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Tontines

Tontines

 

If there is a God

And sorry if there’s not

(there is—

there, you have the ending

of the story)

Then I wish God to do

A better job of it

For all the dreadful things

That happen

Not to me

(though, yes, there’s that)

But to all the people

Who are burned in fire

Felled into the earth

Killed because smooth steel

And lead pellets seemed

Good inventions at the time

And since

(we can beat them all down

anytime, pleading a case for

ploughshares)

God, can you not stop

All the measures that hide empire

Except where vanity

Vaingloriousness

Must break through

The offices and the meeting rooms

Sending, allowing

Hurt into the battlefields?

Naturally and practically, you can

Though there is that stone so

Heavy that you cannot lift

You made it out of will

And set it spinning

42, the Earth

It is a kind of comedy

The classic kind, pray please

In which through funny means

(grim humor in grim times)

The community is healed

Better than restored,

Renewed

And we have a forest for a world

Near the city of perfection

Feasts, cominglings, promises

Of weddings

‘Round fires tamed by angels

The marriage of harrowed hell

And heaven

New heaven partners with

New world, finally the right kind:

Just

And which

To mitigate with love

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Richard Cordones on Unsplash

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Looking Forward

 

7

Rebroadcast

Rebroadcast

(keep trying)

 

I’m sorry for the fire

Sorrier for all the hungry people

Were the lady to advise us

Though worship is important

Starving is not conducive

 

There is no medieval lumber

Tall enough to do the job

Of the first beams

That is fine, we can go with something

Like aluminum

That will not rust or

Easily catch fire (again)

But organic need cries out

Toward another kind

Of construction

Empty people

Feed us

 

What shall we say,

There are too many now

And now there will be many more?

Maybe we need to reach up

Further than vaulting

Ingenious plans

Already on the table

We have the means for everything

Tall churches, too

Because we won’t have Paris

Not all of us

 

What shall we have?

I think you know by now

Ages of temperament

And we are less impaired

Have garnered so much more

The answer in the

Question

When we ask

 

You know it starts with will

You know everything worthwhile

Begins and ends with shall

Then will

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by TAN Erica on Unsplash

 

0

Coinage

Coinage

 

Love and fear

Two sides

Some would have it

Of the same

And if the toss should land it on

The edge,

Maybe it’s indecision

Or we get to choose the motivation

For our actions

 

What is the substance

Of the coin? I think it might be

Will

Something not for tossing

But for extracting from a pocket

When it’s time

Not for throwing

But for touching texture

Choosing what to live

Each time

Until instinct

Make imagination

And will

Habit

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Markus Lindner from Pixabay

 

0

The End Is Near

The End Is Near

 

The Earth has four billion years already

Only one billion remains

Our star will expand one day

(well, over an eon)

And finally we will lose the light

 

Some say it’s tomorrow

Or later on today

(after tea, I hope)

Some engender crime and madness

Pray for it, vote for it in others

If we make it bad enough

The Lord will come to sort it out

After all, aren’t we right

To invoke a

God?

 

God might have other plans

We know God does

God gave us the notion in the first place

Of the notion

That a plan sometimes is good

But don’t program the

Spirit of the

Lord

The

Savior’s not for turning

Not for the to-do list of some kind

Of faithful

 

We should do well

We should do good

Is that so hard?

Evil done for good is, well,

You know

And that’s crazy thinking

More so to enact

 

Thomas Becket knew

Joan d’Arc, too

Listening for God

To follow through

Is mad enough

For virtue

The end is near for valorous

Much better

 

C L Couch

 

 

The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928

 

 

0

Lent 6

Lent 6

 

The season is like mourning

A dying of a kind that takes

Weeks to be fully realized

The only kind of death that might be safe

Because following

Still keeps us here

 

The consequences are mollified by

Our remaining mortal

If something else should happen,

Well, that’s something else

 

It’s dying on the inside, isn’t it

The gradual release of things

That might do better elsewhere

Attached to other life preservers, say

 

Dying to ego

And to vanity

Fleeing what we think we need

To embrace and then let go

A gift, a conversation

Uneasy service that

Needs doing, anyway

 

We have days now

Negotiating will,

Arriving at a knowing place

Of spirit

From which to act

When it’s time

 

C L Couch

 

 

Official Navy Page from [the] United States of America[, ]Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Ryan J. Mayes/U.S. Navy

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22662531

Attaching distress marker lights to flotation devices used in the event of a [person] overboard[.]

 

0

Prayers Pressed into Service

Prayers Pressed into Service

 

Oh, Lord

Not an invocation

Oh as a sigh

I love you,

You know that

Your people not always so much

But I try

And the world you made

We have sliced into it

Turned the pieces into fiefdoms

Pressed it in vices of all kinds

To render bits of gold

And abrogated power

From the rightful

And the fearful

Greed taken in handfuls

Lifted into stolen light

Slides onto the floor

To be returned to Earth one day

Though the guilty do not see that

 

When will we be whole?

One touch of your hand

But it’s not time for that

These are still our moments

To be righteous

To be fair

To be calm

And calmly take it back

Our will, our loves

Our control

Our world

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Gregory David Harington (user Gregorydavid) – Own work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1907630

 

0

God’s Particles

God’s Particles

 

What if they can dance

On the head of a pin

Would you

I’d like to think I might

 

What if they are atomic, subatomic

Then they could dance with partners of

Orbiting electrons

The matter, light and dark, of the universe theirs

While the music set by God

Plays on

It’s blood circulation to us

Its own miracle

 

For them, it is the reason

They were made

Missives in themselves

Stepping to the rhythm of divine

 

Will, submitting without thought

To a plan they can announce

With or without understanding

(their will is not involved)

Until all things are known,

And love will have the reason

That

In this moment doesn’t bear

In their slightest

Instep action

 

They dance, what kind of substance

And while they dance

The universe is delight

 

C L Couch

 

 

drew Roberts

4096 Naked Ghosts Mash de Roach on the Head of a Pin

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126739923@N05/14674933788

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

1

Low-Flying

Low-Flying

 

Slowly the manta ray

Unfolds and undulates

Descending, like an eagle

 

Of the air, through

Updrafts of ocean water

 

What it seeks I cannot

See, because its urgencies

Are defined so differently

 

Fill hunger?  Slake thirst

That, in water, I cannot

Apprehend?

 

Or fly for delight in flight,

Ripping, tearing through

Sea currents, even while

 

Negotiating their fury

 

Can I fly as slowly as the

Ray?  Must I?

 

Two ways of asking this,

I know: Must I not?  Must

I not?

 

May I?  And, if so,

 

Will I?

 

How much of creatures’

Movements, I wonder,

Depend on will

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