children

Two Children

(x = space)

Two Children

Holy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

Good Thursday

Nice Thursday for the church

If we leave off

The arrest in the garden,

Which sounds ingenuous

But the day

Liturgically

Is named for the supper only

And what happened there:

What was said,

Mainly

The command

And did they know

By the way

That supper was the

Last?

And looking back

Would the disciples

Want

To have called it

That?

Or did we need a name

And gave it

That one?

(names come after things,

I guess

for history

and liturgy

and calendars)

Here’s how it used to go:

We’d have a dinner

At the church

Downstairs

Then go upstairs

(from the social hall)

To the sanctuary above

And we’d have church,

Which is to say

A service

And there would be Communion

And we’d conclude the service

There

And it was nice

Sorry, it was nice

Jesus and his friends

For that what’s Maundy’s

All about,

A lazy term

For the Latin mandatum

Meaning command

For Jesus gave them orders

All the followers

That they should love

One another

That a few ages later

We should love each other

Good Friday

(good?)

Will

(for a fact)

Be awful,

And in between

The supper and the arrest

Admittedly

Is his time in the garden

Where disciples will betray him,

First two

And then the third

Follower

Who left the supper early

While Christ on his own

More than he wished

Asked of the cup

Not filled with wine from the meal

But of the bitterness

Of mortal destiny

Should pass by

As a deadly metaphor

For will

And then acceptance

And it’s really rather beautiful

As it is tragic

And then horrible

With an arrest

And all the dreadful

Words and acts

To follow

So we should keep the garden

Time

Somewhere in between

The meal

And arrest,

Maybe a kind of vigil thing

For the church meal before

And then Communion,

Well,

Was wonderful,

First roast beef

(typically and, yes, like the toe)

And then upstairs

Where we hardly ever

Had church for all of us

At night,

Waiting now

In fact

‘Til Christmas Eve—naturally,

A good association

And here’s Good Thursday,

Maundy Thursday when

We are told

By the child of God

To love each other

Though I’m thinking now

There are too many things

Too many good and bad things

To come together

Making sense

Out of a calendar

And faith

And yet

Bethlehem’s

Christmas child

And the child that is placed

Among them

And something about

Leadership

And children

And then

All children

Must and should grow up,

After all

So there

CLC

Matthew 18:2-4, Isaiah 11:6

Photo by David Weber on Unsplash

April 6, 2023 1

Covenant-Keeping

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Covenant-Keeping

We grieve

That is the right response

It happens right away

And is ongoing

Mostly it’s the loss

And who’d have thought

Regardless

Of the news

It should happen

On a school day?

While we still think

Of school days

The days when

Sun and light should happen

On the playground

Or we stay inside

When tension in the classroom

Over subjects is enough

How did we make the trade

Of shoes on tile

For the reports

Of guns instead?

For now it is the loss

We don’t want

To imagine

Even though there are

Those who must

See and hear

And every other sense

Invest

In the lifting

And the carrying away

Even then,

Through the earthly horror

There is what’s inside

Now gone

To grieve the most

Shock, fear, crashing grief

Anger and activity

And needful inactivity

Maybe someday about

The keeping and the letting go

C L Couch

What unfolded today: Former student Audrey Elizabeth Hale, age 28, kills three children, three adults at Nashville elementary school; cops gun down attacker

Dark Peony

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

March 28, 2023 1

The Killings in Thailand

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The Killings in Thailand

They were brought

Juice and popcorn,

Dolls

Everything they’d need,

The children at the daycare center

But this was funereal

The children had

Died

Killed by a madman who killed

Others, too

Killed his family

Lastly, himself

The families brought juice and popcorn,

Dolls

Snacks and toys

To the daycare center

For the children to enjoy their day

Everyone had been to the temples

Then they came here

Come back home

Come back with us

The parents

Parents and the living family members

Said

Pleaded

Cried

While exuding dignity,

Respect

For everyone

Come back home

Come back with us

They were there

At the daycare

Leaving presents, organic things

Symbolic things

The children would have used

At their age

For their lives

In the daycare

Everyone had been to the temples

More to follow there

Now they are here

Come back home

Come back with us

They can’t;

Insanity

And criminality

Has taken them

Spirits

Journey

Hard

But shall be

Reunited

Wrongful death

Owns no victory

The children

Other victims

Know this now

They shouldn’t have to

C L Couch

Photo by Charlotte Seo on Unsplash

October 10, 2022 0

We Prayed Today

(x = space)

We Prayed Today

“Today is a privilege” she said she’d

Embroider on a pillow

And on the other side, “I’m still

Breathing”

Because for all the despondence,

The despair we take to prayer

In our group,

There is beauty and joy

And so much to love

In fact, it’s what we love that turns

That often

Leads us to prayer

Compels us

We pray for the good things, too,

Wanting the goodness

We pray over cherishing the messed-up

World we have

And the messed-up lives we care for

And our own

We say amen

Knowing it’s never

The end

And we say thank you

With intention

We mean it

We are grateful

C L Couch

Photo by KARTIK GADA on Unsplash

August 28, 2022 0

They Wave Farewell

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They Wave Farewell

(Memorial Day, USA)

Red

(with white and blue)

Waving over fields

Dropping morning dew

For us

It is remembering

A waving day of it

Poppy remembering

Nature teaches

And must be

A burying place for war

The fields wave

The children wave

We wave

They wave farewell

Nature weeps

With dew, with rain, with

Anything that falls

All of us may fall

And weep

We may weep

For the children

(all are children)

Of the world

C L Couch

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

May 28, 2022 4

All the Children

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All the Children

It doesn’t take much

To go into a classroom

Filled with children

And a teacher

Carrying guns

And then proceed to shoot

There are no opponents

And no challenges

There

Where is the victory, then?

The mannish triumph?

Only destruction

Taking lives

Of those who don’t fight back

Cowardly command

Of a situation

Why not keep it to

A video game

Electrons make the hell of it

Pouring onto Earth?

This does not address

The visceral:

The violence of bullets

Piercing children’s flesh

And what the bullets do,

Once inside

Was this accomplishment?

Or would the defense

Have been insanity,

Should the shooter

Plan to live beyond the killing?

We’ll never know

There might have been no expectation

To live, after

It doesn’t matter

Unless to know

Somehow prevents another

Time

Of people killing children

Because they can

C L Couch

Here are the latest developments in the Uvalde elementary school mass shooting

As the town of Uvalde in South Texas mourns the killing of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school, a vigil was held for the victims at a community arena Wednesday night.

“Amazing Grace” was played as those in attendance wept and hugged.

The mass shooting on Tuesday has again spurred statewide and national conversations over gun control, following on two others over a two-week period —at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a church in Laguna Woods, California.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/texas-elementary-school-shooting-05-26-22/h_c348336110a9bff90edf25aeaf2acfbd

Down Roads We Go

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

New Forest National Park, United Kingdom

May 27, 2022 7