world

Born Again in the USA

(x = space)

Born Again in the USA

A sabbath time

To stop

To breathe

To wait for it

To be over

Counting the minutes

Of the homily

Or sermon

The teaching of the word

Waiting for communion

To be over

Now, where is the car?

How long will it take

To leave?

Thinking about

Food and rest and TV

After

The holy time

Set apart

Once a week if that

Bigger deal

Maybe wireless

For those who could

Be there

At Christmas and at Easter

What is wrong with

All these things

Is nothing

But set apart is set apart

Then the chance

To splice it

Graft it all together

Stronger, faster

Like the cyborg hybrid

Only real

Sacred and prophane

With blessings

Rain from an aspergillum

The scent of flowers

From a thurible

Sensations

Only God

Can bestow

In the world

And the world

Can respond

C L Couch

Photo by Bas de Korte on Unsplash

“Storm in a few minutes.”

March 5, 2022 0

Diocletian Martyr

(x = space)

Diocletian Martyr

In my cell I see a bird

I think the bird is

The spirit of God

I don’t know for sure

Until the bird speaks,

Speaks to me

Without words

This is a real cell

A cell from which I will be taken

To die

At the hands of one

Who can command it

Though cannot command anything

About my soul

God has come to comfort me

To tell me I belong to God

And will be meeting

With God, soon

In a closer way

I could not know on Earth

The pain might be quick

It might be long

The bird does not tell me,

Imperial will having its own way

Despotic yet

Graced with freedom

As is mine*

I could have been quiet

I needn’t have said anything

When questioned

Or at the corner

Where I told the story

Of God’s goodness,

Standing on the edge

Of all I knew

And soon would lose

I don’t know what happens next

In terms of what I gain

Maybe a mansion

Maybe nothing

I don’t permit myself an expectation

But relationship

Knowing my loved ones

Once here,

Beholding curing

Of my enemies

And me of them

Great harmony

Before the Lord

And the Lord

Who might dance with me

While the angels sing

C L Couch

*(in freedom

maybe grace

we are all despots)

Looking Up

Photo by Prince David on Unsplash

January 10, 2022 6

Merry Whichever

(x = space)

Merry Whichever

(greeting)

Merry Whichever

Happy New Year to your calendar

And all your months,

However they are named

May each day be ingested

With wisdom and

Delight,

Wisdom for the ages,

Delight in the pleasures

Of the day

May you know love

More than in the abstract

Some good learning beforehand

Wouldn’t hurt;

Might you have peace,

If the worlds great and small

Agree

Most of all, may

All of you

And any

Know the presence

Over us

So great,

So small as to be

Working inside

Our capillaries

Call it God

Or the Spirit

Or the impulse of the ages

The human push

Toward improvement

And a symphony of

Maybe out-of-tune,

Asynchronous

Possibility

May the one

Or many there

Protect you

And keep you

In each other

C L Couch

Part of the painting “my take on an ion.”

Photo by Jené Stephaniuk on Unsplash

Los Angeles, CA, USA

November 30, 2021 0

All These Worlds

(x = space)

All These Worlds

God, help our

Nation to be good

Our world to be great

The cosmos, when

Receiving us,

Never-ending wonder

And discovery

Liturgic wishing

Into prose action

New metaphors required

Upon each arrival

In a spaceship

On a new shore,

Bearing guilt and hope

Germs and solutions

Ready to eat there and

To take some sips from

A silver sea

C L Couch

The International Space Station

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

November 25, 2021 6

Dire Invocation

(x = space)

Dire Invocation

God

Help us

We need you

Because

And when

The world is too much

And we can’t get away

For love

Of being here

Unreadiness for heaven

‘Til you say so

And we can’t live

‘Til you say so

We have to do

Other

We think you made us

This way

C L Couch

Photo by Jack van der Spoel on Unsplash

October 13, 2021 0

Out of the Not so Silent Planet

(x = space)

Out of the Not so Silent Planet

(on a Wednesday)

On the hump day

(bless the camel)

Or on any day

We might turn to God,

Which can be a matter of

Turning inside,

Somehow

We acknowledge God

That voice inside

And coming from the outside

Coming from you

Inspired or directed

Seeming

Happenstance, perhaps

We listen

We should listen

No matter if there’s sound

We also learn

Through touch or taste

Of other of the senses

Listening in time

Receiving new instructions

That might say

Stop, be here with me

A while

Then move on

Or might say

Move on, now

We stewards of the realm

Will have our orders

In this funny place

Where there is a monarch

Everyone else

A steward charged with

Variously

Caring for the realm

To move it forward

Into safety and progression

For the approval

Of the other worlds that

With our Lord

Do watch us now

C L Couch

September 29, 2021 5

Peer Review

(x = space)

Peer Review

Your stories are

Amazing

Amazing stories

Keep sharing from them

We need their wonder

That

Certain metaphors aside

And without exaggeration

Are real

C L Couch

Full Disk Earth, Apollo 17, 1972

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

July 31, 2021 0

Catbird

(x = space)

Catbird

(recalled)

I’d like to speak

Of God

But sometimes silence

Is called for

To listen to the maybe

Maybe something grand

Maybe single

Bird-call

Can one hear the dawn

Or the vibrations in

The setting sun?

Hearing apparatus

Is not required

So much as to

Open up whoever we are

Enough to gather in

What the quiet Earth

Has to say

A gift for any, all the senses

We may have

Speak through the Earth

If we are mute

Savor unimpeded,

Unreconstituted wind

If we have lost our

Sense of taste

Let the sun move us through

The day

If we have no movement

Otherwise

What we’ve had,

What we’ve never had,

What we’ve lost

We have so much

To take in

Then contribute

To the cause,

Nourishing

And strengthening

All our

Good communities

C L Couch

On the Road from Stanley to Boise, Idaho

By TonyCastro – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83018649

July 12, 2021 0

Faithful Skeptic

(x = space)

Faithful Skeptic

(spiritual humanist)

I sin

And then I go to church

How does that work?

We sing that it is well,

Which Saint Julian proposes

We pray for the world

And for concerns

In the parish

We sing some more

We’ll pray some more

Then there will be teaching

(word and sacrament

for those who have sacraments)

Through it all,

We’re singing now

And thank goodness there is

Justice in that

Mingled with grace and mercy

Through sin and virtue

Through indifference and zeal

Through exhaustion and desire

There is something

Going on,

Something moving

Call it spirit

Call it the orbit of the Earth

And the pressing down of gravity

Call it God’s

Call it nature’s

Call it ours

And, yes, through it all

It is well

C L Couch

Saint Julian of Norwich is a saint in the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches. Other traditional Protestant churches recognize her standing. Many Christians of all kinds respect her work in parish service and the service of the Christian Church, overall. Her name is not known: she is called Julian because that was the name of the church in Norwich, England where she lived. She had a cell there, not a jail cell but a hermit’s. She had a cat. Each day people of the town would come to her to speak with her through a window, asking her for wisdom and advice. I’m sorry, I should have mentioned that she lived and worked from the latter decades of the fourteenth century into the first years of the fifteenth century.

She wrote Revelations of Divine Love, a widely-read spiritual text. It is also taken as the oldest book written in English by a woman. Two things Julian is popularly known for asserting are the metaphor of the world as a hazelnut (long before William Blake asserted perceiving the world as and through a grain of sand). And she claimed that, no matter how grim or unhopeful or destructive the world might seem, all shall be well. She says this many times.

And all shall be well.

Photo by Külli Kittus on Unsplash

Tallinn, Estonia

May 16, 2021 0