a life only for Teresa
miracle
like so many products
and
mystery
like so many books
and plays
becoming movies
miracle
and mystery
foundations for
an extraordinary life
of
visions
mountaintop
and valley encounters in
the world
but more so of
the Spirit that both inhabits and
visits
the attending and inquiring
soul
and
do we elevate in ecstasy
and what of those who
don’t go anywhere
but stay
below to pray and hope for on-the-ground
situations and
experience
those of us who do not move
who cannot leave
not
to paradise
or the next
town
who are tied where we are tied
and shall go to nowhere
save
to struggle like the caged
or otherwise enclosed
or simply call it
where we are
and where we work
for now
not
to leave with any notion of abandon
not
to go wild
but
to stay put until Parousia come for all
and so
free or encumbered
we might hope to know God
yet
must live where we are
between the peak
and the vale
hoping for
interior conviction for
a life of faith and
love
a life somehow material
and holy
c l couch
Saint Teresa de Ávila wrote The Interior Castle
photo by Florian Haun on Unsplash—I was out working for our local newspaper [photographer’s story]. The weather was clear in the beginning but changed quickly. I turned round and saw the hut called “Zimmereben” in the region of Mayrhofen/Zillertal/Tyrol. The black and white gives that photo a touch of mystery to.
by the skins of teeth
as time goes by
or on
more things become challenged
like
the center that can hold
no longer
as Yeats claims in a work and
Achebe citing Yeats a while after on
as
Achebe’s own
the challenged become challenges
which might be natural
though sets of
connotations
they
go negative
burdens to change
and burdens are
bad
so challenges should be avoidable
like
those
in the veneered way we eschew
anything above
below the line
I will say this for
barriers
that they might not be favorable
except as they announce
and
protect things
here
and there
great things
such as reefs of coral
as well as certain boundaries in outer space
needed
to sign
in here it is distinctive as community
there is a major purpose
whereas
cosmic diversity should be made
of these discretions
identity
vital
and then to know another’s
therefore
and shall we say for proof
that
challenges and barriers
are set
even haphazardly by the fixed math
randomness
and
the beneath-our-skin appreciation of chaos
let age make these keen
as in
more knowable
the things we understand and
things to do
that we know better now for
having looked at them
so normally
over
at last
enough time
to know dimensions and their purpose
and at long last
to know
how to apply the passwords
on stones
or in
skies so very long
as if the clues had been there from the start
as when something is
when something’s made
the truth of its reality
is there
is here
c l couch
The Skin Our of Teeth is the title of a play by Thornton Wilder, the title taken from the phrase first given in the Bible, Job 19:20
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is from “The Second Coming,” a poem by W. B. Yeats; later, Things Fall Apart was taken for the title of a novel by Chinua Achebe
here is a note I first wrote for myself about the poem (above): there is the failing in our efforts because we need things normal, regular; differences, then, along with diversity become challenges with challenges themselves as negative for being difficult—or maybe only different; but differences, challenges, barriers are all parts in creation and existence; and we would serve all these and ourselves better if we made positive allowances for these vital parts of what there is and who we are and what we have (and what we have to do)
photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash
(isn't it symmetrical; isn't it asymmetrical)
A Plain and Fancy War
I’ve made
Notations
On the weather
Even risking
A mood
Based on the same
While all the hundreds
Are new victims
Anywhere there’s war
Or war
On deck
As if to step up to
The devil’s plate
In a game against a team
From hell
And this is stupid
Reasoning
So far
Foolish metaphors
Of weather
And of games
While in the east of east
From here
And west in Asia
So much is brewing
Like
The witch’s
Stew
That at this time
Is also fanciful
All because
I do not want
To face
With my face
And what's behind it
The real death
The ghost of war
(un-
metaphor)
Come
To haunt again
And everything
That schemes with it
Famine
Hopelessness
Annihilation
Of the body
And the spirit
To win more souls
For hell
Though for now
It’s destruction
Literal
Destruction
That matters most
And
Yes
The devil’s work
In strategies
And I can’t keep from this
I guess
The rhetoric
The discourse
When we have no mouths
And if we had
What we would have said
Gone ignored
And then frankly
Horribly
Set
To detonate
And then
Explode
The tangling
Of war
The limbs
The lies
That both must soar
In gruesome pieces
Through the battlefield
Certainly before
And after
Without doubt
When
Generals and presidents
Defend
Without forfending
And this is one place
And there is more
In more
Places
With all the consequences
To the body
As we say
And the soul
Cliché for closeness
And the truth of things
We must have one
And have
The other
Losing one
Or both
A battle
On the plains
Or any parts of middle Earth
With all the forces
Human and human-like
Divine and like divine
Assembled
Frankly
Like Megiddo
And now
To consider
What shall happen
C L Couch
Photo by Zihao Wang on Unsplash
Shares
So
I’m sorry
I’ve been ranting
In the drafting
Anyone
(else)
Do that
Trying to de-poison first
So that there might be
Something healthy
As in virtuous
To say
That we are strong
When we are favorable
Toward
Each other
And the planet
That wellness is
As wellness does
And parentally
Sometimes
(at any
age)
For children
(of any age)
Bask in awareness of
Sunshine as good
And also clouds
Day
And night
Are sound
And should be left
To rise and fall
Unpolluted
Under which
Allow life
Even romance
(in life
again
at any age)
To dance
C L Couch
Photo by Leon Liu on Unsplash
