Dirt Church Woman
I held the earth in my hands today
on the ridge of an eroded mesa,
and remembered where I belong.
I am a dirt church woman,
not a stained glass kind of gal.
My pews are arroyos,
my hymns the wind,
my sermon the silences
between one breath and the next.
This is where God knows
to find me, where I find God,
hands dirty, heart open,
home.
Mary River is a retired social worker and writer who lives in Santa Fe, where she is working on a memoir. She also writes a weekly Substack article and facilitates Voices Rising: Freewrites for Urgent Times, a drop-in online writing practice. You’ll often find her wandering under the blue, blue skies of New Mexico.
