2 haiku for Ash Wednesday
ashes to ashes
‘round rosies with the posies
cast east of Eden
Lenten rite with ash
as mortal if devoted
heaven bring us home
c l couch
(first haiku could stand a Works Cited or would it be allusions cited?—I will cite Genesis 3:19, part of the pronouncement of God upon Adam and, as far the new postlapsarian state of things goes, upon all of us)
photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash
(x = space)
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On the First Day
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Ash Wednesday
Let’s have ash
Upon our foreheads
Crosses that will smudge
And that’s all right
Throughout
The day into
The evening
For the season
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We say it’s for remembrance
Of death
And our mortality
But our foreheads are warm
There’s temperature beneath
And all the little crosses
Bearing small,
Smudged,
And living
Testimony
Everywhere
x
Not bad for evangelism
Contraindicated for a show
Rather a story of
Black, loving humility
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C L Couch
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Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Genesism
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We were thrown out:
Don’t blame Eve,
I don’t;
The serpent could have
Just as easily
Caught Adam first
And both fall
After choosing to take bites
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And if you believe
The woman had such power,
Go ahead—I
Wouldn’t stop you
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Did they see the angel,
Looking back?
The orange or the yellow
Of a blade on fire?
Feel the heat?
Did they know for sure
They must go another way,
Not to return
For ages?
x
Well, they were given
Clothing,
They were given curses
Also callings,
They knew what they’d have to do
To live;
And so with their descendants,
So with us,
The myth goes on
For hunters and for music;
We build a tower
To do better than the curses
x
The tower falls;
We cannot speak to each other,
Anymore
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So we build in separation;
Cities rise
And as must follow
Empire:
Strong people rule somehow
And we let their children rule
x
Was it worship
Or respect
Or indifference?
We had our farms to tend;
Soon there would be machines
x
We raised walls
To keep ourselves upon the plains,
Set outposts in the mountains,
Surrounded waterways,
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And with food
And bright blades
Secured the promises
Of generations
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Nation went to war
Against nations;
Many gods were worshipped,
Some directed
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We have stone
And paper manuscripts
And ruins upon ruins
That are testimonies
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And are we rising?
We hope so;
There are awful, lateral movements
And descensions—call
Them massacres,
Call slavery,
Call rule by one
With only one served,
One living well
x
Democracy is rising;
Call it something else;
We keep at it
x
How about
Soon we grow
Without anything but growth?
x
After-Eden flaws remain;
Maybe we’ll understand at last
Divinities approving
Of mortality,
Mortal accountancy
In meeting needs,
Accountability,
Repentance,
And renewal
x
Rockets go toward the moon,
Soon with people
Who will stay awhile
While we aim for Mars,
Send rockets to the rest;
We hope the Voyagers
Will find friends
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We’re not perfect,
We’re not even better
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If we keep our flaws,
And we own mortality
Then we’ll do all right
For legacy:
The joy in now
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C L Couch
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Water, Light, and Long Shutter Speeds
Photo by Ahmad Dirini on Unsplash
x
And Now It’s Time
(chronos in kairos)
And now it’s time
For something spiritual
Yes?
I’ve written about pills and cats
Not written together
I go to the first page each day
Thinking about soulful things
Soulful intentions, anyway
It’s not that I think the
Spirit’s far
Because she’s not
Or that I think I have to overcome
Mortal prevarication
Liking mortality, but I don’t think
It’s that
I’ll take each day I have, thank you
Something supernal’s coming
I have next to
No idea what
I wonder if the spiritual
Is under the skin
And hovering above
Deep enough for blood
In the air for breathing, too
Now I think about it, how distinctive must
The portions be?
Not to say against
Those who must have
Food separated on the plate
Though I like pushing peas against the
Mashed potatoes
I think also to say for me, perhaps for
You that
Spirit and soul, flesh and energy
The kind of energy
By Blake rightly claimed
Eternal delight
All things must be meshed together
Somehow living in this state
Today and I think
In the resolution of eternity
C L Couch
Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash
Here we learned how to make traditional Chinese dumplings from scratch. Our group of 16 people each had a task to do and it was an assembling line for dumpling production. A beautiful procedure . . .
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