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The Problem of Pain

(x = space)

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The Problem of Pain

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It keeps other things

From happening

It freezes us

In case the next move

Should hurt more

We get caught up in

Indictment and

In judgment

We want the world

To stop hurting so much

This way

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A muscle pain

We can get over

Even headaches can be

Resolved (at worst,

through wishful-thinking

maybe Ice

maybe thinking

about ice)

But pain offers no answer

To itself

Perhaps because the

Only resolution is

From outside

From someone else

Who gets it

And who cares without a fee

With no assurance

Of divine guarantee

The odds say we’ll get over it

The odds say

That we don’t

There are too many ways

Of counting

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Pain leaps us into an unknown

A life without

An anchor except the one

We do not want

And can’t control

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Let it go

Let go life

Not at all to die

But in waiting

And in waiting

Doctors without doubt,

If it’s that kind

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But this, the kind

That wears the soul away

Wait

And wait

And try to live

Fractured, meantime

Until someone takes hold

In a way that angels and grace

Have not offered

On this side

So much

Except perhaps

In mystics

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C L Couch

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The Problem of Pain is a popular treatise by C. S. Lewis.  A more narrative response to the problem is his A Grief Observed.

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Photo by Oleg Laptev on Unsplash

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Childhood’s Beginning

(x = space)

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Childhood’s Beginning

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Here is the litany of complaints:

My back hurts;

I’m tired;

I’m tired of my back hurting

And my feet

And sometimes my left shoulder

And the headaches

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I should soak my feet in

Medicated water,

Something like the

Still water

We are promised in

The company of the Lord

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You have a list,

I’m sure

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And I mean to be respectful,

But sometimes

The child’s cry is stronger than the

Grown-up’s

Sense of things; and

We should listen to

The child,

The plaintive child,

The honest child

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Sometimes it hurts—

That’s all there is

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C L Couch

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A Silent Little Girl Looks at Camera

Photo by Assad Tanoli on Unsplash

Lassan Thakral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

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English teacher’s note

Arthur C. Clarke wrote a novel called Childhood’s End.

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Bland Recovery

(x = space)

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Bland Recovery

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I was hoping

I’d feel better

Even with the brace

I couldn’t find

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I was hoping

I could cross my legs

To write

And not pay for it,

Afterward

With added pain

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Here I am on

The fifth Saturday

Wishing it would

Go away,

Wishing that

Too much would

Go away

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Well, I can walk

On it but then

I wear it out

And it wants to cry,

To complain

About injustice

And why it should

Be me

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Time to think

About the others,

Which sometimes

Is cold comfort

For why should

You hurt more

So that I feel less

And berate myself

For lack

Of sympathy?

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Sigh,

The days goes on

And I am in it

You’re there, too,

Most likely with

Your greater pain

And I’m sorry,

Really am

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I hope we are

Forgiven for

All the nothing we

Have done

To warrant pain

As punishment

And the lessons others

Will impose

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Our pain an object—then

An object lesson

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ginny Rose Stewart on Unsplash

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If All Were a Leg

(x = space)

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If All Were a Leg

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The pain is rising from

My foot and

Shooting through my leg,

Because my leg is trying

To replace my ankle

While

Doing its own job

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Not working out so well

I think my ankle’s

Bored, and my leg doesn’t

Need a second job

So

Here’s hoping everything

Will have its own back

Soon,

Because healing has the overarching

Task of taking chaos due to injury:

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To signal a

Rearranging necessary

For the moment, which is

Fragile,

Toward a time when the body will be

Less

Sore and

More sensible for managing

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C L Couch

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17 If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? . . . 20 Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. 21 The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

1 Corinthians 12:17, 20-21

New Living Translation

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Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

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Wednesday Diagnosis

(x = space)

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Wednesday Diagnosis

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I’ll see the doctor today

At 2:20

A friend will drive me there

The pain is sharp

And then it’s dull

The dull kind, naturally enough,

Harder for persistence

Making

Night

Difficult and ongoing,

Rest made into

Dreamless chore

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But one thing I have forgotten

In sharing what is going

On with me,

And that is to ask of you

How are you?

What’s happening with you?

I hope that you are well

And having a fine day

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I had a student

Who entered buoyantly

Each Wednesday day,

It’s hump day! she would cry

Each time

And now I think of her

Each time

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C L Couch

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A ball of energy with electricity beaming all over the place.

Photo by HalGatewood.com on Unsplash

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The Telling

(x = space)

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The Telling

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Pain and need

And maybe quotidian pleasures

This is a lifestyle

And it could be worse

It is, I know

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Which means it is all maudlin

From time to time

Though sometimes

Easygoing

When meeting with friends

Or hearing someone else’s story

God bless the phone

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And should there be

Accomplishment,

Not quite

An accident of birth

Then gratitude should follow

With what might be appropriate

Surprise

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But don’t we grow each day?

I like to think so

Maybe it’s a matter

Of discretion,

Not today I will be brilliant

But I’m writing and I’m reading

I’m listening

So closely sometimes

The grinding of old Earth

Is heard

The motion, twenty hours at a time,

Is felt vibrating ‘neath the heart

In the center

Of synapse

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We grow, we also

Slow down

Three score and ten

I hope we take it with us

To the next stage,

Arriving in time

To be useful there

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C L Couch

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Photo by Omar Mohiuddin on Unsplash

Pakistan

(there is a painting by Turner of a moving train that this reminds me of

and, yes, there is a reference to Star Trek here–in the words, that is)

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During Great Pain

(x = space)

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During Great Pain

(preempting Ms. Dickinson)

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In the ‘midst of pain

There is no formal feeling

It hurts is not a great pronouncement

One could, when it’s bad,

Wish to call up the carriage

That Death provides,

Though that arrival should be way,

Way off

And when it’s time

Will call up itself

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No, this is pain

That ends with mortal life ahead

But now the middle time’s invested

Having begun some time ago

Has an ending to which to look forward

And now

Is now

The beginning and the ending

That don’t matter

As this moment

When we wish it  had

Never happened

If there’s awareness

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Or we simply want it

To go away

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C L Couch

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Sobieszewo, Gdańsk, Polska

Remaining.

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n.b.

n.b.

(“note well” but note however you like)

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I’m sorry, but for a while I’ve been dealing with new pain of a sort that feels as if it wants to cut me in two.  I go to the doctor’s on Friday and a specialist in two weeks.  This has been claiming too much of my energy and my concentration.  I still try to commit to writing and posting, but I’m behind on other things such as being in touch with responders. I’m sorry.

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Christopher

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Greyson Joralemon

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When It Hurts to Live

When It Hurts to Live

 

Well, I’ve been smacked down

By those who say, I do not care

I will not get involved

Happened again, just now

There’s money on the line and

The having of it

Me more than you

Is what matters,

The currency in hell

It doesn’t have to be

It can simply be a resource

But you’ve heard of moneychangers

I must go

Where it will always matter

Where there will be a wilderness

Atop the one that values Earth

And first-making

 

I don’t know how to make my way

I’m with the eccentric saint (and

aren’t all the saints?) who says

I have no idea where I am going

 

But if you will, dear one, if only at a distance,

I’ll come with

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

 

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