(x = space)
x
x
sure things
x
the child
dressed up as a cowboy
or a football player
dream and irony
x
even then
the heart
might be folded badly
not closing right
or opening
for blood and air
x
and did I feel it?
ask the child
I’m asking later
I don’t know
no one told me
maybe no one knew
until later
x
when the heart attacks
and surgeries
and the device implanted
were and are
sure things in
the older self
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by elias maurer on unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
my heart to give
x
my heart to give
lord Jesus
my worn heart
broken, stitched
machined
hardly new
why should Jesus
want it
but he’ll take it
I think
not because
of its condition
or because
he can renew
but because
he is all love
and will not refuse
love given
x
after reading “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash x
(x = space)
x
x
Missioning
(for Mandy Shunnarah)
x
It’s Wednesday
And a hump day
Too many cases breaking out
Al-Qaeda talking up Afghanistan
Fires in California
New Apple phones
Unveiled there
I need shoes
More importantly a place to live
Local friends are helping
And good thoughts
Come from everywhere
Faroff family stands by
I’m eaten up with nerves
They eat me
Consume the calm
Like the noise above
That means I’m leaving
After many years
Too many jobs
That took up all
My energy allotment
Concentration
And my attempts to rest
And now
Semi-retired
Accosted with all that
x
My heart needs fixing up
x
This should not
Be all for me
Too many people
Have revocable need
I pray
Others help
With worldly substance
So much more than I have
But this should not be for me
In what I cannot do
It’s to put out fires
Help first-responders
Let go those
Who have no perspective
Build up health
Yes
It’s true
And I must ask
For all of us
x
C L Couch
x
x
Mandy Shunnarah has been writing about skateboarding and skateboarding—forthcoming book, Midwest Shreds: Skaters and Skateparks of Middle America from Belt Publishing (fall 2022). Hers is a positive, inclusive, encouraging voice.
https://www.offthebeatenshelf.com/blog
x
Skateboard on Dry Lakebed
Photo by Kelsey Dody on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Good Signals
x
I had the extra headache
Yesterday
Today, eyelids are heavy
(really are)
So with the tranq
That puppy dogs at veterinarians’
Get,
I could stand to sleep
For twelve hours or so
There was the time
When it was so bad
I got taken to the emergency room
At night,
Where I waited a long while
To be told to leave
Without assist
(except to be told to leave)
Six months I had slept
Maybe an hour a night
I was falling apart
Inside,
Which might be the kind of thing
That leads people
To scream in emergency rooms,
Which I didn’t
But didn’t sleep that night,
Either
x
Finally, nothing kept happening
And sometimes
I could get more sleep,
Though it took
A heart attack to move me forward
With the world
If we wore signs,
Would that make it better?
The signs would have to
Talk as well
Maybe give off scents
And have a taste
So that the senses become
Part of the message
(sending and receiving),
Too
x
Well, I have this day
(clearly, so do you)
The headache band is eased
Somewhat—and one might not believe
That I’m thankful
For all this
If so (if not), maybe it takes
Appreciating the knock on the gate
To be told in silence
Not time yet
And in reaction
Gratitude
For day-to-day mortality
x
C L Couch
x
x
The Grounds of Alexandria, Alexandria, Australia
x
Saving Graceland
1, Give It Up
And there are the things that happy
Anyway
Bad things, starving things
Taking from life, risking faith
At each turn
We lost someone close
We lose a job
We lose a place
We lose what we thought
Were good associations
We lose something in ourselves
We lose some health
We lose materials we think we need
Because we do
And where is belief in this,
Where are you?
You’re here, but we don’t know how
So we give up
Or don’t embrace in the first place
Because there’s honest reason not
To take hold
We might even curse God
Denial
Or the arranging of an adversarial relationship
From then on
We take down faith symbols that were
Totem as well as decoration
No beauty there
In truth,
No more
And what’s to bring us back,
To move us on?
We’re grown up, we don’t need you
We only need ourselves
Maybe with like-minded
Maybe not
2, Restoration
I don’t know how each one
Might come back
Or start at all
I mean, there is confession
And repentance,
But what about when no one’s
Done anything that’s wrong?
I don’t mean venial
Considerations
I guess I mean victims
Who comes back from being robbed
Of life,
Of living goodness?
And if there were no faith
But awful things have happened,
How might it begin?
