Ashley Strosnider Holy Grounds
i. Norwich Cathedral
Chris Woolfrey asked me, "What if God knows
I don't love him, but here I am, in his house?
Do you think he wants to kick me out?
But there are bigger questions I'd like to pose,like, is it my fault or my father's
that I've never read the Bible?
Do you think that is even a viable
concern? Do you think it really bothersGod? See, I think that Christ seems
really beautiful, but I'm not sure how
I can know much of anything about
him when all I've got are stories deemedimportant by dead men who prayed more
than I do. I like the parts about love best,
but don't know how to understand the rest.
I've never practiced religion before.There is a load of things I'd like to tell
him, you know. But, do you think he's
listening to us while we light these
candles? Does it burn like this in hell?"I pinched the match, my fingers shook.
Answerless, and so, ashamed,
I dropped the candle, snuffed its flame,
and could not bear to look.
ii. Tintern Abbey
We fix ruins to conditions,
fixed. Preserving set traditions,
we maintain the hallowed places
tourism gladly replaces.
This, we do not call ambition.They could be divine commissions,
these, our scaffolds and additions.
Like Picassos painting faces,
we fix ruins.Relics here assume submission
to new, crafted apparitions.
Now each pilgrimage embraces
both social and sacred graces.We do not request permission
to fix ruins.
iii. Saint Paul's
I met another wanderer on the sidewalk at the river.
He smiled at me, offered to share his color-coded map,
since we seemed to be moving the same direction.
I agreed, being otherwise alone and wanting to talk,
and so I shook his hand and listened to his accent.
The conversation was, more or less, routine.Lone travelers bond, I knew, so I embraced this routine
on the route I'd walked before, the previous day. The river,
of course, followed this path quite naturally, without a map.
But I was more interested now in names than in directions,
so we made buildings and their architects the subject of our talk,
noting how such artistic diversity seemed to accentthe long-standing history of this city and its foreign accent.
Its are old stories, well-learned, but there was nothing routine
about Roman roots, its fire, its bard, this oddly-named river.
Praising bridges for their looks, we mostly ignored the map,
and, curious about the distant shore, moved in that direction.
We chose a bridge by merit of its looks and crossed, talkingabout the same trivial topics young strangers always talk.
He asked if I could comprehend his English through his accent,
and I understood this to be part of a feigned self-conscious routine
like he expected a comparison of strength and beauty to the river.
I told him I could. Then, redirecting our focus, took his map,
determining perhaps our bonding might require some direction.He lifeguarded during summers, lived his winters without direction,
he told me, as I compared the view to the paper as he talked,
noting how the flashing reflections on the water served to accent
the monumental grandeur we were approaching. Routinely,
we leaned over the railing, spat, and watched it mix into the river.
"Now, we'll go to church!" I laughed and folded the map."But for deciding that, girl, you did not even need my map!"
And so it returned into a pocket of his pack, our direction
made clear by the cathedral's cool shadow quieting our talk
as we drew near. At the door, a guard's voice, thick with accent,
stopped us, asking the admission fee, all part of the routine.
"I'm broke," said my companion, then turned to face the river.In defeat, we embraced then parted, each retreat a separate direction
away from Paul's reflected accent still mapped upon the river.
I wonder if he knows paying to talk to God is the new isolating routine.