Hearing a New Commandment
Bread and wine
For body
Wind for spirit
Earth
For creation
These show the nature of
The Lord
In closest metaphors
Like mustard seeds
For faith
And there are other metaphors
For appreciation
And
For learning
But these are things we have
And may know
Easily
Even rather thoroughly
That any might believe in
What they represent
And so
Have faith
In the intimate way
The better things are and have
Been made
Bread
Wine
Wind
Earth
Learn
Believe
Love
Live
C L Couch
for Maundy Thursday
John 13:34-35 (and in Matthew 22)
Matthew 11:15, 13:9
Photo by Assad Tanoli on Unsplash
Heat
(a kind of review)
Fire burns
Which means that for survival
Fire’s good
And yet fire destroys
The fuel we place
But
Everything that gets away
The flames that ruin homes
For animals
For us
And everyone
And everything
Of course
That burns
The spirit of the Lord
We equate with
Fire
And I don’t know what is means
By denotation
To fire as in to separate from
A job
Still
It is ubiquitous
It seems
Like “they”
And though its forms seem drastic
As in warming
As in cooking
So we live
And by heat often through the night
And yet
To take away survival
Too
There being the matter of its
Wildness
That is the problem
That makes the thing hideous to
Destroy
Without fixing as much
As only to build over for
Recourse
Yet there is God
Again
Whose spirit is not wise the way
We think is wise
And is not
Tame
The way we think only in formal matters
Should God
Be relegated
Rather
God is wild
Even in wildness
You know
The wilderness
Which we won’t like for lack
Of building
Compartmentable
Purchasable
Convenience
(and the promoting of a market)
And
Who knows how God might feel but
Uses such heaths and
Pagan places
Anyway
Tame and wild
Which shall we have
Of course
But both
Let God normalize
And let go
If lovingingly
Amok
Like fire
In a frame
And who sets the flame
(out of
lovingly flammable
inflammable materials)
But the tame
The comfort in
The very God while also dwelling
In the zealous flame that both
And must
Love
As well as
And often even as
The heat
And I guess we must mean
The heat of all kinds
C L Couch
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
“Bonfire Night”
What
(and why)
So what is love
But that we love each other
Undesiring
Maybe
But love regardless
Making mistakes
If minorly regarding timing
To being
And to keep going
And majorly
As in the trying of each faithfulness
Deserving faith
Yet
Facing
Letting go
Love does let go
In earthly jurisdiction
Though
Informally love begins
And should maintain itself
Love
As a family
After all
In all the shapes and
Sizes
Even states and nations might
Take on
Love is
Not weak
But is
Negotiation
Love once begun
As love
Should remain
And
Does remain
Though life must have its way as well
And there are
Separations
Finally
Through finally
Though imperfections
Imperturbable shall
Not last
But find their end
When all shall be renewed in
The right way
So love lasts
And its health must be allowed to us
While
We have here
Until
We hope
We’re there
To find the hale and lasting parts
Really do
Faithfully
Delightedly
Persist
Even as a new kind
Of forever
And we may wait in all this
Wait as in count
Also
Wait as in attend
Attend as in show up
Also
Attend to serve
(a good reason for
showing up)
So let love
Then
Be love
Let it mature
Like wine that should grow
Before delighted here
If once
And then forever
At the table where
Like Philemon’s pitcher
Shall be
Renewed
With better
For us at the table
(and may we all be there)
In that house
And at
That feast
On the other side
That love
Shall take us there
C L Couch
Photo by Haley Owens on Unsplash
permission to pray on our own
I might not have said of
God
directly
how many pages should be read
and then
recited
for the people
what colors robes
to match the season
or may I say somewhere
dear God
say what is real to me
and
then
amen
however I should say that
given language
dialect
or situation
and between these
will you hear my love
of others
and
respond
accordingly with my knowing or
unknowing
what
or how
c l couch
photo by Roman Melnychuk on Unsplash
Dragobrat, Драгобрат, Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine
we love like winter
days that underneath the cold
are warm with home
c l couch
photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash
in the big inning
in Jewish and in Christian
lores
there are creation stories told
more than once
and in parts
many times
even Jesus
said to be there
calling the beginning of the essences
become
reality
and there are stories of us
and how we came to be
and way
made one perhaps
made two
without doubt
a sin of consumption
followed by
what might be more a problem of
division
then to rationalize mistakes and so
prescribe the direction
they must follow
all three
all four
for God had made that rock
that God could not
move
because like biased gravity
God’s will
must be mediated
by God’s will
that is leant by God’s
love
in love
and in joy’s promise
all was made by God and to the host
and to the cosmos
and to us
and after all the dreadful plan must work
there is like
Pandora
one thing left
the second thing of tripartite
things
being faith
and love
and to fix the world
is hope
say
faith the reason
love the means
hope
the vision
as in why bother in the first place
and this is lore
and this is
myth
and we interpret as we guess
from our experience
and there are many stories
we should read and respect them all
to know
beginnings
explain the present
situations
and
(via
hope)
respect the promise of the future
that
tells us how to believe
and think
and act
respecting all traditions
in their dovetailing
and as they work out
to reveal in time
(both
ways)
the first and final reasons
revelations
n.b.
