New Calling
(sci-fi)
She had quit the complex
A while ago
A lay sister
“Mother” to the order
And the last one
Left
She had found a robe
Left by someone
Who had doubted
And she took
It
Wrapped it around her frame
Tightened the rope from which
Knots dangled
Then
Began her wandering
She needed shelter
Now and then
Sometimes finding a cave
Or what was
Left
Of a town
Sometimes hunched behind
A piece of wall that stood
While around
Hot wind or cold wind
Depending on the mood of Earth
Blew by
There was food
Mostly she tried to find
In
Nature
But would go with preserved things
If she must
She was no
Diogenes
She had no lantern
Though now and then
There was
A flashlight
She could use while the charge
Held out
And then the tube was
Useless
Unless she should need an abnormal
Straw
Now and then
Which she didn’t
She could make fire
She wasn’t looking for
The honest man
Another
Woman
Maybe
Other sister
From an order like her own
Another refugee
From ancient sanctity
In modern
Costume
Though regarding habits
And pardoning the pun unto
Herself
She practiced
None
No daily prayer
No minding
Of the liturgies of the hours
That she had often
Missed
Anyway
Due to exigency while
Mothering
The abbey
And now
She chose to
Ignore such things become
Anachronistic in
A planetary
Moment
In terms of humans gone
Mostly
She blamed men
Women wouldn’t do this
She had concluded
She didn’t look for God
For God must be
Allowing
Having let the world
If the human part alone
Go so far as to
Ruin
Nearly everything
And remove all company
Meaning
Companionship
So far
C L Couch
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
notes
lay brothers and lay sisters could and can take over practical concerns within monastic communities, while maintaining faithful identities avowed of their own
“none” would be another pun, regarding prayers at hours
of course, this isn’t real and isn’t prophecy (the future-telling kind)—rather Happy Hallowe’en!
Love’s Labors
I rock
While cross-legged
On the bed
I think it helps
To stretch out small parts
Of my lower back
I think
I breathe
Like thinking
I am quiet
Letting the world go around me
While I think about
The very thing
The world
All its troubles
All the better possibilities
With
Faith
Hope
And love
Sorry if that’s trite
As I should sound cleverer
Uniquer
In a poem
But these are the answers
Have been for two thousand years
Reflecting older teaching
And the laws
From Deuteronomy
That now
You don’t have to read
Though it wouldn’t hurt you
(much)
To know that love has come from God
And was the goodness in creation
And the reason
For first promises
Even for provisions when
We were cast out of Eden
Though the sweat of labor
For the man
And the real sweat of labor
For the woman
Wasn’t fun
And maybe still within the garden
We’d have worked
We’d have birthed
Without all the sweat
And all the pain
That we’ve learned to make
Philosophy
And a marketplace
To say that sweat and pain are actually
Good things
And you should buy our
Reasoning
Along with our products
And our memberships
But then
As far as relegation
Goes
Why not accept
And make the most of things
We must work
We must bear children
As we do
And while the process hurts
The product of pay
Is all right
And certainly
What comes with woman’s labor
Is a source
For joy
Delight in the present
While remarkable has happened
Toward the future
And maybe God and angels
Sweat and even
Hurt with us
Through everything
And there are
Times
When it’s hard
When I imagine we don’t care about
Divine sponsorship
Maybe after
Maybe not
Though we could thank the Lord
And the angels
When the job goes well
When a child is born
And for the mother
We work under a curse in all endeavors
Which sounds terrible
But that’s
You know
The way things are
‘Til dawning
Of the new age
When all pain is tabulated
Health restored
Hurt dismissed
And then
All the apologies in heaven
Divine
With what was mortal
May begin
C L Couch
Photo by eze cmf on Unsplash
Shouting Match
A man
I think it was a man
Was on the sidewalk somewhere
Outside, screaming about something
Early this morning
It might have been about the
Lord
Who will give him understanding
It’s quiet now; I saw no flashes from
Police cars
There is a religious group next door
Maybe some of that group came out to
Attend to him
Maybe not
Maybe they called on everyone’s behalf
There has been silence for a while
I could have been
In a city where
Such happenings are commonplace
But it was here in the center of
Our borough, small Mechanicsburg
Not Queens or Brooklyn
Nowhere near Manhattan
Not even Harrisburg
Across the river
I’m not feeling guilty so much
Nor do I dissemble
I am one
Who else could there be unless the
Dissolution in the building be resolved
Next door they are several
They take up the parking with
Their cars from out of state
The violence was verbal
And, yes, I know, it is an insane world
Proved by this part of it
Raving where there was no crowd
For hearing or responding
Small repentance, if there should be any
Did he think himself
The voice in the wilderness?
A prophet by the Jordan for our time?
I doubt I’ll ever know
I guess I could be
Shaken just a little
I’ll have some coffee now
Then take my pills
I wish I hadn’t used up the bread I had
For toast
Something nice for breakfast
Might be appropriate
A small salve
For a scratched place on my soul
The cause of fear from confrontation
Or maybe
A caution of indifference
An hour later
A touch jumpy, mostly sad
Fifteen minutes more
Now I’m teary
When I think about
The man in the world
All his wilderness
C L Couch
Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash
Hospitalism
My sister tells me it’s a man thing
Not wanting to go to the
Hospital
It’s certainly true that I do not want to go
And that I thought this
A healthy inclination
Now I wonder if for those women who
Care so much
(In quantity and quality) if there is a
Kind of comfort there
Someone else to provide, to
Decide,
To break the news
And deal with it first
C L Couch
Lysistrata Vote
(USA, elsewhere)
A comedy by Aristophanes
And a Spanish film
From 2002
(Thanks, Wiki-P)
The Lysistrata woman
Wages sex against men who
Rather
Want to go to war
She wins, averting
Armageddon
Between Sparta and Athens
And, as in all good comedies
(Classic, say),
The community is better,
Stronger for it
For her
Now
For all shes who must be obeyed,
Time for another laugh like this?
Pre-Lapsarian
As some thinkers say,
Before the fall, when
Woman and man had
Concourse without
Guile or agenda save
For pleasure in animal-
Naming and simplicity
In delight, listening-
Awaiting sounds of
Perfect feet on Eden’s
Brilliant plain; and if
They’d proved a nation,
We would have had
Ourselves a world,
Replete, by all mortal-
Divine promises to own
WELCOME EVERYONE!
Before you hop on here are the five easy steps to join Word-High July:
- Write or create a post inspired or about the Filipino word prompts.
- A post can be anything. A poem, a fiction, a six-word tale, or even a photo. It’s all up to you.
- Linkback/create a pingback to this post: Word-High July 30 Beautiful Filipino Words. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do a pingback.
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