Till We Have Faces

(x = space)

x

x

Till We Have Faces

x

Black History Month begins

Black experience

Recorded

Call it Black experience month

Black testimony

Black story

x

Till

Evers

Amistad

Empires in Africa

Black and white

Greedy

Murderous

Raid

Take

Transport

Sell

And so begins a nation

You may say that others did it, too

So what

So fucking what

x

We have a month to cringe

A month to listen

Get it right

Fix something small

Fix something huge

Enormous

Like a nation

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

HDR shot of a sunset over downtown Memphis with the pyramid and bridge.

Memphis, TN, USA

x

First Page of Every Book

(x = space)

x

x

First Page of Every Book

x

What might God say

But that

There was a word

The word in fact

Was God

And in our words

God breathes

And the making of the Earth

Was God’s

And our keeping

Or rejecting

Is our own

x

This from opening

The gospel

Pick a book of books

For all the horror

The unmaking

The possessing

And abandoning

Of spirits

We say good news

Inhabits

And abounds

Hope for ourselves

The grownups

And the children

Hope for the world

Of people

And of ground and water

x

For in the beginning

Was a word

Beside all words

It was love

And inspiration

Breath of God

And God

A word that made

From nothing

Gave us

Everything

With the proviso of

Two trees

And one rule

x

So much for that

We’re here as are here

There is hope left

In the box

Made of word perhaps

And this its second purpose

x

So many stories

Now

For elucidation

And companionship

Upon the journey

In the other way

From a detail of

A flaming sentinel

An ersatz beacon

Showing us

The way

We may not go

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Andrew A on Unsplash

x

Someone Said a Pearl for a Harbor

(x = space)

x

x

Someone Said a Pearl for a Harbor

(7 December 1941, an invocation)

x

Whom shall we honor

Today?

The citizens of Hawaii

Who died then

For strategy

On two sides

x

The crews

Of small submarines

That tried to get through

And sank somewhere

Close by

x

Mostly, the soldiers

We should honor

For the loss of life,

By the by material

That could (by the by)

Cost a war

x

Honor convictions?

How shall they be

Dispersed?

On either side,

There might be recognition

Even under actions

Worse for horror and

A lack of declaration

x

I don’t know,

There were people everywhere:

Many termed the enemy

Who were not in any way

An enemy

Taken to camps

Frankly

For looking different

(I say exotic and

of the USA—the

ubiquitous they

say the difference

lay in espionage,

so we became

the creepers

and the judges);

We hadn’t done so

To the urban Germans here

Or in our suburbs,

On the farms

Or to the Italians

Though I wouldn’t be surprised

To hear

They weren’t treated well

In the environs

Of duration

x

We sent to camps

Then tried not to think

Some more about

Walled and shadowed camps

Turning into

Many of our own

For racist reasons;

We could have tasked

The FBI, the OSS

Instead

For their investigations

x

There is a danger

That the battleship memorial

Might slide into the water,

As it placed one way or another

Over tombs

Of flesh and rust

x

I’d hate for that happen,

For we need remembrance

x

We need to remember

Many things:

God and our conscience

Make it so

x

Recalling sudden loss of life,

A shining, lethal campaign of

Surprise

x

Oh, we should be careful:

Watch our shores,

Keep our early systems

Early,

Though we need no longer

Look to the right and left

For enemies

Since looking right and left

Shall land on every one

Of us

x

And what’s left of united?

x

My families

Fought inside this war

That we remember;

Some could still

Tell stories

That tend to

Try the young to hear

x

On this day remember, then—those

Who could see and hear

And taste and touch,

Who suddenly

Lost all the senses

Along with mortal life,

The joy of daily living

In a paradise

We tried to covet

For a paradise

x

Farewell, we may salute

And say

All those

Who cannot call out

Except for memory,

Call out

For each other

In the fire

And the smoke

x

And the few remaining

Now

Who would

Can tell us

Of the hours

And the aftermath

x

Times and

Experiences

That

Soldiers, sailors, flyers—on

The ground, on deck, or in the air—

Mechanics and KP,

Bystanders

Try not to talk about

So much

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Kyle Chicoine on Unsplash

Birds by the Bay

Ocean Shores, United States

x

Story Time, Please

(x = space)

x

x

Story Time, Please

x

Oof, I’m tired

Aren’t you tired?

If you’re energized, please

Let me know

Maybe chocolate

Inspiration from a movie

Or a book

An entertaining story

From someone who

Tells stories well

x

I like storytelling

I like listening

I like to think of people

Gathered ‘round tended fires

From ancient times

To hear from a bard

(roving poet)

Some other teller

Adding historically to lore

More urgently, to move us

With the tried

Or taking chances

Now

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Obed Hernández on Unsplash

x

For a Sad Time

(x = space)

x

x

For a Sad Time

x

God gives

We say

God takes away

It’s true

Especially

If we accept Job

As a template

Loss for what seems is

No good reason

If reason

Loss arrives

What shall we do

But keep

The good we know

The hope we have

Say

In other stories

Our own

That we compose

As best we may

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Jules Marvin Eguilos on Unsplash

x

Stone Soup

(x = space)

x

x

Stone Soup

x

I don’t know what to say today

I want you to have a good day

x

And for a while

To know good days

And what to do when days are bad

Beyond the dreaming we all do

x

So that it’s

What we know to do with what we have

Sometimes that’s hard

And hard to believe we have

I’m poor

I know

Too close to the legacy

Of art and artists

x

But I know good people

Am learning to ask

And not gauge heaven by response

Or lack thereof

But to keep trying

x

Also allowing expectation

We live

We are entitled to live

I don’t know about evil people

I know so few

You are entitled, too, I suppose

I am not God

And cannot judge as God

x

But the many, many, many

Of us who are not evil, not pure good

A mix, you know–

Choose a complementary color

We are colors

We color the world

x

And are deserving

You deserve

A good day and another

A whole bunch like bananas

Or corn kernels on the cob

Or other things so many colors

(as I’ve said)

x

Anyway,

A wish is not a horse

Or an electric car

And, drat, we have to try

The curse of Adam, some would say

Eve is cursed as well

But curses are not endings

x

“We have to make our own way,”

