My parents born in one country,<\/p>\n
moved to another,<\/p>\n
for freedom.<\/p>\n
I grew up between two cultures.<\/p>\n
In time I moved to<\/p>\n
yet another, third country,<\/p>\n
following my husband, starting a family.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I should have felt misplaced, astray,<\/p>\n
adrift.<\/p>\n
But a cord tethered,<\/p>\n
pulled me back.<\/p>\n
It was a ritual, a sacred one.<\/p>\n
A Mass.<\/p>\n
The same words, sights and smells<\/p>\n
even in different languages,<\/p>\n
told me I was the same.<\/p>\n
Oh how exquisite, the feeling of belonging!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I took for granted, the Sunday mass,<\/p>\n
Until one day,<\/p>\n
we could not touch another,<\/p>\n
even in gestures of peace.<\/p>\n
The holy water font was emptied.<\/p>\n
We might get infected,<\/p>\n
by the deadly virus,<\/p>\n
from hell.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The church emptied, how shocked I was!<\/p>\n
And the communion put away.<\/p>\n
Was it possible after<\/p>\n
two thousand years?<\/p>\n
That first Sunday, I did<\/em> feel adrift,<\/p>\n bereft.<\/p>\n A lone priest came,<\/p>\n disinfected his hands.<\/p>\n Gave communion<\/p>\n to the few hanging around.<\/p>\n I have never received it,<\/p>\n With such gratitude,<\/p>\n with tears in my eyes and a prayer on my lips.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The last I received for many, many months.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My parents born in one country, moved to another, for freedom. I grew up between two cultures. In time I moved to yet another, third country, following my husband, starting a family. I should have felt misplaced, astray, adrift. But a cord tethered, pulled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88099,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88039\/revisions\/88099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}