On the Camino de Santiago
Thresholds
Poems at Flores
On the Camino de Santiago. A sequence of ten poems, as Ros wrote them.
Ros’s letter from the retreat, June 2024 →
1
Arrival
for Kim
Roses smell of warm wine,geraniums are redder than I’ve seen.Two cats, ginger and tabby,prowl across roofs. Stone warms,the day adds up to heat, silenceis finally audible. Hours turnaround me where I sit.Nobody comes, till youwith honey and bananasand we sip tea.2
Silence
When the noise stops, you can hear the earth;it has a quiet voice like a cat’s approach,it breathes, moves leaves on cherry and pear trees,stretches across paving stones.It is like clean water. It gives back.It whispers among poplars by the riverwhere they do their dance.It is inside your head, and over rooftopswith the swallows’ wings.It is what you longed for –a shifting of all that lives into another key;invisible presence, almost forgottenin the din of interrupted days.I want to give it to you, give backthis original pure voicestirring into life, early and late,to say, this is where we came from.3
Stone Bridge
On the stone bridgeWhere water runs shallow over slate,I stand between two banksTo hear the blackbird in the poplar,Watch the magpie flash.Going nowhere. Staying here.Hearing the stream run.4
Reading Landscape
5,000 years ago, they came,camped, saw that their animals could graze,to let down milk for the children.They saw sunrise, sunset, solstice, equinox;marked the tracks of planets, founda coherence, began to calculateand scry.Here by the ancient rockwe huddle in our coats and scarves,wait for the sun, long for itwhere we sit hungry and smallin our turn. This old, cold earthour own.You read the landscape, tell the tale,release us then to coffee and tortillasin a village inn.We begin to speak again.5
Thresholds
The cold keys heavy in your hand;one fits the lock in the green door,you step across the threshold,light patterns the floor.Here is the unfoldinginner world of cats and geraniumsAnother door, your own,another key, another opening – a bed, a desk, a chair;now all you have to do is step inside,unpack the things you brought,breathe out,find the next threshold, the oneso far inside you did not knowuntil you came here, what you waited for.6
The stork awaited me in the low fieldRose from the feathered grass, stretchedNeck and legs and flewSpiraling above me in the blueOf today’s sky, his great wingsPinioning the air, messengerOf birth, of pilgrimage,Of unforeseeable things.Stork, what do you tell meAs I stand knee-deep in grass?Whatever your message,it will come to pass.7
Horse
In the meadow where swallows dipAnd poplars shimmer in the danceI met a horse.He was a white horse – no knightIn shining armour attached, or needed.Just a horse in a meadow.He put up his head and asked me –Who are you? I said, a poet –No other qualifications needed.He said – then write me.8
Feeding Women Good Food
for Basia and Bertrand
When you feed women, something happensthat is like Christmas for small children –the world opens and is all gift,it turns kind, it is once again a mother:the bread, the soup, the cheese, the wine,all the creations of this earth are for us,they enter our mouths like mannaor like kisses – we open ourselves to receivewhat we have given all our livesto men and children, strangers, guests,of our energy, our invention,the gift that never seemed to befor us, at last provided.We sit, astonished, as the plates are setbefore us, grateful to noticethat the world gives back.And begin to eat.9
Oakleigh Folding Laundry, June 5
She folds her laundry in the sun,each gesture lovelywith the care she takes,each garment held with graceagainst her chestgreeted in brief embracesmoothed flat and wrinkle-free;she folds in halves, then quarters,flips the whole andplaces on the raila finished thing,clean in the light.10
There Will Come a Time
There will come a timewhen you walk this path into deep countrybetween mountains, going west,when you feel the landscape coming towards youas you enter it-your steps in boots on the stony way,young oaks giving you shade,you crest the hill and as you walkyou know you are not alone in your movement –the land is reaching for you,hills enfolding, even the mountainson the move, the path you are on,the only one possible.Then you will let go of everythingbut this - one step,then the next, the body in tune – and althoughyour bones ache, feet tingle,you will know this earth welcomes you,and be glad of it.
Finisterra
A short story. Maude walks the French Way through Galicia, towards the end of the earth.
Arles
One of the ancient starting points of the road to Santiago, and the home of Ros’s other recent retreat. The Via Tolosana, Van Gogh’s light and the Roman stones, in Ros’s words and photographs.
Passages on walking and solitude from the letters are gathered in The Story Runs Alongside Life.