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Unburied Life

Unburied Life

 

He wrote about armies

Fighting at midnight

Unable to tell friend from foe

Because of darkness

Sound familiar?

It might as well

When we fight, we own new

Ignorance of combatants

One human to another

Well, we can tell, someone will say

We have technology

But protocols and fail-safes fail

And that’s not what I mean

I speak to you and me

Wondering about our chances

When we go up

Against each other

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Dover Beach” and “The Buried Life” are poems by Matthew Arnold, British social critic of the nineteenth century.

 

Image by Marei Sellin from Pixabay

 

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Recollect

Recollect

 

Sometimes the spirit isn’t there

The pressure of zeitgeist,

Although, maintaining

Sometimes it’s just a mortal day

With bread that burns and

Coffee spills,

Liquid things that stain

It’s a day for paying money that

Might or might not exist

(such is the way of penury

to make us all impoverished

mischiefs), though we have to

Try something

 

But then

The spirit’s always there

Always here

God is inclined to stay

Underneath the window sill

Or in the corner where

We pushed the table

(insert a cartoon image)

Ready to intrude

But staying everything

For reason and for love

Until we scrape the bread

And remember that in many places

Still

We can always raise the sash

Or make space in the corner

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Nadia Valko on Unsplash

 

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Cool Runnings

Cool Runnings

 

It’s another dark day

Outside not inside

Inside the lamps are lit

Casting glows that make

Me think of a winter day

Someone should be telling

Stories next to the

Fire (there is no fireplace)

At least it will be a day

For imagination

Summer is a few days away

The forecast calls for

Temperatures in the eighties

But inside I will think

Of cold

Of wanderers across a frozen

Waste of buried land, aiming for

A rescue so that there

Might be a chance of home

After the questing’s done

It’s a day for a lengthy

Story

Maybe you will join me

Tell me yours

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image of Diana Wall

By Byron Adams – Portrait, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48699119

 

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Settle Down

Settle Down

 

I feel the presence

Noun without a pronoun

Deserving all descriptors

Even ones that might not

Sound so nice

Remembering that while God

Is a friend, God is

Worthy of all fear and respect

It’s Sunday, but it could be Monday

Any day

I guess maybe I slowed up a little

As Christians in the USA sometimes

Do, the day made even

Quieter by the promise of rain

Darkening the sky and

Limiting light on the street

So nature helps

With something we might find

Inconvenient,

Waiting for the rain

And then the rain

 

I’m stretching out my lower back

A little

While I think

While looking at the darkened sky

The leaves a darker color, too

Second verse, I think

No coded needed or repeat

Let’s enjoy this moment

As a present thing

And as something given

(two-parts gift)

By everything that’s come before with

Some attuning to new day

 

C L Couch

 

 

The Beethoven monument at the Donauinsel remembers Beethoven’s symphony No. 5.

Herzi Pinki – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41427679

 

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Giveth

Giveth

 

I’d rather write about how

The gift of God is

Given on this day in the first

Moment

It is the day itself and more

Opportunities in time

In a culture of newness

So that good things might grow

I know we think of cultures

(the kind in Petri dishes)

For disease

But we might also harvest and

Turn (as on a potter’s wheel)

Cures,

Once everything is studied

And we prudently co-try

Many things

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by PDPics from Pixabay

 

3

Day 181

Day 181

 

It’s Friday afternoon

Day 180’s passing

And so the children should be

Out of school for summer

Last rides in yellow buses

For a while

 

They can populate the stores

For a time

And visit in each residence

Pets should be happier

For the company

And lemonade or something like

Becomes a commodity

 

I don’t mean to say

It’s all sugary

Some will need work,

Too many will go hungry

There will be

Pain from separations of all kinds

 

But some will take trips

They will enjoy

And though not expressed,

Wear a new kind of gratitude

 

As a child,

My summers weren’t idyllic

But I couldn’t help from time to time

First relief, then

Reveling in freedom

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Luiz Guimaraes on Unsplash

 

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doubt

doubt

 

doubt’s okay

where would we be without it

the buttons might

be popping off our vests

(and they might be nice buttons)

