say

No Amens Required
(prayers, devotions for occasions)

reach

thank you
God
for today
as it is
in these smooth hours
even before
everything gets difficult
again

Say

God
What shall we say that you
Provide
And is the cost
Belief
Or does
Grace mean
That everything is
Free

And
Do you love us
Anyway
And
Do you love the ones we know
Are evil
Or merely corrupted
Even in their prosperity

Good
And
Evil

We may not think on these
We might
Instead
By getting by
Or
Trying to
And could we
Ask
We’d only ask for this

And leave the larger matters
Maybe
Well
Maybe
Up to you

Sorry a Tired Prayer
(if not fed-up)

Lord
You made me this say
And the world
And my own
Mistakes
I guess
And I don’t know

Not that I wouldn’t own
But what should I
Own
And what is the fault of
Something else

And
I don’t know
Except
I’m tired of the way things are
Thinking
Peace
Would be preferred
Even over love
For an ambition
Even
A dream from which a plan
To get me
There

A confession
Maybe
An asking
Without doubt
Because
I hope
At least
You’ll do it
Grant me what I need

I don’t mean to ask it
As a wish
Before a genie
Having
Shined a
Lamp

You are not Loki or the
Raven
And yet
Christ might inherit all the qualities
Of
Fools
Which might mean tricksters

And
Who knows
Maybe the world is a trick
From which we wake
Or which is
Ours
To change

And yet
Sigh
Maybe I have some peace
Maybe too old
In age of spirit
Too
Exhausted to
Ask for
More
And yet I’ll pledge
To take
My part in it somehow

shall I say to you
(even daring to assure)

what shall I say to you today
dear
reader
responder

to hang on
or to glory in prosperity
(the second maybe
I don’t need
to
emphasize)

but God smile on you
anew
if it seems not ongoing
be with you
and love you through everything
the easy
and the strong
that seems against
you

the stable
if it’s good
or that which shatters
we must believe
because
it must

God be with you through it all
and God is

C L Couch

Photo by Dmytro Bayer on Unsplash


Shall We Dance

I don’t know what
To say
More importantly,
I don’t know what
To do
What would you do?
You would love through everything
And give
And serve
You would breathe justice
And you would also allow everyone a voice
And give everyone a turn

You would let water roll
And gather it in still, green places
So that people might have a drink
And maybe around which
To build
And then let the water move on
So that it gathers safely
And keeps moving to feed others

You would
Protect the land,
Give people what they, what we, need
Though we would yet be on our own
Because that is the truth and mystery of will

You would allow each one an hour on one’s own
And make it fine
When each of us returns
To be welcomed back sometimes as if we had been gone for a long while

You would let us be parents
And also children
The child to be a child, certainly,
And also let the grown-ups be from time to time
Like children

You would remember we aren’t perfect
There are flaws built in through sin that maybe wasn’t ours
But in some paradox
Or even some kind of unfairness
We’re left to deal with
One by one
And in every generation, until everything’s renewed

‘Til then
You’ll keep us from perfection
Yet love us without flaw
While we will pray and liturgize haphazardly
Depending on our creeds and the splinters we’ve allowed
‘Til unity
Make sense
For love
And practicality

And you come down
Come up
Come form the side
At last
To finish the justice that was started in creation
To fix our flaws
The way we broke the Earth
The way we break each other
Mended finally
To last
As last
And how we were
The first day that you made us
When we had a garden to tend
That for all we know
Was planetwide
At first
And everything to name
Because you meant for us to task
Everything we are
And love the work
And labor of our lives

So today I will wonder
And do things
And wondering’s a thing
And think on you
And think on everyone
And everything
On Earth
And in the stars that as a kind
We have only started
To approach
And hopefully
If flawed
Though flawed for now
And even though
With your approval

As some of us
Wrote and sang
Shall we dance
After our work
And in our work

C L Couch


The popular song “Shall We Dance” is from the musical The King and I, though there is an earlier, eponymous movie (a vehicle for Rogers and Astaire).

Photo by Levi Williams on Unsplash

Texas fires

I cannot say enough
about
the fires in Texas
and how those
who can
should fight them
toward containment
and cessation
and then
the multifarious care
of victims

and how
those of us who can
as in fight fires
go there
and those of us who can’t
remain behind
to offer aid
and give it from
where we
might be

it’s fire
folks
and politics aside
it is a horror
a series of horrors
from what burns
and who’s caught
in the way

can't say enough
because it's time to act

c l couch

photo by Michael Held on Unsplash