The Word I Mostly Let Go By

 

In Glenshaw,

Pennsylvania (USA)

Where Glenshaw Glass now

Hosts the making of the world’s

Finest vodka

(you can look it up)

Where archaeologists one day will

Dig up the roots of Scotty’s Diner

On Route 8,

There is, or was, a rock

Tall and gray and black near

Some water like a pond,

Dug out by someone

Maybe some Baptists claimed

The place

For the words “Jesus Saves” painted

There

 

What it was to me:

A left turn from the highway,

Taking us uphill toward the ridge

And on the other side where lay our red-

Brick house in our red-brick neighborhood

 

We went to church (farther down,

the Presbyterians)

And I had come to know

Something about Jesus

Through a storybook that was the Bible

That our Church School teachers

Read to us

 

I guess I tacitly agreed

With the rock’s big white words

But mostly

I didn’t think about it

It was at our left turn, taking us uphill

Over the ridge

Toward places we knew better

Than the corner

Hosting more

Impromptu, if not wild, faith

 

C L Couch

 

 

Image by Aaron G from Pixabay