Open Air
(a day for independence in the offing)
The wars go on
The war at home
Matters of manipulation
Clearly
We are way too comfortable
To bandy with the truth
Rather than considering the need
In each other
Then
Over there
Wherever there
We know
Might be
And if we don’t feel right
Inside/outside
And
What have you
We could always pause
Easing up
To take a breath that isn’t pressed upon
Free to assess
Who’s and what’s important
To find it isn’t politics
Pretenses toward power
But that the real
That isn’t on a screen
Or in an ad
Involves
Instead
A word
An act
Toward love
The smallest thing to do
To make a difference
Sometimes accumulative
A cascade formed
Like the surprise
To hear in water
Over rocks and such
Inside the forest where
Truth is kept
Inside the given
Green and blue
The authenticity in
Nature
Even though it claws
Sometimes
In truth
For protest
Of destruction
Life
Actual hurt
Real need
We can live for these
To answer these
With practicality and
This
Not politics
Or profit
Except
To serve
Rather
To call it love
C L Couch
(on 2 July)
Photo by Bri Tucker on Unsplash
(Holland, Michigan)
Out of Cosmogony
(that is, 2 poems from out of the arrangement of things, however fancifully)
The Place of Drones
Should someone set me
Atop
One tower or the other
Of the gate
On the bridge
That is not golden
Save in metaphor
Well
I better be an angel
Delighting in
The lack of restraint
Being so high
And so perilous
A perch
That I could slide
Down the cable
Or merely leap
Into the Lord’s
Good atmosphere
Between the particles
The humans
Tragically
Provide
And is this how
The angels
Who aren’t demons
Do it
Which is
To set themselves high
Or low
To have the better vantages
Scouting for assignments
Maybe the demons
Lie this way as well
With
Or without wings
Sacrificed
Mything Pages
And
Do I have
Anything for you
Today
How about
A word of God
That was a word
In the beginning
To make
Everything
Thus
Setting precedent
For spells
Inside fantastic
Stories
About making smaller
Things
Admittedly
Though wondrous
In eldritch hue
And timing
All the same
That
Someone said
Is the meaning behind miracles
The usual thing
And yet
The timing
Is extraordinary
Is saving
In fact
Of dwarves in trees
Or the royal child
Trapped in
The tower
Before
An evil pretender
With forces
Breaks into
The easily
Barricaded chamber
While such
Are stories
And creation
Is a story
Too
Recalling
That the myth
Is grounded
In the real
And our fantastic tellings
Overdone
Or undertoned
Are actual
When happening
Before becoming
Passages
And chapters
(John 1:1)
C L Couch
Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash
for once
(please or is it pleas)
if God
then God
come down
not only from the Christmas tree
but from every tall place
we cannot reach
or only with precarity
and up from every
deep dark place
we can imagine
not to mention woeful places
we cannot
and from left
or from the right
and then from the inside
where our own spirits
reside
with or without alliances
from the spirit
that moves everywhere
and with our will
might live
within us
God come from every place
every point
we measure
and beyond
and realize
please
for once
a real form
that we can see
from which we hear the voice
that we could taste
and close enough to smell
even to touch
with or without piercing points
for remembrance
or for proof
and be here for a while
we could have coffee
with or without
an armageddon
after
c l couch
photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash
“Christ Climbed Down” is a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, which I thought of when writing about God climbing ("come down")
practical peace
because
we won’t have peace naively
or stupidly
it must be practical
to be lasting
needs
wants
hopes
desires
visions
futures
should be secured
or all the awful
bloody
tiresome effort
will be wasted
good words
define
a map
could help
actions will prove
peace right
that we deserve it
and should have it
starting
with the victims
made before
we got to this
august place
and really mean it
by defining
by mapping
by our doing
it
the peace
we practice
everywhere
this time
C L Couch
photo in Berlin, Germany
by Norbert Braun on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
By Gosh
x
God
Sorry
God
You’re not sorry
In this way
I am
And I presume upon
Your
Intimateness
I seek your pardon and
Too often act
Assuming it
x
There is your mercy
For intention
And grace
For your means
And these are bestowed
Free of us
Our institutions
Our intentions
All of them
x
What we might do
Or think
And shall you always love us
Yes
You will
We are nothing new
And always new
Oldly
And newly
You forgive us
Even direct us away
And it helps
When we cooperate
x
Forgive us now
Forgive me now
Your will be done
And all or ours
Somehow
Beyond our doctrine
And the statements of our creeds
We need them
They compass-point us
We need you more
Who are
The magnetism
Earth and sky
And everything
That follows you
For being made
And not for looking
For you
For they know
You’re there
And frankly
You are here
x
We have to know
We have the will
That took us out of Eden
In the way
Of will
As we shall have it
And while the evidence
Mortally is lousy
Still
We come to believe
With everything
We are
x
Wow
A paradox of understanding
And enactment
Fortunately
There are the words
And there is revelation
In the words
And truth worth following
Unto the last
x
But wishing
Wishing
We could have more
We could meet you
And you’d take us
Hand in hand
As metaphor
More like cell to cell
For real
x
What is real
What is truth
You are both
You give us both
And more
And should we be
Grateful
x
For all we know
And must sigh into
What we don’t
And let that be all right
It is faith
After all
By definition
And by will
x
And how do you want us
But by will
Without the concrete obligations
In our love
But our love
With the best evidence we have
Or more important
Anyway
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash
x
clcouch123 
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