(x = space)
x
x
The Loneliness of God
x
God is not alone
For God is
In three parts
And always
One
And always three
x
Jesus in the flesh
Could leave
And left
For hillsides
Other isolated places
Divine agony
And privilege
For sorrow
Things to feel the first time
All alone
x
Divine surprise
Pain
And maybe
Astonishment
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Our Turn
x
What does God say
But something that
Could be without words,
Could be in a breath
Of moving air,
Could be something
In the quiet
Or in cacophony
x
Order speaks,
Chaos works its way,
There’s miracle in timing
Though the measure isn’t ours
x
Someone else is keeping time
For music we can’t hear
But moves us
Like vibration through the floor
When a band we know
Is playing
x
The universe is a song
Whose senses are involved,
All of them
Measured out
To everyone
x
With a constant invitation
To the dance
Whose steps we know
For having once been made
And being made again
x
Yes, and fallenness
x
Get up,
Step away
Into the dance
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Sides
x
If God is for us
Whom shall stand against us
Well, they will
They are they
They will
These are not shadows
Except in meaning,
Haunting for a while
Our better selves and motives
x
They are there
They are ghosts
(with apologies to ghosts)
Who look as if
They are substantial
And their weapons
Somehow
Wound and even kill
x
They (with those)
Tempt us from our fate
One by one
And altogether as
People loved by God
Who have a purpose covered
For the moment
Until the glass
Is clear
x
The battle won
Life prefigures death,
Better shows the shape
Of life again
x
C L Couch
x
If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:31
x
x
Earth Is Ours
x
Do you hate the sides?
I often do
Jerusalem and Antioch
East and west
(Istanbul and Rome
as part of that)
China and Taiwan
Town and gown
City and countryside
North and south
And much, much worse
Cain and Abel
So that only Seth remains
For legacy
One without three
x
We need our groups
We don’t need the borders
In between
We should have the joy
To have our own
The strength in defending
Everyone
The Earth
Our own
Everyone’s Earth
To own
x
What does this mean?
It’s right to ask
Since we ask
And everything is lent
And legacy is life that
We cannot gift ourselves
But there’s a promise
Prophecy
Assurance in or as
What we believe
x
What we shall own
Though frankly we must share
The bigger parts
x
C L Couch
x
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Conditions of the Prophet
x
What shall God say today?
Not to me
I am not a vessel
Until God doesn’t mind the cracks
And grime
Under the rim
And maybe not:
Maybe God calls on us
To call
Who are not unblemished alabaster
Uncracked
Ancient yet young
To appreciate
x
Well, there are no museums here
Not inside the person
If there is a purpose
And I’m told
Rather explicitly,
I’ll follow
Though there are conditions
x
I can’t be crazy
Or made crazy
There must be gentle tones allowed
Simplicity
Would be instructive
While dignity
Would be grand
x
If these can be traits
In a manifesto
Then I’ll call it
x
And if these traits
Cannot be followed, well,
I’ll follow
Share the word
With the same conviction
Sigh,
No conditions
And apologizing for
Conditions
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Mystic Coffee
x
What does God say
Today?
Not in the mystic sense
Or way
That I do not understand
Bur in a parochial,
Five-senses fashion
Over the sink
Or at the table
In front of this machine
Not to take over
As in a speculative episode
Simply to be here
I could try to keep
The holy fear
At bay
In order to entertain
If only with companionship
Unless God would like
Some coffee
Or cold water
x
Maybe so
Maybe God would like
Coffee or some water
In water, there are so many
Lessons
Though water can be water, too
x
As for coffee
It has been created
And remade
(we may ask how)
And so also has provenance
x
The day, the day
The hour
Without counting
We are here
God speaks
I listen
God asks me questions
Though God knows;
Shall I say anything,
I would not know
x
Maybe this is mystic
My senses would be frozen
Like the frost before the sunrise
God is God
Though God could warm me
I could try to talk,
Be thankful for
The perfect listening
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Latest
(family things)
x
My brother’s in the hospital
I’m not sure what that means
He fell
I know that much
He spent the night outside,
Which I think must mean
There’s trauma
x
A body worked too hard
A body with cancer worked too hard
A neighbor saw him in the morning
And called 911
He’s hundreds of miles away
And he’s in the hospital
In downtown Pittsburgh
My sister says the hospital is good
Urban, smart, efficient
x
Everyone knows their jobs
And what to do for him
x
Now we know
We’re standing by
Something will happen
And we’ll all come in
It doesn’t have to take an ending
He simply needs to be in one place
Or another
For a time
x
What contemporary medicine allows
And Medicare affords
A rehab center
For new fractures
While his cancer’s tended
And he
And everyone
Must deal with that
x
We’ve been out there
When and where shall we go now?
x
I’ve rattled all this off
Because
I don’t know how to be ready
For what’s next
I wish I had resources
Of all kinds
x
Family things
Obviously
Certainly (to push on
the conceit) I don’t mind
If you know
x
If you pray,
Maybe you’ll pray
I believe the power in that
God bless him
And help us all
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Quiet Victory
x
There is yellow sunlight
On things this morning
Or is it gold
Or is it wishful thinking?
