Reveals

(x = space)

x

x

Reveals

x

I don’t know

It is a mystery

How we get

To where we get

We understand

Our choices

Ponder choices

Made by others

All around us

And what might

We figure?

What might we understand

Of agendas

Or of consequences?

Well, we’re here

We have what we have

And don’t know

What we don’t know,

Which is maybe why

Monks

And mothers

Other readers

(all receivers)

Enjoy mystery

x

If God is unknown

Then we are fine

Not knowing

Seeking answers

Or allowing

Un-answering

To guide our days

In relishing instead

The partiality

Of things we hold

Let go

Or appreciate

Even with longing

From afar

x

We have

And do not have

We wonder because

There are wonders

Such a life

Of having

And un-having

Knowing and un-knowing

We bear

And carry with delight

In curiosity

Answering in part

All awareness

Or simply going out

Or staying in

All the time

Then rest

Then go again

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Brandon Style on Unsplash

x

Yesterday’s Statistics

(x = space)

x

x

Yesterday’s Statistics

x

Only a few hundred died

From COVID yesterday

Only a few hundred

We must be getting better

And maybe we are

Except for the families

Friends and neighbors

Of a few hundred people

Who died from COVID

Yesterday

x

But who’s counting

The CDC is counting

WHO is counting

Sometimes it’s on the news

But even news programs

Want for ratings

Vie for them

x

One more day to help;

Live as if

x

As If

x

As if tomorrow is a question mark,

Which it is

As if love is uncertain

And life the mystery

With or without a number

As always

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Yuval Zukerman on Unsplash

Peterborough, NH 03458, USA

x

The Tower Treasure

(x = space)

x

x

The Tower Treasure

x

I live on the second floor,

No great height

Up from me is Tower Hill,

A name from history

Since there is no tower

That I know of

x

Wouldn’t it be romantic,

An adventure?

And for the Hardy Boys

And Nancy Drew,

Cherry Ames

And the Bobbsey Twins

(maybe somewhat

grown up

maybe)

Robbers hiding out

In said high place

With those who always

Want to find the ancient

Loot breaking in

From time to time

x

So that now everyone

Wants jewels of differing

Centuries

And there are flashlights

There are yet-to-be passages

To find;

There are guns

Because good stories

Mention risks

There are old stairs

And so much dust

And colonies of cobwebs

x

And in the nearly final act,

There is confrontation

Of all parties

With nearly everything

Discovered

Until the final trick

The heroes get to throw,

Distraction that gives

Time enough

For law enforcement

x

Then all friends

Meet in peace

Have snacks

At the place in town

Where all the young ones

Meet

To read the story

Above the fold and farther in

x

And we close the covers

(books and beds),

Pining for our treasures

x

Never

The end

x

C L Couch

x

x

If you would like to read about a treasure in one’s own town (a novel, I’m afraid), there is for children (of all ages) The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn by John Bellairs.  And many more such stories, I’m sure.  Or you could write such a tale.

x

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

x

Mystery Unsolved

Mystery Unsolved

 

I don’t know what

I can come up with

Today

I’ve been looking for

A day off

And haven’t quite

Managed it

But we’ll see

I’m watching a mystery

Now, a good one

From a series that I

Like

British, not that the

British do the best,

Though they’re awfully

Good

 

Typically, the

Mystery is a murder,

Which is sad

Typically, the person killed

Is introduced

Villainous enough that

We don’t mind,

Though we might then be

Disposed toward

Sympathy for

The killer, which is

Something writers

I imagine

Keep in mind

While working all things

Out

I don’t know

I’ve written a couple

Of mysteries of

The two-minute kind

 

Mystery certainly is

A spiritual word

The foundation of

Our faith in a

Paradox,

Since faith is something

Clear in its conviction

But not so much

In content

It is the evidence

Of things unseen,

Which would go terribly

In court

Yet must be followed

For belief

And in that regard

Faith is gossamer

Not concrete

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

 

1947

1947

(Hebrew: קומראן; Arabic: خربة قمران‎ Khirbet Qumran)

 

In a cave, the scrolls were found

Affirmation, challenges of faith

The treasure in the cave by Aladdin’s invocation

Open sesame

The finding of the way to the center of the

Earth, thanks to Saknussemm

Or the place where Merlin sleeps

I’m sure Nancy Drew must have taken George and Bess

Joe and Frank

Through one of these

Then there are the (real) caves in Kentucky

Still explored, miles uncovered

Many miles remain

While we can walk through what we know

 

