poem

the inside work that is our own

so God
and shall we believe
and
we don’t have to
that’s the reality
of
will
which we know from looking back
at choices we have made
all our own
as well as
looking in the now when we decide
what’s
coming now and most likely
into next

and this is different
from God-sense
in
things
we know but do not know
from what there is and what could be

I mean
we dream
we intuit
we use all sorts of abstract notions
from
abilities that don’t require muscle
but synapse

and yet we think God
too far from us
for
being not material
except for sometimes roses
in the faithful’s
coat

which becomes a story of
someone else’s meaning
which
we might
take to hear or
not

that’s up to us

as what the most important is
ideas
wishes
wills
not of the wisp but
of our souls
the more important unmaterial
part

c l couch

photo by Karl Raymund Catabas on Unsplash

fair children
(because I started Tuesday)

Mundy
like Grundy
and
that sad
poem

imposed on children
for
the learning of the days of the week

like the A text in the primer
with
the other letters
that
trends toward grim
and imposing

daunting
as it is doctrinal

and then what comes to mind
that seven-stages
speech
by Jaques in the play
that
is ironic
and I think so bitter

like
the speech on Yorick without
the humor
however darkly
to
receive

how often to be cynical
by art

how often
to be turned toward empty
cubicles of thinking
of
resistance unapplied toward
better thought
even
of joy
to be alive if
yes
I know it’s hard
from time to time
and
some of us
it seems
by style

so Monday’s child
fair of
face
and is there beauty on the Earth
and inside

and where is fair
but as we think and feel
and act

which all seems obvious
I know
like
great
truths we all have heard
and maybe
can recite
yet get our governments with
the governing
the
governed
in
each one by each one
then corporate
actual
to apply
and so give fairness of the Earth
all
children of the Earth
a chance

c l couch

(New England Primer, As You Like It, Hamlet)

photo by Yannis H on Unsplash

good and gay

born on Sunday
though
there are other sabbath
days
if
Sunday seems to be the thing

bonnie
pretty
blithe
with elastic goodness
promising to last
to lengthen throughout life
like
the toils of Saturday’s
child

good as in moral
as
in making choices
to delight the
faithful
and confound the worldly

gay
that has been joyful
and still

such a child
always
a child with the rest and so
to grow up with these qualities

yet
shall we say
only
a rhyme that indicates devices
learning days

or
and as
the qualities set
for
these and as the week is covered
for us all
to consider when we’re placed
and so how
we’ll
live

though the magic more so
remains in decisions
that is to say
and
as you
dear
know
in the will of each and every

c l couch

here’s the verse as I remember

Monday’s child is fair of face;
Tuesday’s child is full of grace;
Wednesday’s child is full of woe;
Thursday’s child has far to go;
Friday’s child is loving and giving;
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
but the child who’s born on the Sabbath day
is bonnie and blithe and good and gay.

(easier or more difficult for the Sabbath child?)

photo by Allec Gomes on Unsplash


the day you were born

according to the calendar
and I’ve checked
it more
than once
I was a Thursday child
and so had far
to go

which is a mystery at
least
to me

for
don’t we all have far to go
to get somewhere
in life and maybe
afterlife

in face
that after this is done
does not the distance unfold
grandly
for each one
and
all

so what is far to go
maybe
far to go for satisfaction
for fullness
in breathing and work
(the
work of breathing)
or
maybe for
philosophy to gain and so to carry
through
the trials of thought and feeling
faced in the world

wondrous
fallen

virtuous
Calvinistically depraved

pursuit beyond a declaration
for a nation
or
to help secure it for others
affirm at least when
despotry breaks in
then
attempting to persist

so maybe it is
freedom
and the distance we all have to go
in
service to others
and ourselves
in that

somewhere is far to go
at any rate
metaphor for what’s ahead
and
an assurance that little will happen toward
instant completion


loving and giving

for
Friday’s child
so says
the rhyme

loving and giving as if
starting qualities and to
sustain through
live
and to go for everything that’s needed
to keep going in this way
through
all the time and all phenomena
that happen

requiring
a bounty
I should think of
faith
and confidence
to have the wherewithal for these

and to secure the job
that funds the giving
and
might fortify the loving

so
where should Friday be if not
in a good place and
with resources
all
the time

so who loves and gives in Ukraine
just now or
Gaza
or pick a torn-up
place where one is likely to lose all
and
have to flee
get wounds bound up
also
to deal with loss of health
and companionship
of
family

as well as neighborhood and one’s identity
not only of the circles as
they Venn
but of the single
self
that comes at the beginning and then
knows the joining with the rest

somehow
I think
Bonhoeffer
managed loving and giving through
the rise
the war
the horrors
and the sacrifice of
life

like the prayer of thanks
not
to be a guard
and more so for the pastor’s life
to give it
in the camp so that another
person
live

and so the living and the giving
the worst in the world
plus
the best in spirit

and so
in surfeit or in want
the capacities
for each to
live
as Friday


c l couch


Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian who was imprisoned and killed in World War 2


photograph by Jon Tyson at Unsplash
VIA SACRA

full of grace

Tuesday’s child
what
kind of grace
I wonder

doctrinal or
looks or
manners as in good at dinner
or knows the steps
for
a party

maybe it’s the kind of luck
that person shall
have
the good kind if not
grand
as things fall together

for school
or work
or family
by belief the certainty of heaven
after

such an afterlife secured for
in feeling by the clear and
dovetailed angel
management
of
life

full of woe
(a Wednesday poem)

finally
some color outside both windows

nothing brilliant but
tingeworthy

and shall there be honest fall
or shall this aspect of climate change

cause too many to fall brown and
withered

from too-soon dessicated
branches the season

unseasonal
went

too hot too long
for riotous autumnal virtue

c l couch

photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash
Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival 2018

invocationing

I pray
for you

for my niece
and her brother
and
her parents

for the healing of my brother
after
surgery

for continued success
in sibling and grand-sibling
lives

I pray for peace

but more immediately for
binding wounds in
Gaza
and Ukraine
in
Myanmar
Tibet

and for this nation that it heal
in all the needed and
surprising ways
not
by bringing home the military to
enforce
unconstitutionally
and
we remember founding documents
in
establishing
policy and practice

affirmation
action
toward the three things guaranteed
in a declaration
leading to a war of sacrifice
to make
and keep us as that great experiment
in democracy

you know
I think you know

so
I also pray for strangers
names I know
and don’t
groups

and for those loving impositions
values
in treating fair
respecting lives
all
colors of the outside
plus
you know
the sameness on the inside

pray
for differences
and similarities
as
both are needed for a person
family
community
nation and we may look out
to take in
the versatility of the cosmos
with
what goes the same
and all uniquenesses discovered

for
one
and for the Earth
and far beyond
and really close inside
amen

c l couch

photo by Ben Gillam on Unsplash

sabbath call

and Sunday is for God to rest
or how you count
could be
another day

the seventh
and I just heard it might be only once
for God
after creating
and
thus also
a model for the rest of us
once here to take that seventh day
ourselves and by directive
slowly
breathe
and without doubt
to
rest

and
well
I hope it’s God and us who rest
each time
since creating is a constant
and should not the breath of God
go easy for God
too
at
times
say
once a week

c l couch

photo by Frankie Cordoba on Unsplash