Remember the Sabbath

(x = space)

x

x

Remember the Sabbath

x

To keep it holy,

That is,

Set aside

For a spiritual purpose

Take ordinary things

Like the materials

For temple and for church

x

Like rest and relaxation

Contemplation

Talking about easy things

As well

Easy play

The pleasure of your company

Ordinary things

Set aside in honor of creation

And creator

That’s all we need to do

One commandment kept

x

We may interpret;

We’ve denied it

And the consequences

Having been directed

Over ages

x

Ordinary set aside

It should be a good day

On another day, when scheduling

Demands

I’ve said before, but I didn’t

Make these things

That go on being made:

A new set of six days follows

Then a seventh

A new chance

Almost absurdity

Of reason

ETs will ask,

And you didn’t take the free

Day that your God directed you

To take?

We’ll be leaving now

x

Have the sabbath day

It’s good, clean fun

Let’s hope we could manage that

Against ongoing, human depravity

The other days

It is the easiest of hopes

And means

A sabbath

For salvation

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

x

holy and holy

(x = space)

x

x

holy and holy

x

one priest one day a year

I wonder if it were cleaned

maybe by the priest

how dusty would it get

without a cleaning

over time

would the priest walk through dust

to find the glorious container

in which was God

maybe a walk through dust

reminded the priest

of mortality

on the way to what is glory

and shall never change

such a day it might be

when splendid robes

are marred

walking through the dust

accumulated

by passing time

by mortality

by forbidding rules

with eternity beyond

how tempting it might be

to stay

not have to walk back

through the particles

of death

reminding everything unclean

but the assignment ends

other rules pull

back through earth

back to earth

changed

moving faith

for another year

x

c l couch

x

x

Photo by Andy Køgl on Unsplash

x

Keep It Holy

Keep It Holy

 

A life set aside

For a spiritual purpose

Wow, that’s enticing

A ritual for morning

For brushing teeth

(I already have one—ritual,

that is)

For going out into the world

Or staying in

Ever mindful of

The senses, the oxygen

It takes to have them remade

By a Spirit

Not unlike the kind invoked

When first people gather

Smoke, bread, shadow

Gray colors, brown

Small brilliances in flowers

All reminders, lessons

Items on a clipboard

Of discipline

A life by candlelight

By words, by work,

By what we do to have enough

For sustenance and charity

But everything

Every breath is holy

Set aside like taxes

Only next to nothing must be

Rendered to Caesar

Life in a cave above the ground

We could have hours of quiet

We could listen

For and as another way

The ordinary molecules

Upended

 

Changes we can’t see, though

Sometimes there is a bell

There are other signals, too

That this is a new dedication

Joy and energy

Sister, brother

Mother, father

And all sorts of strangers

 

This kind of world has a chance

Without a way to count

Expanding or diminishing returns

 

Wealth of a new kind

Everything is new

For being ancient

Every second, every nanosecond

Not measured

But go as a new kind of priceless

An order an accountant shouldn’t know

Unless she join the order, too

God speaking, whispering, crying

We have attuned our molecules

To hear

Our books are turned into

Absorption unrelenting

 

To catch

As if it’s tossed to catch

The borning cry, the adolescent rage

And grown-up sorrows (any age)

Newly tuned like any instrument

Invested

We’ll live in an endless sabbath

Abbey, monastery

 

But really I mean a life

We could really try

(chronos left for kairos)

In which there is no little thing

That goes unnoticed

Every mote transformed

Newly and forever sensed

 

For the effort and results

This takes

Is why

Prayer has led to bleeding

The world conquered by rebuttal

 

Because the spiritual life so contrary

A crazy rendering of nuclei

That sometimes

Only makers and comakers

Approve

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Evi Radauscher on Unsplash

Oberdorfen, Dorfen, Germany

 

Such and Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

Such a Church in Louisville, Kentucky

 

I hope it is still there

The black church I attended Sunday morning

Louisville in 1983

We were the only white folk there

The service went for hours (yes, it did)

And we were made so welcome

I’d like to have stayed for hours more

For Presbyterians, there was a lot of moving

 

Clapping and the singing was fantastic

Because they meant it

(it was tuneful, too)

The praying must have gone straight to heaven

Having made faithful conduits

Such an ordinary feature

 

We would have more meetings

Take our leave and go our separate ways

But we were together, then

Sinews in a toned body of

A holy congregation ‘round the world

When such people meet for such a purpose

Holy, holy, holy

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Akira Hojo on Unsplash

Reykjavík, Iceland

 

Shabbat

Shabbat

 

Something wonderful about Shabbat

Is that it’s usually a meal

The empty chair is for the prophet

Otherwise, the seats are full

Sullen children, indifferent older

Everyone has an agenda outside the room

But here the plates are full

There are prayers,

And we drink some wine

 

Where the holy rests

Inside the food or in the human heart

Isn’t clear,

And that’s intention

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo of 6-braid whole-wheat challah in the process of being shaped for baking.

Yoninah, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=772292

 

canonized

canonized

(days for all saints)

 

a process for remembering

those who live the

faith

in a church that is

a canticle of memory

 

who slips out, unseen

after the formal part is

done

to work a holy thing that

none of us will

know

 

there is a record, maybe

doesn’t matter

we sense without consciousness

that something good

happened

 

and there will be re-collecting

of it in the sharing of

all our legacies

 

C L Couch

 

Our Lady

Our Lady

(12 December, the Solemnity of Guadalupe)

 

The roses fell

Into his cloak made

Of rough cloth

He took the flowers

To the priest who

Wanted proof before

Believing him

And in the lady

 

Man of Aztec culture

And holy woman

So hard to believe

 

Might all our miracles

And visitations

Go over so easily

For fleshly saints

And innocents

 

C L Couch

 

Easter Uprising

Easter Uprising

2016

 

Some chose to mark

Easter day with willful

Murder

 

Family picnics in

Lahore Pakistan

Christians targeted

Though tell me there

Were no guests of

Islam other faith or

None

 

Day of faith and

Homely celebration

We who were not

There can nonetheless

Relate

 

Imagine those we

Love even those we

Forbear by mere

Relation

 

Scattered rent apart

Undone

 

Reunions friendly or

Indifferent never

Again

 

The soul the spire

Tying through a

Family broken taken

Away

 

Now the future holy

Day focuses alone to

Count those of us

Alive