Tag: pilgrimage

The Eternal Pilgrimage

I’ve walked the ways of curlews and grasshoppers,

through meadows and pine trees, muddy lanes, 

valleys of mists and cliffs where choughs called

to my soul and saw sun gilded branches and

great ocean waves holding the glory of gold.

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I’ve walked hospital corridors, shared shed tears,

watched the light go from a sick man’s eyes

and known the weight of human compassion,

following down  the church behind the coffin 

holding love and sore grief heavy with hope.

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I’ve walked in the footsteps of sacrificial saints,

along stained streets, across once pretty parks,

and church yards where spent dirty  needles

tell the sadness and pain of dreams hard won

being lost in a haze of poverty and violence.

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I’ve walked in the halls of wealth and fame, 

where stalk the fears that the mask will fail

and falling reveal the fresh face of failure,

and money bites into the soul and extracts

like a drug the will to be free of its chains.

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Head bent pressing forward, pushing for

a place to rest, a place of peace a place

where footprints in the sand are not mind

but the one who carries me, the one who

caring for all our troubles with his life.

The Gower Pilgrim

The steps of ancients have walked this way,

searching out for easement of earthly sorrows,

seeking souls to bring to an earthy paradise

or expiating their sins with hunger and sorrow,

opening a way for newer treads of modern soles

to journey through the patient places of Gower.

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Weary living brings the purposeful pilgrim,

eyes  tired of seeing a tense troubled world,

intent on travelling in the holy, loving heart

of a being who reaches through thin places,

where angels hover to assist the seekers and

wounded hands long to hold their burdens.

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The trail winds though the coastal paths,

down lanes, passing lichen covered trees,

toiling farmers’ friendly waves, tumbling 

water alongside frantically buzzing bees 

searching the wayside sweet flowers, 

and villages of folk, tend loved gardens.

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Each step brings new things, a wren calls

and overhead a buzzard hungrily stares.

Waterproofs are stowed against the moods

of the wide sky crafting its treasures hourly;

where the sojourner on the sacred way, 

soul rumbling, is hungry for a holy touch.

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And so, the pilgrimage takes our hands,

feeding us with grace in the incompleteness

of existence and fuelling us for an unsteady

future; and invites us to take kindly comfort 

to sustain our strength, hearten our prayers

and be broken bread to all our neighbours.

The Pilgrimage of Life

My long legs reached to the farthest shore of my being,

shoving and pushing through the muddiness of rejection,

and the sucking swampiness of my serious certified sickness,

each step a challenge of my spirituality of distinctiveness,

of my direct thinking to wonder at the great unknown, and

still I’ll move, ever my blurred eyes looking for the briefest

of arrivals and departures, each harried horizon differing 

and developing in her persistence to a protected peace,

a hushed silence in the noise of extant voices, seeking

rest for my soul and a hidden haven of hopefulness.