space prayer
God
keep us
and God will
while we’re on Earth
and then more so
beyond
I think
which could make this
a prayer for astronauts as
well
who shall leave Earth and meet
who knows
what knows
out
there
c l couch
photo by Vincenzo Malagoli on Unsplash
space ranger God
so many
science-fiction futures
read sad to me
yet
maybe I know
why
because they are nearly
always
God-less
the meaning not mentioned
much less
taking part
in new creations
and inventions
comforting
again
our flaws
but gladdened by
the progress
humans make
it might be hard
to craft
too difficult
in fact
since we must invent
our future
stake our hold on it
come disaster
or a clean and silver form
of paradise
and how to say
there’s God in this
that God
pushed us in the spacecraft
that brought the first
to a new world
we instead
must
try to own
and have such bid for ownership
tested
and tried
by what we find
or whom we find
there
toward a final tempering
of us
that accommodates the cosmos
for the differences
we find
to mesh with them
at last
who we are
perhaps we fear
the role
of God would spoil the story
(the real story
too)
and so we play out
only ourselves
on new
planetary stages
and all the things that fly
between
smallest things
(like mustard seeds)
or
parsec-sized things
God might bide
at the launching pad
or well behind
like farewelling parents
waving kerchiefs
allowing tears
for those who leave
we shall not see
again
though
in fact
God sees
and might see toward the end
of our expansion age
how we have done
and what we’ve done
to be here
there might be
judgment following
of our accounting
then decisions
regarding more dimensions
multi-universes
to encounter
encounter serving as
the theme
maybe the most important theme
in sci-fi
and for all the real findings
it inspires
c l couch
Spaceship Earth
photo by Ronald Yang on Unsplash
(x = space)
x
x
Anchorite Devotion
x
I cherish
Quiet in a cup
To drink
When I need some
Peace on a plate
When a bite is needed
Some silence in the air
But not so much
We cannot hear
The songs
Of earth and sky
The thrumming from beneath
To feel
The sighing from so high
We dare not
On an ordinary day
To try
x
A homespun layer
Maybe two layers
For the day
And through the night
A few words of friendship
And a few more
Then intimate,
Unspoken words
With God
x
There is a book
Of hours and another
Sometimes wisdom’s
In the page
In the part between
The letters
As well the illustrations
The space in which
We first learn
That blank space is the quiet
We may go there
Then to learn
About the mystery
The text
And images support
But can’t fill yet
As if to know the words
To speak with angels
And with animals
And with the air
x
All things the creator makes
To set in humming motion
x
C L Couch
x
x
Statue of Julian of Norwich by David Holgate, west front, Norwich Cathedral.
By Poliphilo – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19972764
x
Finite
When we exhale
Things go out
We no longer need,
Which is all right because
Parts of the world need them
That, in turn, give up what
We need
And so inhale
To say the least, it’s a good arrangement
We should keep it going
Oxygen doesn’t come from
An artificial tube
We borrow it
And sometimes
Too often, really
Don’t give anything back for it
Let’s not begrudge astronauts
Someday maybe
We’ll make our own sustenance
For breathing
Though really everything we have
Is borrowed, molecules from
Someone else
Call it Mother Nature
Father Time
Or random, hexagonal arrangements
In the universe
Finally, it’s what we’re lent
Of substance and of time with
The energy to use them
C L Couch
Photo by Moses Lee on Unsplash
Comet NEOWISE over Iona Beach through tall grass.
Life Out There
We can only imagine ourselves in space
Place ourselves there
Somehow the blackness would be air to breathe
The planets reading lights
With far-flung stars become the neighborhood
With home a house made out of gravity
Some kind of place we might deserve
Among the stars
Planetoids might greet us, once again
(Pluto’s back)
Asteroids carry our messages
Faster words in comet-tails’
Skywriting
For something faster, send a meteor
But I think, when balanced right,
Dark matter will tell us all
We need to know, between each other
C L Couch
Photo by Arnold Zhou on Unsplash
Men into Space
(someone else’s nostalgia)
William Lundigan beat them all
Because he got to space in the fifties
I didn’t see this show while
Growing up
Or Johnny Sokko with his giant robot in the
Half hour before
Other shows I missed as well
Supercar, for instance
I guess this was the fifties-sixties way
To get us there
Enjoy the ride
And encounter who knows what
Only the television writers knew
Thankful for retrograde, I guess
Retroactive, retrospective
The tier of channels that carry
Our imagination
From the past
Into the present
Maybe to conferences
And comic books
And all sorts of new brains
New days
That started here
In my older siblilngs’ days
Brought forward
Into better resolution
Now let’s have, please
Women into Space
C L Couch
image, NASA
STS Discovery Mission 131, International Space Station
Astronauts (clockwise from top right) Naoko Yamazaki, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson, and Tracy Caldwell
Air and Space Museum
Light and space
It’s physics,
And it’s Arabic
It’s need
A vision helping me get by
In a crowded world
That doesn’t breathe enough
Plants to air
Us to carbon dioxide
Back to plants
It goes ‘round, and when
Done right, it’s good
I want to be at the Alhambra
Or the Alcázar
Without the Christian overparts
Not to abandon faith but
To find it in the beauty
Of healthy building
I don’t know how to reconcile
The tyranny that built it
Somehow-dimensions cast to God’s own
As if the architect had been
In Eden when
First designed
All was lush
With light and air
Imagine a veil
Blown under the arch
Of all creation, which was
The promise of
How close we might get
Toward living with life’s own
The movement
Without angels yet
To keep us out
All is green behind
After we rest, breathed upon by God
We get to go inside
C L Couch
File:Alcázar de Segovia-9.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
If Only, If Only
if only, if only
the stars weren’t so lonely
with great space between
tell me, what does it mean
might we now in time
be closer than rhyme
inspired by Annie at What the Woman Wrote
(https://whatthewomanwrote.wordpress.com/)
and Louis Sachar in Holes
(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998)
31 January 2016
(in the global north)
I still wake up with jittery feelings. The sun is bright. The snow is melting down. Maybe I need it gone. But is that the boundary of my fear? I sit and look outside to see the beauty. I am inspired to come back and write a verse of two. Still, fear jumps inside me. At least it doesn’t leap. I’ll feel better, once I write a bit. Drink a hot drink, maybe take a pill or two pills. I know that on a good day my heart still operates in an iffy way. I know that what happened here was momentous. It’s momentous, still, outside. As in ancient Arabian architecture, I cherish space and righter light. Not simply looking out into amorphous glare. Rather the view of a virtuously bright and blue-skied world above with earth of desert browns beneath. Through arches made of genius and of grace, numbering the stars within each stone’s embrace.
I dream this is all easier, if not delightful, in a desert paradisal scene. Where arid becomes beautiful and free air moves through all, spirits borne and carried along. Maybe heaven’s healing wind will pause and wave upon me there, and I will feel and know something of the serene aspect of God.
Too much romance and earthly-bound, I know. But I need this. My fear frankly needs it, as does my hope and peace.
clcouch123 
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