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Writing Us

(x = space)

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Writing Us

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I suppose

We have to talk about ourselves

Each utterance an unwilling

Biography

I want to hear your story

And in the electron universe I do,

And I am thankful

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I hope that you are well

I hope that God protects you

Via angels

Or the arrival of a cathartic,

Gentler day

Then when inner wind’s inhaled

Back to the fray

That is the rest of today

Into tomorrow

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So I might hear,

Inshallah,

And you tell me

Tell us all

So we might breathe

For sharing

And consider this community

With certain anonymities

Withstanding

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Talk to me

I can talk back

Unless listening

In the quiet space between us

Is better

For the call

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C L Couch

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Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Drops

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The Book of Numbers

(x = space)

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The Book of Numbers

(in pandemic time)

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Lots of twos and ones

Tomorrow

And a zero,

And there could be church:

I think I’d cherish

Learning someone else’s

Story

If in a cyber way

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To understand

How a narrative fits

Into the weaving,

The puzzle

Of the one great story

In which we each

Have a page

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Monochrome

Or colorful

Burnt along the edges,

Gilded for the saints

After all the torn-up

Parts have been

Repaired

x

Not a book of judgment

Not a cache of

Clever evidence;

Rather the story of us

In part

And all the rest of us

And God inside, above

With tired angels

Tirelessly binding

Fixing binding

All the time

x

C L Couch

(for 2/21/2021)

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Photo by Paulius Dragunas on Unsplash

Antelope Canyon, United States

Ladder to Nowhere

(reasonable skeptic)

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Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

(x = space)

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Tomorrow Should Be Much Like Today

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I don’t know what to say

Am I confused?

Perhaps

I mean, I try to write every day

Not because I have to

Or because of a tontine

Between poets, as the

Romantics tried

Though they wrote with form

And complex thought

And feeling

Typically, I end up with

More than one thing

And I choose

x

Sometimes I surprise myself

And choose the thing

I wasn’t planning on

(as things came out)

And publish that

I’d say discovery is fun,

And it is

Though it is surprise

Becomes the main thing

When it happens

I suppose they go together

Discovery and surprise

x

I write based on

What’s happening in the world

And inside me

And if I haven’t thought of

Something spiritual, then

I guide my thoughts that way,

Which sounds forced

Well, maybe a contrivance

Again, I try to keep discovery

In the mixture, as a baker

Or mixologist might see it

Prayer, Bible, interrogative—I try

To take up problems

And solutions

Or else things that matter

In a smaller, more day-to-day way

Where we live

With our souls and God

Trying to know each other,

Eke out a life together

x

There is community

I’m aware of

Maybe matching something like

Thornton Wilder’s echelons

That Rebecca recounts—you know,

Citizen of Earth and such

I am Robin,

Living in a house

Along a street that’s old and busy

In the small town (borough) of

Mechanicsburg

In the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,

One of the MidAtlantic states

In the U.S.A. (a country without

its own good name

because America is also

north and south

of us),

Living in the northern hemisphere

And the western as well,

Underneath the moon that

Orbits ‘round my planet

x

I am a citizen of Earth,

The third planet from our sun

In a system of nine or eight planets

(we’re still arguing about the

count, though I’ve thought

since I was a child about

another planet out there

to make the system ten or nine)

But, anyway,

A member of my solar system

In a spiral galaxy

Called the Milky Way

With another galaxy called

Andromeda by us—I don’t know what

The folk out there might

Call themselves—nearby,

Galactically speaking

And there’s the mind of God

By God’s own hand

How we were made and how

We’re sustained,

Despite the agenda of human greed that

Would rather have its own way

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I believe in Jesus

Others await Messiah

Others live in Messiah

Others own Muhammad,

The prophet and the teachings–and

There are those who

Follow the Buddha

And those who want the Hindu

Godhead

And still others who follow other ways

With other entities and names

For God

And those who follow none

And I have to say

I do not mind, which makes for bad

Evangelism but also makes for

Respectful living

And I figure we need respect

More than singularity for now

Otherwise, we might not exist

To have all the arguments

About belief

Or lack thereof

That should only happen

In congenial ways,

Not with life on the line

For anyone

Believing, not believing

x

And so I’m done for now,

This day

It is autumn, my favorite season

For the thrill of cold

With the presence of new colors

That, to me, make everything

More interesting

I like the other seasons, too,

Happy to have them all

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C L Couch

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Our Town by Thornton Wilder.  The dialogue referred to happens near the end of Act 1.

