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Good Christmas Friday

Good Christmas Friday

 

Christmas day on Sunday

And in my reformed way,

I feel a new triduum

 

But what to mourn tomorrow?

All the peace that has not

Happened

In the world

Peace on Earth

Worthy of a Tolkien epic

Or a Lewis telling

 

Inklings remembered, a new

Generation nonetheless

Is calling:

 

Severing war ties in the cosmos

Sewing threads

Into the weave of conflict

 

To wear retaining

Wisdom, the innocence in

Relented cynicism

 

The hopes of open-tomb-like

Understanding

Embraces resurrected

Sibling salvation

 

Let us share—let us keep—an

Earthbound feast

 

All

Holy days reconciled

In time

 

C L Couch

11, 11 (11)

11, 11 (11)

 

Today is Veterans Day.

Armistice Day in Europe.

Remembrance

Day.  Red poppies to honor

Flanders Field.

 

Recalling that peace,

Even

At great cost, is better.

Better than victory.

 

C L Couch

 

Saint Francis and the Animals

Saint Francis and the Animals

(4 October)

 

Eight hundred years

Ago in the

Middle part of Italy,

 

A person walked and others

Walked with him

 

But when he tried to preach

No one would hear;

So he spoke his message

Unto the birds

The raccoons (in my telling)

And all things that crept

Or flew through the air

 

He would return to people:

He visited the pope

He met with the sultan of

The Muslim warriors who

Fought in Jerusalem,

 

Because he hoped

That peace as a cause

Might overwhelm

The rest

That keeps

Getting in our way

This Is What I Care About

This Is What I Care About

 

This is what I care about

Family—three brothers, sister,

Brother-in-law, sisters-in-law,

Too

 

Niece and nephews, two

Children in the next generation

Four dogs for now, no cats

I know of (since mine died)

 

Friends—those who have

Work and those who need it,

Who are healthy and who

Struggle to get through the

Day without so much pain

 

Neighbors—those who make

Up my community and those

Who try to disfigure it

 

Peace that hardly yet prevails

Love and grace that it might

Abound

 

God who doesn’t need me

But regards me as one part

Of creation, anyway

 

And you

 

For so many reasons

 

For I know that you care, too

In Memoriam 17 March

In Memoriam 17 March

 

I miss you, friend

I drank scotch (not Jameson’s)

At your wake

 

You always liked this day

When we celebrate the troubles

And pray through beer for

 

Peace—you are in heaven, now

While I remain on a

Purgatory of earth

 

I believe; and I hope to see

You someday, which is more

Of an Amish than an Irish

 

Thing to say

Be in peace and joy and all

Green in forever living

31 January 2016 (in the global north)

31 January 2016
(in the global north)

I still wake up with jittery feelings. The sun is bright. The snow is melting down. Maybe I need it gone. But is that the boundary of my fear? I sit and look outside to see the beauty. I am inspired to come back and write a verse of two. Still, fear jumps inside me. At least it doesn’t leap. I’ll feel better, once I write a bit. Drink a hot drink, maybe take a pill or two pills. I know that on a good day my heart still operates in an iffy way. I know that what happened here was momentous. It’s momentous, still, outside. As in ancient Arabian architecture, I cherish space and righter light. Not simply looking out into amorphous glare. Rather the view of a virtuously bright and blue-skied world above with earth of desert browns beneath. Through arches made of genius and of grace, numbering the stars within each stone’s embrace.

I dream this is all easier, if not delightful, in a desert paradisal scene. Where arid becomes beautiful and free air moves through all, spirits borne and carried along. Maybe heaven’s healing wind will pause and wave upon me there, and I will feel and know something of the serene aspect of God.

Too much romance and earthly-bound, I know. But I need this. My fear frankly needs it, as does my hope and peace.

Christmas

Christmas

Christmas
the mass of Christ
mass means together

we value peace on this day
many in a non-sectarian way;
silence prevails
though there will be those
who’ll try to ruin it

what can we say?
Christians might say
that Christ came down to earth
or came up
or came from all around

to buy peace, yes, and offer
of salvation, a ransom for the
sins of all—this is how our
lesson goes

must we enjoy belief in this
to have peace at this time?
I think we know the answer’s no

Preferred, maybe, by the sect
though God’s peace
is offered up as God’s preference
everywhere, for all

if you know John three-sixteen,
please read through seventeen—
and all have a glorious, peace-filled
Christmas day

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