Camino Frances Poems 2025

Over the Mountain

Now, that we have reached the plains,

there is room to breathe:

not the need to breathe

of climbs and scrambles;

not the catch of breath

as mountain views pour into sight

from rocky paths:

room to breathe,

layered long, as the light of the rising sun;

deep, as the waterways

on which great cities grow.

Breath that is the harvest songs

of unseen woodland birds.

Breath that is the scent of thyme

and feral clematis,

marking gardens long since lost

to bramble, beech and fern.

Breath that is dry with the dust of ending summer,

the cracking of surrendered leaves.

Breath that is the making

and unmaking of all things.

Climb

This place is fey,
like all northern mountains in the fall.
Its paths are unpredictable,
rocky and winding,
tricky under foot.

Its heaths scratch with heather;
bite with briar;
gift both honey and fruit.
Its trees welt and whip
and perfume the way with resin;
carpet it with red and gold.
The Spirits of this place exist
beyond the tree line.
They roar upon its moors
and in its knifing streams.
They drive the horned and cat-eyed sheep.
The bells of horse and cattle are their mass.
They are, and were, and are to be
beyond the paradigm
of “good” or “ill”.
We honour them for their dominion,
no less, no more.

We honour them,
because it is how we both are made.

Before

Before the rusting of the earth,
before the bluing of the sky,
during all those almost-endless eons,

while the chemistry of life wrought its changes

on the world; readying,
was God patient?
What can a Timeless Being know of ages?
How can an Endless Mind survive them,
how can an Endless Heart endure,
if not by knowing that change will come,
if not by accepting a part in time?

Before the coming of things that sing,
among the things that eat and breathe,
except the churn of lava, crack of rock,

the flash of new atomic bonds,

did God’s yearning make a sound?
Or was it every sound,
of every jostle, every twist of every molecule;
an almost-endless prayer of preparation?

Indwelling, almost-endlessly,
to whom does God pray,
knit, as he is, into every part,

every creature, season, place?
That, at least, at last, is easy:
Every piece may raise its own voice:

called and calling to the Whole.

Lifetimes

I think of the old folk
about whom, my parents told stories:
dour old uncles on my father’s side,
still one part Viking,

farriers and drinkers, hearths and songs;
strong and stubborn as their horses;
who beat the boy and scarred the man.
My mother’s puckish father:
too smart to be a farmer,
too lowly for an officer.

A chancer, a charmer,

who found his calling in bathtub gin,
in nods and winks and barters,
(and also with the ladies),
during the Second War.

People I never knew.
Long gone when I was born,
but present, loved, nonetheless;
handed on.

I think of my parents:
also gone, also still present, also loved;
of all my stories of them;
of the stories they told me of themselves.
I am filled with them.

It is what it is.
I have no one to leave them with.
Even all that love is powerless.
And so they pass,
one generation before their time.

Chain of Custody

I read somewhere:

“Life is the constant management of loss”.

That is true.

And, it is incomplete.

We can only lose what was given,

what was made, or what was found.

A thing that passes without first cherishing,

is just gone;

a season over without harvest

is just over;

But to cherish, and to harvest,

to plant and to grow

is to know that all things pass,

to recognize a moment of abundance,

a harmony of heart and form,

of place and time.

It is to give thanks for their brief possession,

to feel it as a blessing.

It is to make of your life a chain

of the custodies of joys.

In a time of rain

In a time of rain,

clouds are reimagined birds,

filling the space below the sky.

Speckled, blazed,

deep and rounded like a breast,

sharply slicing like a wing,

they are layered like feathers:

structured foils for flight,

softly stacked for warmth.

They are coloured with the slate of peregrines,

the lilac of pigeons, the grey of doves,

the steel and white of gulls and terns,

the charcoals of the jackdaw,

with her flashing blue eye.

In place of beating wings, is beating rain.

The flock taps and drums

and thrums their chorus on the earth,

in the absence of sun and sky.

Free from the compulsion of dusk or dawn.

The Rain in Spain

Rain is falling in ribbons on the plain:

In some fields, hesitantly,

one drop at a time darkening the straw,

a large drop, then a small, another large…

Each tentative, as if unsure of its welcome.

In others, its courage up,

rain rattles down: the whole cloud’s worth

charging through the stubble

to the rusty ground,

like children at the school bell.

In between, the clouds

throw only shadows at the yellow fields.

Maybe both are already harvested;

maybe not yet sown.

In the grey and tawny fall,

it can be hard to tell.

Camino Frances, 2025