Instructions for a Gathering

A book of poems and art intermingling the flora and fauna of the Camino.

Gatherings from the natural world to celebrate what remembers and is remembered.

Begin with your feet—half open—

not like a prayer

but somehow tendered

for veneration.

Walk first, to the door, then

onto stone;

It is your first day.

Your body wearies

with the thought

of climbing

what will come;

In the night, one man’s lullaby kept you awake—

You learned to hear a river in your mind.

This is a place of beginnings,

also, of endings

of losings and findings, comings and goings;

A man before you plays a harmonica

from the steps of a church

open to the street

Follow his hands to his eyes;

the nod of recognition he gives

to another face, well-lived,

holding a staff with feathers;

Gather their weariness

like stones

Begin your walk

under a clock tower

across a bridge

Nothing is silent;

Pilgrims sound

beside cars;

Nothing is silent.

Gather that, too.