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Catechesis, Parts 1 and 2

(x = space)

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Catechesis, Part 1

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questions

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I got up in time,

Sort of

How did you do?

Is it a good day?

Are things going well?

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I missed my turn at prayer

The group went on

And I hope the quiet praying

Counted

I don’t know the protocols

On Earth, in heaven

So well

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I fact,

When I feel my tether pulled,

So to speak,

On Earth or heaven,

I ask, existentially

What do you want of me?

And Who are you?

Asking anything of me

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Not that I take it amiss

I have time

Enough lack of direction

That I may respond happily,

Given

Something good to do

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Catechesis, Part 2

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answers

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You are God,

I think,

Maker of all things

That must mean good and bad

Downright evil

Or so frustrating that

Some of us

Might want

To scream and do

So you are the God

Of good things and bad things

And evil things

Supposing the delightful things as well

Spring and picnics in good weather,

Cool water, wine,

And sex

Beside still waters

(metaphorically at least)

You are with us

In all things,

Somehow excused of voyeurism,

Which might be why

The seraphim have so many eyes apiece

So that one eye or another

Might be closed

With no loss to function, overall

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Anyway,

You want of us to love

To love you

To accept love from you,

Which isn’t a done deal

You know, during

Those awful times

When so much has been lost

To the dark

Forever night

Without night’s comforts

‘Til a white sun rises over day,

All our empty landscapes

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You are there

Maybe we’ll excuse this

One way or the other

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C L Couch

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Photo by Avery D’Alessandro on Unsplash

Brugge, Belgium

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The Listing House

(x = space)

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The Listing House

(have fun—it’s Friday)

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They’re everywhere

I cannot tell

The open places anymore

For anytime I open something

Door or drawer

I encounter lists

And that’s all

Whenever I come across

The refrigerator handle

(now and then)

I pull and find inside

Only reminders on paper of

What I meant to buy

At the store

There is no desk

Or dresser drawer that’s safe

And sometime the house

Will lean over

Or sink in the center

To greet the ground more closely

Maybe to find what is

Beneath

I know, we have machines

But it’s been so much easier

To find a scrap and use the pen

I carry in my pocket

But here’s the thing:

I make the list

Then leave it behind

Think I will change,

I create then leave another

Now there is no space

For what I’d find

Should I consult the paper,

After all

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I think it all will

Weigh out in the middle

The house will fall like Usher’s

Into the tarn of Main Street

And hell for me

Will be an inferno

Constantly

Ignited from

The lists I made in life

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C L Couch

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Photo by Eniko Polgar on Unsplash

Bodie, United States

Desert Ghost Town

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Istanbul

(x = space)

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Istanbul

(Yankee perspective)

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How colorful the lamps

For sale in the bazaar

I’m not sure how their talents

Transliterate back home

Where so much

Is right-angled

And pastel

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One lamp of these lamps

Could shine over

Our obligatory book of a thousand tales

If not a treatise on the origin

Of mathematics

Or astronomy,

Right knowledge

That made protraction possible

Right angles

As well as acute, obtuse

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A world worked out

Until the rough-edged stories

Like the roc that swallows interlopers

In the lore

Come to roost

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C L Couch

(Yankee)

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Pádraig

(x = space)

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Pádraig

(17 March)

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His family lived in France

Kidnapped to Ireland,

He spent sustaining, growing years

The best that can be done

In captivity

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One day he was told by God

To leave, to walk down

To the boat

And on the boat

And leave

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Once back in France,

Reunited more or less,

He heard the calling to return

Actually, a note

From the bishop

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He had no place in mainland

Europe anymore

Where no one knew him

Or his snake-free ways

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He evangelized,

And his message

Did not curse

The culture, the truth

And the symbols

In its age

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He used what was there,

The shamrock

As Brigid uses straw

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Ireland, through

Reason and through art,

Converted

Or co-merged, the ancient

With less ancient

While the bishop

And God smiled

To make arrangements

Somewhere else for what

Might have been

Indigenous serpents

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C L Couch

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By Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33260482

Tullow Church of the Most Holy Rosary, South Transept Window

Detail of the glass door that extends the stained glass window of the Immaculata above it to the floor, depicting Brigid’s Cross and oak leaves. No signature was found on the window.

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La Bohème

(x = space)

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La Bohème

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We cannot tell the good

From black or white

That’s clothing

Or how the clouds come at us

From the sky

Or day or night

Night or day

The priority is

Having clothes to wear

To feel secure

Safe from certain elements

That challenge us throughout the day

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And we need air and food

A way to get around

Space for living and for working

For a Bohemian

The garret’s all the same

And prophesies pandemics

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C L Couch

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Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

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The Famous Ides

(x = space)

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The Famous Ides

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Watch out, Caesar,

This is a bad day for you

Stay at home

There is a pandemic

Feeling against you

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He ignores us

Like the chorus that

Sees and analyzes all

And is ignored,

Like Cassandra

Whose prophecies are true

And are ignored

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These are plays and stories:

What do dictators know

But what we know

Is a gospel

From a god

And your counsel might be sound,

But I shall ignore you

Because my vision

And my words

My will

Must be greater than the rest

Up ahead, the senate chamber

Waits for declarations

From their general,

Their god,

As good as emperor

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C L Couch

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Batna, Algeria

Roman Ruins

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Tell the Beadle

(x = space)

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Tell the Beadle

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I had church today with friends

Five hundred miles from here,

And I am thankful

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I’m not sure what it means or

How it counts, and I guess mostly

I don’t care

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There was prayer and conversation,

And God was mentioned many

Times and Jesus

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I think if there were an attendance

Book, our names could be

Fairly entered

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As it is, computers have recorded

In theirs pathways our participation so

Cybernetic stars

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C L Couch

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Sayq, Ad Dakhiliyah ‍Governorate, Oman

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While in Mariana’s Grange

(x = space)

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While in Mariana’s Grange

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Hello, day

It’s been a night of wakefulness

Then I drifted off

Onto waters of forgetfulness

Except for dreams

That now I’m here

I am forgetting, too

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But here’s remembrance:

I’m waking up

To what I left

And whom

There is no ignorance

Everything returns

I must learn again

How to contain

In flesh

Everything I bear

And had left

Only for a while

For angels lifting up

And demons bearing down

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C L Couch

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Mariana in the Moated Grange

John Everett Millais

painting dated 1851

the image is in the Public Domain

the painting hangs in the Tate in London

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Missing Magic

(x = space)

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Missing Magic

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Well, that was a clutter

Messages, groceries by the door

Coffeemaker, toaster

Mail

And nearly all of it

I slept through

Catching the final beep

From the phone

Signaling that

So many things had happened

In my Prufrock world

I don’t have a peach

And the part is in the middle

I’ve only heard the mermaid sing

In the Disney movie

But there is color outside

And cool air to breathe

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And I shall go

Not

To strive or find

Yes, not

To yield

I doubt there will be a grail,

Either

Or a dragon

And if a dragon, we should

Become acquainted

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C L Couch

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Photo by Artiom Vallat on Unsplash

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