A blank slate would be easier
To mark on with good lessons
Or reason through
Someone’s apologetics
That happens, and it needs to happen
But wondering from a point of loss
Of theft
Of trickery
Or manipulation
Then believing again
That everything with truth and beauty
Might return to the mind’s eye
The vibrations of the heart
All the evil stuff to be forgotten
No, that’s not going to happen,
Though there might be mitigation
For a start
3, Landing
A favorite way in stories to rid oneself
Of evil is through laughter
For evil characters often hold
Themselves and what they think they have
Too seriously
An argument of one that must be global
Humor, a healthy kind
Even if delivered in exasperation
Cuts through the agenda
Exposes the lack of clothing on
Self-styled emperors
Not that it’s the only way
Or on its own an anodyne
But healthy humor
Like right thinking
Goes a way toward righteous victory
Perhaps in metanoia
Though there should come
A sober time for reflection and
Decision
Or (and) simply to feel it through
Faith is funny
Worse, it’s foolish
Even if it shows the way
Turn over folly
To find some wisdom
The way some lies are best understood
Simply in opposite consideration
(take out the “not” or put it in
around each lie)
A different kind of foolishness
Made wise
Toward what we need
And where to have it, here
And on the other side
In certain testimony,
Something about rooms in mansions
Finally, though, we must face the hurt
We won’t want to, which is a good
Sign
We’re on the way to something real
Don’t worry about being smart enough
Unless it’s also made aware
How to get smarter
Don’t let your ego, on another hand,
Make choices for you
Finally, you know, it’s faith
It’s choice
It’s a choice we make
It’s the kind of choice that anyone can make
And if you think someone cannot make that
Choice for deficiencies,
God will think this, too,
In God’s way
Nothing needed will be withheld
To guarantee the offer
Or the taking
We all can be there in
Graceland, one by one
And all together, starting
The process anytime
C L Couch
Photo by Mahmudul Hasan Shaon on Unsplash
Guests
There’s the outer skin
And then a mask underneath
Of pain
Then maybe underneath the skull,
Things aren’t so bad
Now in the heart of things,
It’s different
There pain enters and resides
Deeply,
And we must somehow get inside
Like a fantastic voyage
Plumb the depths
To find a source
Of everything that festers
We can’t laser it out
Even a scalpel wouldn’t serve
We have to go in ourselves,
Live with it for a while
Reside beside the pain
To understand
Its texture and its grooves, and finally
Where to touch it best
To hold it for a while
Try a tug or two
But if we stay and warm it long enough,
Part of it will start to rise
Away
C L Couch
(Fantastic Voyage, a novel by Isaac Asimov)
Photo by Macavei Alex on Unsplash
Dark Heart
Light, bring me light!
It must be nice to call for it
A monarch
Then expect it
If I want light, I’ll have to get it
Not to complain
I have matches that strike on anything
And it’s one payment of my bills
That’s current
And now we have the bulbs
That light and last
That are expensive
That is a promise of investment in
Illumination
As for what’s inside, I’m unsure what to say
We say or see each new idea
As a light
A symbol in a balloon
A cartoon moment without words
Light to curse the darkness
Say the Christophers
Because darkness isn’t always bad
We call them the Dark Ages
We called it the dark continent
Though that was agenda
And racism
The agenda of racism
Belief to form a profit
Over people
Maybe we do better with the heart of darkness
Maybe not
But that is the end of light at the horizon
The entrance of the Congo
And the human being
And who is the main character
If not the continent itself
That without restraint
(another sort of character)
Ruins each of us—
And whose restraint
C L Couch
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1899 serially in Blackwood’s Magazine, published (whole) with other stories in 1902
The mission of The Christophers is to encourage people of all ages, and from all walks of life, to use their God-given talents to make a positive difference in the world. The mission is best expressed in The Christophers’ motto: “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
Photo by Nathan John on Unsplash
Seventh-Inning Stretch
God
Help us
I think God will
I believe
You don’t have to
Not because I’m better
Never that
No
But because belief
Infects at different rates
Like a desirable disease
And some are never touched
Some are cured
Or forestalled
By degrees of nihilism
But it’s fair to understand
Faith as sick
The world doesn’t welcome it
Many take remedies, so to say
For me,
Welcome the infection
Feed the fever
Starve the cold
Once the heart is hosted
All other major organs
(yes those, too)
The wisdom of the world
Is foolish to believers
We are fools
To its wisdom
C L Couch
Mask of a fool dancer; Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl); North America department, Ethnological Museum, Berlin, Germany (Jacobsen collection, 1881)
By User:FA2010 – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15334105
After Words
(Lent 41)
x
There must still be words
We’re stuck with them, I guess
Or at least I am
x
We could end here
Or yesterday
But we won’t,
Which is not a matter of words
As it is of life
x
Yet we should be ready
Now,
To pause when needed
Maybe turn the pause to play
Whatever is called for
x
It’s called for often
Snow day
Day in the sun
Comp time (whoever has this)
Playing hooky
(you can look it up)
x
Work will resume
With its kind of
Awareness, learning, deciding
Not in cryptic ways
Or inaccessible
Though recall that there’s a mystery
In pretty much everything
x
The kind that moves a martyr’s heart
And for other reasons, too, can thrill the heart
Of each of us
Of the sort like
Joan, Priscilla, Rachel, Esther
Judith, Hrosvitha, and Hildegard
Who found their way with God
While in the world
x
And for the Joans, Priscillas, Rachels, Esthers
Judiths, though I don’t suppose we’ll be
Naming anyone Hildegard or
Hrosvitha for a while
We may
We will
x
I don’t know, I think we’ll find
What we need
As long as we don’t keep the process to ourselves
Or the results
x
Anyway,
I thought I should say something once it’s all over,
Our Lenten experience
We’re comingling times and traditions
Of the end of Lent (for those still counting),
The Passion, the Triduum, then
Easter and the Easter season
x
I pray
Together and apart
These are all good for you
The way spring days, clean from rain,
Can be
x
C L Couch
x
note for the blog
Counting forty days from Ash Wednesday takes Lent through Palm Sunday, which might seem odd given the reflective nature of the season maybe abandoned in triumphant celebration. But the count of days in Lent can take out the Sundays and Holy (Maundy) Thursday (when the celebration of the Eucharist occurs) and add in Good Friday and Holy Saturday to make up a count and observation of forty days. Timing of events for the Passion and the Triduum might overlap this way of counting, and it’s also true that some have it (more or less officially, according to one’s tradition) that the length of Lent (even the sense of forty days) be taken metaphorically.
I guess I’m counting forty days from Ash Wednesday and let the paradox of Palm Sunday prevail.
Whew.
x
Photo Credit: Wikimedia User John Morgan CC-BY-2.0
clcouch123 
Recent Comments