At the edge of childhood
and edge of wood,
I have not found God
in his usual place.
In spired cathedrals
with their waxed benches and bound hymns,
the Irish priest casts heavy lines
that boom from the pulpit and fall
on my heart
without a hint of song.
He says, \u201cbe with you\u201d
I hear \u201cbewitch you.\u201d
God is gone from here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lying on a mossy bed
dreaming of ancestral voices,
I mistake the old caretaker\u2019s steps
for those of my father\u2019s.
\u201cIt\u2019s only me,\u201d he reassures.
\u201cThey\u2019ve all gone off to the pub.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am too young to slip there unnoticed
to hear the tales and melodies
of those battered by drink
but delivered from sin,
dancing the jig of grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The caretaker hands me
a child-sized spade
and points to the yard
at the back of the house.
\u201cThere\u2019s treasure in there,
cross my old heart,
but you\u2019ll be wantin\u2019 to dig real deep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the edge of childhoodand edge of wood,I have not found Godin his usual place.In spired cathedralswith their waxed benches and bound hymns,the Irish priest casts heavy linesthat boom from the pulpit and fallon my heartwithout a hint of song.He says, \u201cbe with you\u201dI hear \u201cbewitch you.\u201dGod is gone from here. Lying on a mossy … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-y6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Ellen Rowland writes poetry and creative non-fiction and is the author of Everything I Thought I Knew, a collection of essays about living, learning, and parenting outside the status quo. She and her family live off the grid on a tiny island in Greece.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"