I just heard,

Which is true

And there’s so much more

There’s you

There’s me

And any me or you who happens

To be close to you or me

In distance

Actual

Or relative

(and there’s cyber-),

Which is to say

x

A nearness

(actual or relative)

To help make life

One bowl of stone soup

At a time

x

C L Couch

x

x

     Stone Soup is a European folk story in which hungry strangers convince the people of a town to each share a small amount of their food in order to make a meal that everyone enjoys, and exists as a moral regarding the value of sharing. In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as axe soup, button soup, nail soup, and wood soup.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

x

Statue of a monk and stone soup (sopa da pedra) in Almeirim, Portugal

By Adriao – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7645719

x

The Second Story Mountain

(x = space)

x

x

The Second Story Mountain

x

Merton wrote

The Seven Storey Mountain

About his journey to faith

And affiliation

David Brooks has written

The Second Mountain

About the search for a moral

Life that also

Has in it

Brooks’s journey into faith

x

There are many such stories

(John Henry Newman, Anne Lamott

Karen Armstrong—I give these folk

in order of reading them),

And high places

Are often an association

x

Once we climb, once we achieve

The phenomenal

The numinous,

We end up

On a mountain top

There is, in fact, the mountain-top

Experience,

A trope of faith

x

On my way back recently,

I skirted a tunnel torn up for construction

And drove over two mountains

As an unmarked detour,

Taking roads who edges were too near,

Too sharp, too narrow

I was scared

x

And wondered among things while driving

How folk could live on either side,

Having these as ways

To take a normal day

x

I don’t like heights

I don’t like driving off the road, either

It’s all done now, and if I’m smart

I’ll never take that way again

There was a mountaintop, I guess

There were two such tops

I only noted a change in incline

Down from up

There was not a park or anything

x

A pullover,

A bench with an inscription in huge letters

Come and have your mountaintop here

Rather the only words I got

Were my own

That said, don’t look down so much

x

I’ll live in the valleys,

I suppose,

And have my faith life there

Or at the oceanside from time to time

It’s not stormy weather

That I mind

Though someday it should take

Me home

x

I’m sorry, this is more a story

Than a poem much cleverer,

Not much more

Than talking

In the room

Over coffee or some such,

Should we be meeting

At a table

Or in comfy chairs

Or with both

x

I have my life of faith, such as it

Might be

I hope, I even pray, that

You have yours

In a healthy sect or tradition

That suits you and

Creator and

Creation

x

Fits you like a story to

Which you return

Time and again

x

C L Couch

x

x

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks

Route 641

x

Photo by Fabrizio Lunardi on Unsplash

x

Let Me Tell You about My Day

(x = space)

x

x

Let Me Tell You about My Day

(first hour or so)

x

Pre-dawn

x

Blue

And if you look into it,

A promise of silver

x

In a while,

The mourning doves might call

Take over for the cardinals

And the robins

Who might be louder elsewhere

x

The doves

Sing us into green

x

Town noise might subsume

The outside sounds

(except the doves who

are right against the window)

Except that it is Sunday

So the morning

Should be

Relatively quiet

For nature’s sentineling

And mine

We’ll find out

x

As for other senses,

Touch and smell and taste

Should have their turns

You might

Guess at the prospects

x

There’s still a war

Two wars, three wats

Still a virus

Many viruses

People will die today

And people will be born into

Air-breathing life

x

I’m a little late

Proposing all of this

Because the coffee cup

Slipped from my hand

And all the coffee

Slid

Down the down the

Sides of everything,

Flat surfaces

And cushioned

(a play of surface tension

and of gravity),

To land upon the floor,

Most of it

Slight sweet

More creamy than sweet

An expensive brand

Though not a kind

More dear

x

So I took time to

Clean the mess:

To clear out things,

Take things

To the sink

Where I’ll deal with them,

Sponge and paper towels

And cleaner for

The rest, for the floor

Now things have to dry

Then to be

Cleaned again

And there’s more coffee

To take out from

Its machine

x

Sigh,

One of those days

And what does that mean?

x

I see

The blue

And sense a silver promise

Like new friends

In a scouters’ song

x

I reckon now

You’ll have a day to survey

Finally

Of many hours

I’ll look forward to any

Of that story that

Might come my way

x

C L Couch

x

x

Before Dawn

Photo by Tao Yuan on Unsplash

x

Thirty Means End of Story

(x = space)

x

x

Thirty Means End of Story

x

How will it end

We do not know

What happens next

We have great lore

And supposition

We have stories

Of returns

We should believe them

x

C L Couch

x

(not years—thirty is or used to be a sign in journalism)

x

x

Photo by Rishabh Sharma on Unsplash

x