 

the parent before Jesus

who asked for healing

for the child whose

demon threw the child

into fire and water

 

Jesus replies, if you have faith

the parent cries,

I believe

and I have doubt

and churlish to say

help me with my unbelief

 

and you know what happens next

is that

the child is healed

the upstart comments of

the dad or mom

the bolt of lack of faith

somehow

finding home

 

it must be all right

to doubt

to wonder if we have it all

everything we need to know

or that the world

as it’s known

with all the ways we think about

the world

 

are enough

are in fact

perfect in our thinking

and devotion

 

is it a wonder

that the wind

is both invisible

and forceful

 

there is confidence

although in the desert

on the ocean

wind might falter

so might we

 

c l couch

 

 

 

Sailors aboard the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) spot a life raft at sea near Bermuda after being called for assistance by the U.S. Coast Guard.

U.S. Navy photo by Journalist 2nd Class J. Maurer.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8170538

 

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A Cycle of Faith

A Cycle of Faith

 

Seasons move

And then return

Though nothing stays the same

There is a year and then another, and

Each moment, each molecule is new

There is a cycle

But like the one on wheels

It covers new ground when it must

Or when we like

There is a degree of choice

Stay where we belong

That’s good in town

Strike out anew when we are away

And a wide, open road unreels

Beneath us

 

We believe

What we believe

Does it cycle like the year?

We have it, then we let it go

Like distractions of the seasons

We may like a

Philosophy at home

But then the alarm goes off

There’s smoke

And we run away

Smart move

 

What scared us away

Fear of fire, as it should frighten us

But when fire is a thought

Maybe we decide

 

When I was in school, I read philosophy

I read more now

Not to prevaricate, it isn’t all

The mind

The rest of us makes choices, too

Have you never felt it?

 

Pheromones, some might say

Or other such attraction

Call it a cause, even

Somewhere the heart must stir

It doesn’t have to be

Against the rest of us

 

There’s ritual:

That can get us far

It will not fill up all the years

It shouldn’t have to

All our lives can’t be spent in the temple

Unless that’s our job

And even so

Life outside is necessary

Air outside is different

When it moves

 

So there are factors

And ingredients

With the passing of time

Ineluctable

We choose

And we have faith

Or not

Don’t deny the power that’s in

Miracles or tragedy

Trauma of the ages

In our spirit

Tragedy through time

We think we’re the only one

And we are

Now we’re not

Here comes the sun

The rain on all of us

It’s all right

 

Do you marvel now

We can be moved?

It comes and goes

We need the respites in between

But does it grow

Like arches should we walk upon

An aqueduct in the other way

Toward the source of water

 

The spire grows, if on a side

The arches take us somewhere

Toward the origin

The start of creation, we might say

But the aqueduct’s not made for us

Ours goes the other way

The spire toward the future grows

 

And so the cycle breaks

Its rim cannot hold

We are better than our borders

And, like Aslan, should be

On the move

 

C L Couch

 

 

Luis Rogelio HM – Merida – 045, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72766771

 

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Doxology

Doxology

 

I sin

You sin

We all sin

There’s probably a nursery rhyme about it

It can’t not happen, I suppose

Not on this side of things

In heaven, maybe not

But wasn’t there a war there,

And is it done?

 

The evil that we do

(the sin)

When it becomes a habit,

Then a calling

Well, we’re done, I guess

And yet the wreckage might go on and on

Destruction of the spirit

With victims, all around

 

There is one sin unforgivable

I try not to be clever

But it seems to me to be denial

Of the Spirit of God at work in the world

And the presence of God, at all

A self-fulfilling condemnation

With no room for grace

No allowance for salvation

The humility and openness

The human soul requires

 

God cannot laugh this off

It must bring pain to God

Who would rather love

Us than do anything

In all creation

It’s how creation’s biased

In the very making

And the keeping of it

 

We can’t live happily ever after

If at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

Old 100th

Unknown – attributed to Louis Bourgeois (1510-1561) – 1551 Genevan psalter, typeset by the Mutopia Project, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6885924

 

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