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praise

Gospel According to the Birds

(x = space)

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Gospel According to the Birds

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Books are wonderful

Black tracks across the page

Birds to say

There’s something here

Someone inked our talons

And we have walked on lines

Somehow

And there’s a message

Someone overheard a gospel

Before we were

Put back on our branches

Ancient pens

And when we’re gone

Our larger feathers go to humans

Who are

Surprised by grace

To leave a message

Whispers of angels

Like the ones who took their wings

To guide us

In our flights across the page

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They take the credit

Though we guess it is their story

More than ours

We need to messages

No gospels

We emerge into life

Knowing how to fly

How to listen to impulses

The small glories

We would never hide

Or cease in all our starts and stops

From praising the creator

You can hear us

Humans

Our song is perfect

Without lessons

Or egos

Or prevarications

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We could say praise us

In our stories

We know better

Without knowing

We fly

We sing

We know

God loves us

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What is made by birds walking across skin that has a third opportunity?

The answer is a page whose words resemble tracks upon vellum made by animals once alive, whose skin is stretched for a second chance at life, so to say, bearing a story now to offer life for a third time, especially if the story be a gospel.

This is the kind of riddle that literate medieval people enjoyed together, literate meaning mostly monks, the kind who kept texts that had not been destroyed in the fall, thus saving what was left and what could feed into new nourishing, again to say, mostly in Europe a new civilization

The birds talking is not typical back then but my idea now.  And Aesop.  And Aristophanes.

Sorry, teacher can’t stop chirping.

Old English riddles are found in The Exeter Book, a volume discovered that had served as a coaster and something for impatience to glide a knife into (or why anyone would drive a knife into, along a book).  A not-hiding glory to be plainly found, opened, and discovered.

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Photo by Mehdi Sepehri on Unsplash

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Mille Grazie per Preghiera

(x = space)

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Mille Grazie per Preghiera

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I feel as if

I should offer

A prayer

To God

For something

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Gratitude

Confession

Promise or

At least desire

To do better

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Petition,

Intercession

Plus my own things

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I’m not sure

How that’s the praise

That’s called for

While it seems

Mostly like complaining

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Except to say thank you;

Maybe there’s praise

In that

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C L Couch

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Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

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sorry for any Italian language that I broke

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thank you

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A Song for Those Who Don’t Have Much of Anything

A Song for Those Who Don’t Have Much of Anything

 

I don’t know how to praise you

I am not qualified

I am a ball of sin and regret

Smooth outside, worn

By experience and cynicism

What can I do

That you would want?

What kind of words

What kind of song

What kind of dance?

How would you want me glorifying you?

I can’t see it

My senses dulled

My spirit raw

My hope has fled like the bird who

Is at least is credited with impulse

I have no church organ here

(my neighbors thank me in absentia

for what is absent)

I do not sing

I do not practice

I do not dance (don’t ask me)

Unless you want a waltz

(or, faster, a polka)

I pray in silence, wondering from time to time

How much that counts

 

I cannot fathom what would please you

I am afraid to think on glory

For my failure at it

I leave my zeal mired below

 

Maybe I could read a song of David

Or of a prophet—Deborah? Ezekiel?

Tennyson? Nikki Giovanni? Sharon Olds?

Adrienne Rich?

Reaching for these was homework

Still bearing the cachet

Of lack of will

I read them on my own and more

I think they are beyond me, too

 

I could build something

I don’t have the talent

Sometimes I make something from

What is strewn around

These are on display

And are religious

Maybe extra credit

I could read speculation

Of a world that’s better

Help others do the same

Ursula K. Le Guin (The Word for World

Is Forest), Anthony Horowitz

(Raven’s Gate), Robin McKinley (The

Blue Sword)

Tennnyson again

(In Memoriam, that’s hard)

But the spirit-work’s already done by these

I should give something of my own

For all that it’s performance,

I’m not sure church has it, either

Though I won’t blame for trying

(for being trying, that’s

another story)

 

Maybe I will in my halting way

Land on something that will last

Enough for praise

And even pleasure

From the maker

Who counts sparrows and stems of hair

And might not reckon me

And mine

So bad

Close enough for jazz

Slender spiral of

What might pass for praise

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Amy Baugess on Unsplash

 

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Returning Gifts

Returning Gifts

 

Praise the Lord

And all that is in me praise the Lord

Or something like that

How can I praise such a thing as God

When I am such a thing as me?

To God be the glory

How can I glorify

When I am so small,

And my voice is broken?

I know the story of the smallest angel

In the movie, Fred Gwynne as

Mentor angel talks of his mother’s

Brown bread, when all

Were mortal

 

But in the young one

(newly angelified)

There is purity

And innocence to give

As gifts in the small box emblemize

What have I like these?

 

And wouldn’t I look at you

To say there is so much

Because there is—I

Guess I need to understand

That everything with life has worth

Even if itself it were a gift

I can turn it over

(so can you)

And that’s the act of service

And of love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay

The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell (1946)

 

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Jazz Mass

Jazz Mass

 

Syncopated praise

Offbeat words and rhythm

Liturgy and litany

We have our ways to get

Involved

 

Invocated presence in

Bright colors through the

Music that we see and

Feel as well as hear

 

All are especially welcome

Here, for come-as-you-are

Takes new meaning

 

That which is not day-by-

Day is especially

Welcome now and here

 

It’s all right, though, the

Day-by-day folk are

Welcome, too

 

Everything is solid, yes

Though with haze

Around the edges

A cloud of unknowing

Truths because all of

Us might not know

What note might be

Arriving next

 

What might be played

What might be heard

 

What might be

Received from God

Snapping fingers,

Tapping toes, humming

As if the tone were

Sitting right with us

 

Because it is

 

And we might be

Changed for this time

Of many times—6/8,

4/4, 5/4, 7/8—however

It Gospel-goes

 

Out of the blue

Out of the blues

 

 

(a contemporary form of

Christian worship)

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Psalm 7, a small song of praise

Psalm 7
a small song of praise

Praise you, Lord, for
Three-legged cats that
Are still great birders
And dogs with broken backs
That can still run the length
Of the yard

Praise you for hearts that
Still work, even after surgeries
That won’t fix everything
Completely and forever

Praise you for liberal-arts degrees
And mini-strokes and all
The things that make us strange

Praise you, Lord, for I am strange
And yet you love me, still, and
Maybe even more

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