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By Philipp Salzgeber – http://salzgeber.at/astro/pics/9703293.html, CC BY-SA 2.0 at, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=184641

Hale–Bopp in 1997

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How We May Live

(x = space)

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How We May Live

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It’s all right

We don’t have to agree

To have a family

Or a nation

The world is filled with

Variance of thought,

And opinions bleed

And stay still

Like colors

And affiliations

Of the rainbow

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Democratic theory says

That you and I

May argue toward no

Solution or a change

Today or ever

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And democratic practice is

Even better,

For you and I may feed the hungry

And encourage those

In all kinds of trouble, all

The same

x

We both and together

May fill bags

With sand along

The growling, killing river

As we (after washing) may

Dispense soup

To the rescued

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This is how to live

With variation

And to live with variation

Active in

Needs that are subsuming—those

Of the hungry or the flooded or,

After fire, the singed

x

Arguing the other situations

When we may breathe

Again with clarity

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Happy days

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C L Couch

x

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Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Cairns, Australia

Olive oil on water. “Immiscible 1”. The photo is called immiscible because oil and water don’t mix. The background colours come from a painting behind which is titled “Joy” and is itself bubble shapes like balloons of cheerful colours, where I have tried to express the emotion of joy in a painting, much like Mark Rothko.

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Not a Game Day

(x = space)

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Not a Game Day

(maybe another day)

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We’ve had dark days

(two days’ packed clouds

and rain)

And that’s all right

We don’t soothsay

The weather, anymore

Storms are a nuisance

Comets intriguing

Too many withering days

Does not mean

God is judging us, though

God might have another

Idea, not about

Judging us through

Weather (God might be

glad we’ve outgrown that)

But keeping count

Regardless over

How we’re doing with

Created places

x

There could be a book

Maybe a computer bank

Maybe angels tasked with

Keeping score

Except there are too many

Teams to count

And Earth and each day

Is not a game

(sorry)

Most of the time

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Zhu Hongzhi on Unsplash

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Laid Up

(x = space)

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Laid Up

x

There are stories

There are stories

I’d like to hear one story more

It need not be fantastic

Save for telling of the human will

In wisdom or in folly

In virtue or in vanity

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What I’m saying is

Make it a human story

Though we might truck with gods,

It seems most days it’s only us

Our gods so far away

Perhaps not to hear,

Maybe not to care

Certainly not

Mortal evidence discloses

To attend our

Perilous half-moments

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It isn’t this way

God doesn’t have an unmoving face

But tell it to the storm

That seems to bear God’s enmity

In visage

And the promise of

A curse upon our gentler feelings

God is there,

But in the curse of human will

Must relegate our drama

Mostly to ourselves,

According to the action and the lore

The machinery of God

Last act upon the stage

Notwithstanding

x

But I’m sorry,

You weren’t asking for

A negative apology

And I was asking for a story

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C L Couch

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Photo by Olesia Misty on Unsplash

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Humilitas

Humilitas

 

And does he have the shoulders

For the world, and shall

We place a wheel and turtle

Under him as well

Maybe add a hazelnut

The world on an axis,

On a pin

Where angels dance

And wait for orders

To Megiddo and apocalypse

 

And is everything so fragile

A speck of virus brings us down

Remembering that vanity

Leads us to the feet of Ozymandias

One day

Maybe today

 

And should Atlas need some help

Before his feet have slipped

And all the foundation

Maybe what we have in orbit

Could help

If not, we might also

Ask what we are doing there

 

