The Explorers
Gagarin
And then Shepard
And all those who strived
To fly
And couldn’t
Because the experiments were
Unsuccessful and
Also
Something untoward happened
Loss of life so that others
Of us could go
Up there
Frank loss
Before Gagarin
After
Shepard
The cost like that paid
By
Icarus
To soar toward the sun
More than
The waxen body’s made
And yet
Crazy
And extraordinary
We go
And keep
On going
‘Til the satellites
Than the ships
Then
Space stations
Now
Moon
Once down though now
To live there
Now Mars
Inside our time
Our
Reach
It’s danger clearly
Also
Vision and new
Industry
Even good for business
(tin foil
and the microwave from the moon
race)
Though more the skill of hands
Pushed by minds
And hope
To take
Us there
And there and there
C L Couch
International Day of Human Space Flight
Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Halfway Home
x
The sacrifice
Of your shed blood
He said
On our behalf
In prayer
His words the surrogates
A shadow
Of the death itself
x
Horribly
A bleeding body
Shed of its spirit
At the last
A life too pure
A sacrifice
For us
x
Yet there it was
In expiation
Half redemption
For our sins
x
The weight of everything
That hates
Crushing his body down
Pushing out his spirit
On to Hades
Or Valhalla
To Gehenna
Or to Sheol
As it’s understood
To name it
x
Half the promise
The brutal
Ugly
Barbarous part
Complete
And it is over
He said it was finished
Maybe it is
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
on the altar
x
lord
what shall we give
but everything
and what is everything?
if i offer myself upon an altar
then will you send an angel
to stay my hand?
if i offer up my part in relationships
will you have an angel
tell me
not so much
before i am alone?
if it’s my wardrobe or accounts
or the corporation or the army
(like saint francis)
or plans
x
earthly luxury
or earthly victory
will you send a hallelujah chorus
to tell me, no, not that much?
or will you tell me to keep
going:
my body to begin with
as a living sacrifice,
my mind turning only as you turn it,
the sadness of
living against the world
for the renewing of my mind
x
my body as a sacrifice
in worship
without sacrificing animals
or the worldly counterparts
but sacrificing me
the only thing to set apart,
holy for you
x
could you ask that much
or do you ask that much all the time
while i do not hear?
then i should listen with the
hearing that you gave me
x
c l couch
x
romans 12:1-2
x
x
photo by ricardo gomez angel on unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Memorial Day in the USA
(2021)
x
It is a holiday in the USA
I suppose the sales are good
And there will be
Shiny fireworks
Reminding us the day means,
Well, something
x
There are days like this
Around the world,
As there should be:
Remembrances of those
Who fought and
Died in war
x
The wisdom of strategy
And final choices
Is not on the program;
Like the Light Brigade,
There are those
Who served
Because they served
x
Remember them,
Because their loss
Is the foundation
For unfought
Wars over silent
Battlefields
That were and are
And will be,
Someday
x
C L Couch
x
x
Golden Stars
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash
World War II Memorial, Independence Avenue Southwest, Washington, DC, USA
x
Don’t Mind Me
Oh, Christopher
Christophoros
So you’re nothing
Nothing’s good
The mystics would be envious
I don’t mean annihilation
That would be bad
But death to self is something else,
I think
Because you do not go away
As if there were nothing left of you
You are woke into a different place
With people you might know
Some kind of belonging
We might call it a heavenly host
But you are retained as you
You are even loved
Now and you know before
As it may have happened, then
The death to self is prayer
So cleansed and clean
As to have nothing left but righteous intercession
Something to be gained
Such a death to self so that
There is only prayer for others
Disinterest in agenda
But the willingness to bleed some more
If like a transfusion
It might bring some living to another
This is sacrifice
Not immolation but
A gift of love
From which nothing will be returned
A love I do not understand, for now
Or the peace that passes it
C L Couch
Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash
A shot I captured during dinner with my Grandpa and my niece.
Valentine’s is Tuesday. A day whose origin is in sacrifice and martyrdom. In the pesky chapter of Ephesians, it’s how the role of husbands in marriage is described. Like the role of Jesus to the church, his bride and for whom he gave his life. The saint exchanged messages of love from his prison cell with his followers outside. (Who knows but someone might have been in jail with him.) Red is not for romance but for the color of the final cause. Enjoy the greeting cards—I will—and chocolate. And flowers for an augur of spring in the north. But there are higher things to think of, among them how we love this day. And to the next.
C L Couch
These Are the Voyages
(28 January 1986)
Thirty years ago and less or
More, there was Apollo 1,
Challenger, and Columbia
Source and cause of death
In rising through the skies;
Reluctant, stubborn loss in
Exploration—first mission
To the Moon, first teacher
Into pace, and a flight we’d
Grown too used to thinking
Ordinary—limited and limitless,
We were reminded; now in
Vision foresworn and sworn
Again, these guard our flights
On toward all our heavens,
Treasuring what in dreams
Will be manifest—we in faith,
Voyagers relentless, we
Travel closer to our God of
Discovery, all of us tied now
In tribute sentinel sacrifice
(Note. Remember the first USA
Space shuttle? It was Enterprise)
clcouch123 
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