Sunday morning Irish music
on the radio. Been this way
for many eons. I don’t do church anymore
but ritual matters to me — for instance,
a soothing shower and then a bowl
of thick white bean soup
during a snowstorm after shoveling.
So it is with De Dannan, Teada, Altan,
and so on. Something foreign enough
to feel strange, homey enough to feel
safe. I grew up with this around me.
I took it in with air and water.
This is Sunday for me. Once upon a time
I went to church on Sundays. I used to hate that.
I was forced into that ritual. I don’t hate this one
because I’m free to change the station,
though I don’t. I never do. It’s Irish music
every Sunday morning. It’s a bittersweet
religion as foreign to me as it is homey,
which is, I think, what religion ought to be:
a deep familiarity, a sacred oddity
embedded within you of your own free will.
