much

For love

The old who believe there is too little

To be paying for at all

The city street is harsh for both

It’s only for transition

But because we feel the wind

Or the heat of summer,

We hope too much there’s something here

Only for us

And there is

The Earth remains a gift

And cities an invention

Not to mention farms

And small towns at crossroads

The roads themselves

The way that can only be felt

Across the desert

Through the forest

Choosing the strand to take

In a web of waterways

 

All ages have a chance

Must we always give

As in lose

Or in surrender?

Maybe so—if so, let’s make it

Worthwhile

(comes to mind is something about

aphoristic pearls and pigs,

sorry, pigs, a metaphor forwarding

the story)

Money, time, muscles, potential

Whatever it’s going to take

For betterment

One life, two lives, two and a half

A million

Can we count what matters,

Can we take it one by one?

The old response comes to mind

From the teacher trying to teach:

I don’t know if you can,

But you may

 

C L Couch

 

 

“The Gift of the Magi” is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal … en.wikipedia.org

Photo by Linh Nguyen on Unsplash

 

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A New God

A New God

 

We hear

There is a new God in the world

And we’ve been told it’s jealous

Human words testify,

But there is supposed to be citation

This God promises to mete another kind of

Justice

 

The older things will happen, finally

Fire and damnation

Things you already know

But there is something first,

Something deserving awe for being new

To terrify the agenda-holders who believe

They have it all, and it is right to

Want the rest

 

Before their destruction, there is a surprise

Offered quietly, persistently, even with fragility

It is love

Obviating Armageddon

For a time

 

The merest wish for this

And it will offer to take charge

At least to guide

Sublimate all misdirected sense of

Dignity in righteousness

(though dignity itself is good)

To make, in fact, the person whole

Gently bring one to the altar

There to cry the truth

Then to reach for something better,

As it’s offered

All the time

Rather freely

 

The who have arrived in faith already

Know already about this

Try to live, fall, live again

An uneven, promising, frustrating

Celebratory kind of life

Whose delight in giving will give out

Just in time for paradise

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

 

0

Don’t Mind Me

Don’t Mind Me

 

Oh, Christopher

Christophoros

So you’re nothing

Nothing’s good

The mystics would be envious

I don’t mean annihilation

That would be bad

But death to self is something else,

I think

Because you do not go away

As if there were nothing left of you

You are woke into a different place

With people you might know

Some kind of belonging

We might call it a heavenly host

But you are retained as you

You are even loved

Now and you know before

As it may have happened, then

 

The death to self is prayer

So cleansed and clean

As to have nothing left but righteous intercession

Something to be gained

Such a death to self so that

There is only prayer for others

Disinterest in agenda

But the willingness to bleed some more

If like a transfusion

It might bring some living to another

This is sacrifice

Not immolation but

A gift of love

From which nothing will be returned

 

A love I do not understand, for now

Or the peace that passes it

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

Santa Barbara, United States

A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.

 

2

Daring

Daring

 

God, I relent

I love you

And I need you

Need your peace

I don’t know how to earn it

My ego efforts garnered

Wrath instead

But simply, keenly through me

I am exhausted

Sin and ranting about sin

Dreams of persecution

Ides of March

The statue of Pompey waits

For blood to paint the base

 

For all the darkness

Turn to judgment day

Wake me, Lord

Rather to a better day

A day with light that’s blue and real

Showing me another way

An approved sun

Love increased by

The breastplate that’s

Around, above, below, behind

Love can do that

 

Invade like an unrelenting force

Or withstand a worldly storm

It can come unbidden, unrelenting

But I’m asking

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash

Saint Patrick’s Breastplate, a Prayer of Protection, also known as The Deer’s Cry, The Lorica of Saint Patrick or Saint Patrick’s Hymn, is a lorica whose original Old Irish lyrics were traditionally attributed to Saint Patrick during his Irish ministry in the 5th century. In 1889 it was adapted into the hymn I Bind Unto Myself Today. A number of other adaptions have been made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Breastplate

 

3

Jesus Saves—I Saw This on a Rock Near Some Water

Jesus Saves—I Saw This on a Rock Near Some Water

 

God is love

What does that mean?

The catechist might ask of us

Not to be tricky but because

The Bible assertion’s actual

 

It means that

Metaphors have power

That words carry meaning,

Even of an overwhelming kind

That God is love

As God is a spirit,

Another claim from

The same source

 

A claim that God might be corporeal

In Jesus, as Christians say

Also metaphoric

In a human-drawn creed, as

Fully human, full-divine

But God is regardless and always

A spirit

Something that might not need

A body or a well-known shell of divinity

To be present

 

Do you believe in legends?

I often do

And I think material

The roses in the mantle

Or the cloak,

Red and real

 

If we had been there

We could have been stung

By thorns

While lost in wondering

Prodding impulsive touches

 

But the thorn, the flower

They are love, too

As was the Aztec’s faith

That simply took the flowers

In the cloth

To change the bishop’s

Encroaching unbelieving attitude

 

So faith is love and change for good

And miracle as well

And so God as love might be these, too

While in and with the spirit

We might take part

Right now

Later on

Whenever love might call

Leaving a message

We call back

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Светлана Бердник from Pixabay

 

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe

https://www.franciscanmedia.org › our-lady-of-guadalupe

https://www.catholic.org › saints › saint

 

0

The Other Side of Prayer

The Other Side of Prayer

 

I hear you, rascal

Talking with me as if I were

A pal with loaded pockets,

Which is all right

You know I love you, anyway

I could solve and resolve

Everything for you, it’s true

And I won’t say

But then you wouldn’t learn anything

(because I did)

As for turning back and forward time

Take that up with Einstein

And with Rosen

About a bridge

But here’s what I will do

I will love you, anyway

I will always be here

Even when you don’t want me to

Because you do

When you remind yourself

 

I’ll wait

I’m not as jealous as some others say

(I don’t think that’s

understood, a problem in translation)

Not do I easily take offense

Though I am demanding

 

Maybe if you serve

I will prove a fit leader

And your troubles helped

At the same time

Maybe not

I know you love me, anyway

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

Gothenburg, Sweden

Walked in on this great seating situation with very forgiving light. Shot on the X100F.

 

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