Arundel
It’s
Larkin
Captures the detail
In the stone
That the couple’s hands are touching
Throughout what might be
The long life of
Statuary
Isn’t that the thing to
Leave
And who they knew the message
When flesh
Was intimate
The lord and the lady considering
The tomb
And a commission
To have their hands joined
After
Death
While
Uncommissioned
Beyond wedding vows
They had the life deserving
Of the clue
On the monument
For keep observers to be
Noting
And who knows
Maybe corresponding in their touching
As well
While on Earth
And promising celestial
Closeness
Too
Larkin’s message might be hard
(like
the stone)
Until the end
And it’s after I am thinking
Since his hands are in a posture too
Just now
And for how long
By bone
Or ash
There's knowing
C L Couch
a response to “An Arundel Tomb” by Philip Larkin
(can read at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47594/an-arundel-tomb)
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
graves in Arundel
(x = space)
x
x
Alt
x
Are tombs
Really whitewashed
x
Maybe in a desert place
To keep the heat off
For a while
I don’t know if white
Enhances
Gathering of cool
At night
x
With herbs for scent
And preservation
Added after death
To show devotion
x
I guess we could
Understand
What might have happened
Had the guards cooperated
And helped
The rolling of the stone away
Unless they laugh
At women
Then tell them to
Roll the rock aside
On their own
x
And having gained entrance
Beholding the wrapped body
x
They might need lamps
So that they may work with care
On Jesus
Three days’ dead
And in what state
What condition
In that desert place
And nation
Well
A colony
In an empire
x
And so how brave are they
The Marys
Maybe with friends
Followed by apostles
Also doubt
As it was
From their own
Who didn’t move
On hearing
x
But back (and on) to risk attention
And arrest
For being some of them
The followers
Of the insurrecting one
State-executed
x
And here they are
Near him
The last of him
In sight of soldiers
And maybe other agents
Who paid Judas
Who has disappeared
Now want to quash
All parts
And signs
Every extremity
Of the body
Of this body
Dead in flesh
x
And now the movement
(body in the region)
Gone
Entirely
Execution
Burial
Ridicule
What works
So wins
The devilish
And worldly
Agendas
x
C L Couch
x
x
Matthew 23:26 and verses following
(plus the Passion narratives about coming to the tomb of Jesus, given in the four Christian Gospels)
x
Photo by Foto Phanatic on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Homilies
x
Church tomorrow
Virtual and virtuous
Teaching about Lazarus,
I think,
The one from Bethany
Who with his sisters
Was a friend of Jesus
Having hosted him
x
Then Lazarus
Gets sick
Or something
Like that happens
Because he’s clearly dying
And the sisters
Contact Jesus
Who delays in coming
Then their brother dies
Martha comes to Jesus
Speaking words
Of faith
While Mary cannot move
It’s all right, Martha
Jesus says
I know it is in heaven,
She replies,
When I shall see Lazarus
Again
Yes, and I mean more
Than that
Mary manages
To say something
Reproachful
And then Jesus goes
To where their brother
Lies, wrapped and
Spiced in burial
x
Take away the stone
Lazarus, Come out!
Jesus commands
And Lazarus emerges
From the dead
Into the living
Into his sisters’ lives
Again
x
There is a meal
Mary breaks a bottle
Of perfume
And with the oil
And the scent
Bathes the feet of Jesus
Judas reprimands her
For wasted expense
Jesus turns on him
As only love can turn
Teaching him about
The poor
And when it’s all right
To be rich,
Say, when we’re
At the feet
Of Jesus
x
C L Couch
x
x
John 11, first part of 12 (in the Christian New Testament)
x
Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Blessings
x
God is good
We say this
I think more people have more
Ways to say that
God is great
Maybe that sounds too much
Like a battle cry, so
USA suburbanites say
At grace
That God is good
x
We like the notion of
God as our friend
And God is our friend
Jesus has said so
Maybe those with God
But without God as a person
See this attitude
As thankless
Even while we’re thanking God
x
We lack perspective of
The God who leads us into
War or will take us to
A majestic place called paradise
When our impersonal
Services are done
x
It’s hard for us
With God as a person
And a friend
To think about torn flesh
In crucifixion,
Muscles pushing the lungs
To breathe
Blood flowing everywhere
And visceral humiliation
But this is what we did to God
Don’t try to place it on a group
We all took part
x
God our friend
Jesus whom we love
We killed him
And forgot the resurrection
Buried him away
And felt satisfied with that
Or mourned
x
So desiccated doctrine
That while hiding
Satisfied or scared
We wouldn’t take a drink of news
That it was not all over
Never had been
x
The women and a man
Were first witnesses then heralds
Met with skepticism
Most likely scoffs
Maybe cursing
Sanhedrin and the Romans would
Have strategized
Large human spiders among webs
While closer disciples
Struggled (badly) to perceive
To understand the words
That spoke to sights and sounds
And all sensations
From the encounters at the rounded
Tomb of Joseph
Whose first resident was gone
An absurdity, if not a crime
Of action
x
Our rabbi
Our teacher and our friend
By his own words three nights ago
Has been taken
That’s the best disciples’ thoughts could do
Modern minds would have done no better
Except to maybe add a layer of
Arrogance to it
Because in the here and now
We know better
x
Well, there was a disappearance
Then the appearing happened
God with us again
Immanuel
Where had God gone?
Nowhere in particular
Maybe to harrow hell
x
God with us again
And, by the way,
Is God
Majestic and inventive
Fear and love beholden
From souls and minds
And anything that moves in us
That breathes
That has being
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
Tomb
x
“Nothing mattered now.”
After Aslan is slain in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
by C. S. Lewis
Unseen
Christ is dead
Not now but long ago
And on the full day in between
(Counting days on calendars)
When the body lay in Joseph’s
Tomb, the movement sleeps
As well
Nightmares of capture
And, worse, hopelessness
It is a time for cynical
Reasoning among the
Followers
Not a Trick
Easter is a surprise, the
Rabbit out of the hat, one
Might wryly think
From where and when
Comes the trick-tradition
From Easter and the tomb,
I think, and Spring, generally,
In the land and from the
Time and place in which
Top Hats were popular
Something living retrieved
Out of nothing—something
Drawn out from the void
The rabbit is fecund (rabbits
Always are, aren’t they?),
The hat circular for the cycle
Of mortality, moving in
An immortal way
Hoping that, in coming ‘round,
One will pass the door to
Eternity, maybe to pause
There
Our magic with the rabbit
Is illusion—dedicated that
Way—but here’s what is
Real: the pure, created one
Has escaped the rounded
Maw of death, leaving (this
Time real) magic words working
As miracle
What is lifted now is living
Truth to behold
No applause needed or any
Desired, for this is grace
The cost of admission offered
Always, for all, a price to us
That’s free
clcouch123 
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