and
yes
I know that you might want
to say that God’s not part of this
no more
and we are on our own
and maybe always
eschewing partnership
as if Michelangelo should have no faith
and the lone
wolf
an honest perception
though it’s not
wolves living together
monogamous
in families
that
despite the isolation earnestly
perspective
there is more joining than a separation
more
that are joined
than all the pages of betrayal attempt
to testify
and
the main message that
we’re on our own
we’re not
c l couch
photo by Shishir Iyer on Unsplash
To Serve with Love
(and what more)
I am very tired
Lord
And what do you have for me
Anyway
To try
And in the promises
Accomplish
Until the will is to move
Something else
Along
And there is a part
To play in
That
And with unknown others to complete
And so
Let my service for you
By
Your will
Maybe have
In part
Divine surprise
And if I suss well
Be
Satisfied
With the enormous will
I do
Or will not know
If in
A cloud
Of unknowing
C L Couch
Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash
(The Cloud of Knowing is a medieval text of Christian mysticism.)
lyrics on a day that’s cold and cold at least in the MidAtlantic
Suburban Wait
Winter light’s
Too bright
For cleaning deeply
Finally
Dispiriting
The leaning light
Shows everything we’ll never get
To or
Even want
To get around to
Those dust-bunnies shall
Keep their warrens
After all
While we wait
For the easy lighting
To clean by
Which
Will happen
You know
Spring
Roll
Roll in the hay
Roll out the barrel
Mister
Yankovic
Roll on home
Now
There might be rolls
For dinner
Rolled oats
Though I don’t know what
These are
Roll the dice
Roll to win
Field Work
God
You love us
Anyway
Which is remarkable
Not inexcusably
But
Unconditionally
Which splices doctrine
Maybe
But you can handle that
And so
Should we
The field of the Lord is vast
There are no mines
No
Not ever
Only living things
Mythic plants
That spring back as we pass over
Them
So that everyone may have
The chance
To pilgrim
Toward
What’s next
Possessive Tense
The dogs of God
The cats
The bunnies
Too
The aardvarks
And the platypus too silly
Some
Might think
The insects
Too
There might be reasons
For mosquitoes
What is tall
What is
Low
What is brief
What has long life
On Earth
The Earth is the Lord’s
Too
A place on which to keep
The complex
Living things
And
Well
Among these
Us
Use Words
(as you are able)
I love you
Honestly
I know
(since I’m in me)
You love me
I think I know
Not quite as
Whose woods are these
I know
(not with the same divine
assurance
frankly)
So you might have to say
From time to time
Though if you
Always do
(flawed occasions notwithstanding)
Then
Maybe not so much to say
But
Sorry
Still
To say
C L Couch
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost (cited)
Photo by Kevin Cress on Unsplash
Aver
Affirm
As if
To make a pledge about it
We might aver the Lord
And all the works
Therein
Therefrom
Vocabulary
Syntax
Devotion to one’s homework
Enough so that the computers
Might stay running
In
A way the machines might
Talk to us
Share everything
After inputting
At least
Translucently
For spell-check and search engines
Sigh
School is worthwhile
After all
Establish
Learning all the time
As the model
For the way
As
Even Genesis
Continues
Certainly
The love
Made
And spoken of God
Go on
C L Couch
Photo by Sam Loyd on Unsplash
clcouch123 
Recent Comments