I’ve left off

The marks, signs

Of use and abuse,

Because they stand

As statement, too

There is a quality should save us,

If we understand

Its works

It doesn’t mean stop everything

Or ball up into fetal uselessness

In fact, it calls for greater

Energy and effort

That simply will not pay

The same

 

But will save the fragile, spinning Earth

Of us

And all we’ve done to

Knock it off its pinions

And platforms

And should it have a course

To meet faces of other worlds

And the face of God,

Should all or any have us

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by GMB Monkey on Unsplash

Chin-Up on Rings

 

Summits

Summits

 

Hi, Earth

I hope you’re doing well

Though I know you’ve

Been beset with challenges

The heat is rising

Water, too

Islands in the Chesapeake are

Disappearing

And I know this because

It’s local

What is going under elsewhere?

I’ve read about the polar regions,

Too

That’s big news

In every way

What about the corners I don’t

Know of

Who is in those corners who

Know nothing of me?

 

Oh, Earth

You’re probably in trouble

And it’s probably our fault

I count on nature’s

Indifference, but I think it’s getting angry

Could a tornado or a hurricane

Be vengeful?

Hail in indictment,

Earthquakes cracking open

Rage, eruptions open wounds

That must have their way?

 

I don’t know

There is romance in nature, too

I don’t want to lose that

There’s gold in the ocean

Silver in the sky

Diamond where’s there clarity

Gemstone colors everywhere

Though the real wealth

Should be love and understanding,

Which of often indicates

A partnership

Is that still possible?

 

I want to know you, Earth

Travel all your courses

And maybe, were it possible,

To find something new

We could meet around a rock,

So many of us

Celebrate your sponsorship

Of human possibility

Resources for

Exploration

 

But we must give something

Of our own, speaking for

My kind

We can’t attend the rock-table

Empty-handed

With something in our pockets

No tricks up our sleeve

It’s too ideal, isn’t it?

We’re too cantankerous on

Either side

I wouldn’t be surprised to find

We both have our illusions

To fool each other, yes

Also to keep us going

You there,

Us here

It’s cynical

It’s fearful

It’s not, to use another idiom,

(we make idioms of you

salt of the you,

for instance)

Cards on the table

 

So what to do, then

We simply go on, as is?

I cry

You rain

We terrify each other

Ruin things as well

Us by force of will

You by an imbalance

That certain Protestants would say

It our fault, too

Finally, I can only speak for us

And our own

Will and ingenuity

For all you have and all we take

Oh, Earth, I ask of all

We must find ways

To give each other chances

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Denis Linine on Unsplash

 

We’ll Burn the Palms for Next Year’s Ash

We’ll Burn the Palms for Next Year’s Ash

 

Today is Palm Sunday.  I recall this because I saw,

just now, an image with two pieces of wood, tied and

at an angle.  I suppose many are celebrating—feasting,

in fact, since it is the end of Lent—the way I am but

with honest hearts.

 

Lent is done, although the days of ash continue.  Nothing

new for planet Earth and the people of it.  What do we

know of ash but that it’s final in remembrance?

We might take the stuff and try to rework it, but what it means

remains the same.  We are of ash.  We’ve tasted it.

 

We try to contain it, though it’s mischievous in

blowing around.  Where does that wind come from?

“Dust in the wind.” “Turn, turn, turn.”  Every generation asks

the question, needs an answer, doesn’t get one.

There is ash.  It’s everywhere.  We think it’s dust, though we’ll never

clear it out.  We can’t.  As I say with all the singers,

 

it is us.  We are ash.

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Niklas Tidbury on Unsplash

This was a picture I took just for fun. One of those “that would look cool”-moments. I only realised the contrast between the new, fresh, ready-to-burn wood and the spent ashes of a campfire, like the wood was ready to meet its maker. Kinda sad actually.

 

This begins a week-long devotional, “Holey Week.”  The title is intentionally spelled.

 

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