Caves are perfect holds for treasure troves, it seems

For finding bats and other things

That waking life above does not espy so much

Maybe it’s the light inside a darkness

Maybe Qumran is living mystery

And that alone

Changes us

 

C L Couch

 

 

Dan Lundberg – 20110226_West Bank_0578 Qumran, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35424226

 

(name-language notes lifted from Wikipedia)

 

Mystaken

Mystaken

 

A mystery

At night

Vespers

Lights off, no need

A single glow for reading

Another for the exit

 

I tell you a mystery

I’m not sure about the victim

Jesus

All of us from Eden

 

The perpetrator

The design behind

Agencies of evil

More than that, I cannot, may not say

 

The weapons

Hate

Anger turned into ambition

(it could have come from something else)

Wood

Nails

Hammer

Items for building

Turned to wreck

To rot

A life

From any usefulness

From beauty

 

The motive

Ask of us

 

Things to think about

Or feel through as

Later at night

Might turn to vigiling

 

Pray for us

The innocents

Those outside the drama

Now framed in viscerality

And doubt

 

The victims

Who should go to heaven

Deserving all reward

And will have none of it

But celebration

 

That’s for morning

Tonight we have a calm confusion

To keep

Cupped in each palm

(that might have held something else),

Paradox an artifact

Having a sharp edge

Maybe thorns

 

With care, then

All of us in darkling time

Taking up, taken or brought

To mystery

 

C L Couch

 

 

 

(moon) Image by Muhamad Ikhsan from Pixabay

(church image by) Lijonama80 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61976949

 

At 5 a.m., How and Why

At 5 a.m., How and Why

 

God

You are there

And I am here

The distance between us need

Be no more than a filament

The breadth of a capillary

A pulse between two nuclei

Or the space can be

The width of a world

 

That has more to do with me

Since no qualifying of divine will stands

Beyond the condition you placed upon yourself

For a savior

 

One who redeems as God and a person

Flesh molded with spirit

Majesty in ordinary undertaking

To teach, to heal, to live, to die in innocence

And then all will returns

In death defeated

 

It is a Christian way to know things

It might not be yours

 

But to God

I wonder how you stayed the angel

Who took the knife from Abram’s hand

But would keep it in the Roman plan

To hack a cross together

Display one who dies because

A decision was made

In Sanhedrin and handwashing

Not for justice but for status quo become murderous

 

Abraham was flawed, so was Noah

So was Sarah, so was Isaac, so was Miriam

Yet you made them whole

As all were knit together

Except your child

Who was you and yet was not excused from execution

Out of innocence

 

How do you mitigate your will

And maybe you never do

You allow yourself to bleed

Blood and water, liquids running life

 

You could have changed it all, and you didn’t

Change a thing

I am amazed and horrified

And would never lift my eyes again

Except

You promise joy and peace

And whoever have I been to argue with you

I must be content

 

Allow for Easter

For greater pain unknown anywhere on Earth,

Which splits the universe

And renders understanding into splinters

Of crystalline grace

‘Til grace is all that’s left

With which you save

 

With which you drag us into heaven

From drowning in deep waters

Filled with tendrils from wary sources

Always ready, in fact plotting

To bring us down

Away from light

From one day into eternity

 

I don’t get it

I don’t have to

I am here

You are there

And here

Closer in than I shall ever be

My God

 

C L Couch

 

 

Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash

 

 

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

P is for Petrarchan Sonnet

(Petrarch’s writing signaled the Renaissance)

 

So when I love with all I am alive

Then we are introduced as I and you

Therewith you ask me ever to be true

We press out feeling into a heart-hive

And thus you try to make it all survive

A mystery of evidence, a clue

To why you need me to pledge us anew

And wonder why we can’t in peace now thrive

 

It’s fear, I guess, and I can understand

When all is eye that cannot see around

That life before is ever in command

Until fear leaves in grace might love abound

So, love, let love become a golden band

A flex of give and strength to fright astound

 

 

[A] sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/petrarchan-sonnet

 

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

Second-Storey Moor

Second-Storey Moor

On a misty-morning
Winter January day,
I look out the window

All I see is fog and
Lack of definition
Except for one tree
Of bare branches

Reaching black into
My windowed sky

I didn’t expect the
Art and science of
This: skillful, narrow
Firm and slender
Branches reaching

With a clarity that
Startles a black vision
Against smoky
Pervasive mist

Grey behind each
Branch, rendering
All else vague

What is familiar
Now is mystery
And invitation