Cenobite

Cenobite

 

Anchor

Inside land

Rock entrance

No way out behind

No desire to leave

 

Desert mothers

And fathers

 

In the middle of the world

Excavating wisdom

 

Penitents arrive

Messengers

For what’s learned

When

 

Earth and rock and light

Are home

And everything

Is God

 

C L Couch

 

Jazz Mass

Jazz Mass

 

Welcome to this house

Of Monk

Coltrane

And many more

Saintly-celebrating

 

Billie Holiday

Muddy Waters

Buddy Rich who sticks for

Ella

 

Sacred syncopated

Earth and all stars

Their music turns

A service

Into lifetime crazy, holy

Obligation

 

C L Couch

 

 

“Earth and all stars,” the first words of a hymn by Herbert Brokering composed for Saint Olaf College, Minnesota, first published in 1968

 

Valentine’s (prose-poem)

Valentine’s is Tuesday.  A day whose origin is in sacrifice and martyrdom.  In the pesky chapter of Ephesians, it’s how the role of husbands in marriage is described.  Like the role of Jesus to the church, his bride and for whom he gave his life.  The saint exchanged messages of love from his prison cell with his followers outside.  (Who knows but someone might have been in jail with him.)  Red is not for romance but for the color of the final cause.  Enjoy the greeting cards—I will—and chocolate.  And flowers for an augur of spring in the north.  But there are higher things to think of, among them how we love this day.  And to the next.

C L Couch

Old White Men Please Stop Running Things

Old White Men Please Stop Running Things

 

You’ve had your chance

And this is what you’ve got

While holding others from their turn

 

Earth is a hurting place, and

Can it get much worse?

Of course, it can

 

Which is why it’s time past time

To turn over what

Was never only yours

 

C L Couch

 

n.b.

n.b.

 

There is nothing to say

That hasn’t been said before

But if I feel something new,

I’ll try

With what I have

To say what to the world

Is the same old thing

 

C L Couch

Psalms 52 and 53

Psalm 52

song of passion

 

Some things are not enough even

From an impoverished place,

Contemplating gifts.

 

O God,

Where is your own longing?

And where might mine match yours?

 

 

Psalm 53

song of compassion

 

Lord,

Why should you listen to me, anyway

But I’ll keep talking, just the same

Someone is missing

And others are searching

It’s far away

I don’t know anyone there

 

But there are hearts

And life that always matters

So I’ll ask

Sinner before the altar

 

Please help those in motion

Watch around (above, under) the rescue

Help us in our better work

 

Bless those in need of rescue

Please

Bless the rescued

And the rescuer

 

http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/2914970/

 

 

C L Couch