Church is going on
I’m trying to listen
The advantage and the irony
Of virtual
If I’m distracted
If I distract myself
It sticks
(the distraction)
x
(Saint) Paul is confessional
I think that’s good
I was thinking yesterday
Of (Saint) Peter
And his qualities to lead
That are pretty awful
He leads anyway
Jesus said so
Called him foundational
To a new movement,
A new church
x
We are flawed
And at our best
We do not deny our flaws
Because that is honest
Because vanity
And ego
Won’t win anything
The battle
Or the day
Or the age
Or the world
Or the cosmos
Better to be the silent planet
As Lewis has created
Until we speak in power
Due to love
And lead the battle
And the world
And the age
In love
x
C L Couch
x
x
Solar Eclipse
Photo by Obed Hernández on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Wake Up, Now
x
I haven’t heard
Or read the news
Seen images move
Across the screen
Or be still
There
x
So what happened
Overnight?
It’s Saturday
What high schools
Might be happier
For Friday’s games?
What nations
Changed?
Who might be in charge
Now?
x
How many
In the hospital
From one of or some or all the reasons
Who is on the way to heaven
Or purgation
We can only pray
And hope
For good things now for them
x
What have I wakened
Into?
How is my home
Of planet Earth?
What’s happening outside
That we only know now
As news,
Carried from light years away?
x
And what might happen here
Today?
I won’t know, of course,
Until the hours
Come to me
And I to them
Good morning, world
Good morning beyond the world
And inside
Where things are happening
Cellularly, too
x
And can I think of God
First thing?
I don’t think I can
I’m not devout
I’ll get to God
Once consciousness
And the lines of things
The shadows
And the shapes of light
Are seen
And anything to hear
Is heard
Maybe what woke me up
If the timing is untoward
x
I’m thinking of God now
For correction
A moment of chagrin
Wishing
(one wish of three wishes,
if there were a story
happening)
Wishing
I were faithful
Like the faithful
Waking up
To hear
And somehow see
Taste and smell
And touch
The agencies of God
And then the world
x
Sigh,
Good people
Special people
Waking up
So wonderfully
And usefully
x
C L Couch
x
x
x
(x = space)
x
x
Simon Says
(based in part on verses)
x
Is that the pie-man
Or Simon Peter?
Anyone
Who’d rather simonize
A game
x
We know what Simon Peter says
He wrote letters
We have two
He fished
One kind and then the other
It seems he went back and forth
Between despair
And inspiration
His is a good cause
For reconciliation
Saying the one thing
You are Christ
Then falling, failing
Into water
(he is rescued)
First refusing foot-washing
Then wanting it all over
x
Yet somehow he is the rock
A name
A metaphor
For church
Jesus says so
Then there’s the episode
Chapter and verse for us
When it is night
And his rabbi, his leader,
And his friend is arrested
xxxxxtaken away
xxxxxto the authorities
xxxxxwho can determine
xxxxxtemporal and real
xxxxxcontinued life
xxxxxor death
And when he’s near
To everything
And asked about it
Says he doesn’t know
He doesn’t know the man
And upon the last
Of three of these
He curses
And the rooster crows
And he sees
Maybe in every way
The savior
Who was his teacher
And his friend
And it’s over
No paradox remains
The holes have been dug
Into conviction
Into faith
And practice
In some new ways perhaps
At least on the inside
Where it matters
Unless feeding others
That is an outside matter
x
What faith,
The joy he had
Have gone into the void
Like mortality
Into the entrance of a tomb
He goes away
He’s out of everything
For a chapter
Or two chapters
His own story
Torn out by the tearing actions
Of denial
Help my unbelief
He could have remembered
The cry of the parent
For the healing of the child
He could have wept
For Jerusalem
And for his friend
x
Peter, Peter
Denier
Pumpkin-eater
Follower and friend
He said so
Jesus said so
Then everything was gone
He was gone
With the other one
Sometimes we lose our way
With the other
x
C L Couch
x
x
Matthew 26:69-75
x
(the letters that are 1 and 2 Peter)
x
nursery rhymes that are the stuff of ages, now
x
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
x
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