Create in Me

(x = space)

x

x

Create in Me

x

The Spirit of God

Might not

Be inside the tree

But the Spirit

Might dance with the tree

And many trees

From time to time

I don’t know

How things are invested

x

The Spirit of God

Might be in the tree

When exigency

Requires

x

God is a rock

As a metaphor

But not the real thing

Having made the real thing

x

There is that

Burning bush

That burned and didn’t burn

God used

And rearranged

The matter of

The bush in that encounter

x

So maybe with the atoms

Of existence

The Lord loves to live beside

God or God’s agents

Asking for

Rearrangements

From time to time

To suit a miracle

A message for

Sixth-day creations

Who can have God inside

Intertwining

Spirits

When desired

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Conscious Design on Unsplash

x

Word Processing

(x = space)

x

x

Word Processing

x

In the beginning

There was God with the host

There were earth, darkness, abyss

And water

There were words

To explain

To initiate

Decrees

Then division and formation,

Creation as we know the story

Happened

x

Later when the story’s told again,

We will say

Everything was made

With a word

The word could have been gravity

Or love

It was love

x

C L Couch

x

x

(Einstein is quoted claiming that the greatest force in the universe is not gravity but love.)

x

Photo by David Carboni on Unsplash

x

Second Book of Genesis

(x = space)

x

x

Second Book of Genesis

x

God kept saying

That it’s good

Creation’s good

Each day of it

x

To be there

Hear the names

Have God speak into our minds

In pre-fall grace

With understanding

There is delight

And faith

In all this

Without they’re being named

Only the day and night

All the animals

Us

And then a time of rest

x

If we had been there

If we could have touched their hands

And drawn them back

From the tree

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

x

A Song about Creation

(x = space)

x

x

A Song about Creation

x

I am a Calvinist who

(enough of a Calvinist

who)

Believes the world has

Fallen with the first

Sin we decided to take on

x

The world should

Be different, though there

Are reminders everywhere

In nature, in the

Morning, in the soft way

That evening falls

Sometimes

x

Maybe it’s in newborn

Life that we have

The promise of creation

To be constant if not perfect,

Wonders in asymmetry

x

Science and religion

Taken over by

The awe that greets us

In the mornings of

Every hour, every day

x

Hexagons and spirals,

Nature seems

To favor these

(bee cells and nautili,

for instance)

And nebulae sometimes

Look like one-celled wonders

x

And for all the shapes

And sizes

In leaves and roots,

Mitochondria, and the

So-much larger flesh outside

x

Above and under all we know,

There is amazement

In waking to creation

Remade in amazement

Until “Earth and all stars”

Be renewed perfectly

One day,

A moment

Signaling forever

x

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x

x

“Earth and All Stars,” a hymn composed by David N. Johnson

x

Photo by Gabi Scott on Unsplash

Denver Museum of Nature & Science

x

Carbon Copies

(x = space)

x

x

Carbon Copies

x

Sometimes I don’t know

Why I believe in God

Because God is unaffected

By my question

Or the doubt

x

God’s existence being

Unpredicated by my

Belief in God

x

It’s not the best start

To philosophy, though Voltaire

Speaks of our need

To invent God, where the

Need seems to have been

God inventing us

x

The universe

Cosmos, anyway

Might be a random

Set (set randomly)

Of chemical reactions

Given the first state

Of ephemera

Something or place we

Might have called

Etherea

x

Without a place

Or calling it,

God could be

God of random

x

We set the first

Dichotomy as chaos

And order,

When it might have been

Void and substance

x

Our having what we have

Through design

Or the lack thereof

That could explain the

Platypus or

Emu

x

Genesis

Out of genesis,

More than ex nihilo

While God cogitated,

Then declaring to the host

That more

Company was needed

Like the first,

The universe before

The universe

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Michael M on Unsplash

x

Crazy Earther Kids

(x = space)

x

x

Crazy Earther Kids

x

How heavy

Is God’s hand?

Quarks and canyons,

Oceans

And neutrinos

Cosmic and subatomic

Creation and

Creating

x

God is clumsy,

And a ridge

Is formed missing the

Mountain top

Designed;

x

God sneezes—there’s

A platypus

x

God can be funny about

Making things;

When

We get there,

We might receive requests

To teach

The angels humor

Based on

All our

Earth experience

x

C L Couch

x

x

Image by pen_ash from Pixabay

x

Antecedents

(x = space)

x

x

Antecedents

x

I told my students,

Not so many pronouns

Making sure the subject is at hand

And it agrees

Not for the writer’s sake

But for mine

And any readers—

Say, a boss

Or those who must approve

The presentation with

The recommendation

x

Yet here I am, often

Making a mystery of it

I want you to work a little

Sorry

To track the subjects

And to understand

How often they are intertwined,

And that’s real

x

We have antecedents, too

Those who came before

And sometimes it’s a mystery

That we work out

With records and with words

To have something

Of a story

The genealogists with

Wisdom

And best-guessing

Giving answers so the rest of us move

On in the present

x

Where we come from

Is Earth

In a gorge that was a garden

In a crescent

By three rivers

It’s a story and a good one

Whether Genesis or

The Silmarillion

Or Gilgamesh or

Theogony (when he believed)

Or Metamorphoses (when he did not)

Or the God

Who placed a hand down from the sky

To Earth

To spread the plains and, around the edges,

All the mountains

Or one who came up from below

Closer to the ground

And loving it

Did make mortals when going below

Was needed

To sort out all the hot things there

(I made this last one up)

x

But all (real) depictions

Seem to contain a fall

Divinity or demons

Or our bad choices

They all live with us

(divinity, demons, choices)

Not only for the Calvinists

But as a reason

For the failures in a day

In an hour of time

Under the sun

Or in the argent light of moon

Wherever we trip,

Try to right ourselves

To dance again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Matt Nelson on Unsplash

Vonore, United States

x

Not a Game Day

(x = space)

x

x

Not a Game Day

(maybe another day)

x

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

x

x

Photo by Zhu Hongzhi on Unsplash

x

The Originals

The Originals

 

We create and re-create

We must do this,

I think

The way animals return

To reproduce

It’s close work and

Intimate

Actions in a studio

Or on the line

What might tragedy encourage

Into making

Or a comedy?

I’m not saying it’s a law

It’s not

Sometimes a commission

Even patronage

Sometimes, though, merely

A happy accident,

As is said but really happens

 

Call it invention

Or an invention

Making and remaking

What is made a complement

And compliment

To a living and a breathing

Sometimes fierce, sometimes

Fanciful

Planet Earth

 

With places in the cosmos

When we’re ready

Though we’ll probably

Leave too soon

To find the faces

That have been

Quietly challenging

Wizening with age

Maybe waiting

For the far more mortal

Upstart young

To launch

To find our way to you

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jenna S on Unsplash

“Painting the Summer”