El Camino de Santiago

With a lot of talk in media about people undertaking the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, you might be interested in reading my poem The Miracle of the Rain which won the Scintilla Welsh open competition.

‘The entire drama is conveyed with such subtlety and delicacy. It’s one of the most moving poems about faith that I have come across, and its impact relies largely on what is not stated. Instead, it wakens our imaginations.’
Adjudication by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams.

THE MIRACLE OF THE RAIN

I undertake the peregrinación out of secular curiosity.
My companion, Teresa on the other hand is saintly.
I met her on the road to Santiago.
She is frail and her hair is a shiny silver.
She walks discalced, suffering calluses and cuts smilingly.
Her face is mystical, belonging to a sublime world.

I walk beside her in my sturdy walking boots
on the road to Santiago.
She carries the pilgrim’s staff and wears the scallop shell.
‘Of course it’s only a legend,’ I say, ‘this thing about Saint James
being carried on a shell.’
‘It’s a matter of faith,’ she says. ‘You must believe things to be true
or the world is just a place of pain. It was when the hermit Pelayo saw the great light…’
And her own face lights up. ‘We must get there before July twenty fifth.’
‘El día del santo.’
‘El día de tu santo, Jaime.’
‘Names are fortuitous things,’ I say
‘And this year, nineteen ninety nine,’ she says ignoring me, ‘is the año santo.’
‘Todo santo,’ I say mocking her.

The pilgrimage grows tiresome and difficult.
But Teresa, she carries the smile all through the long journey.
‘My feet are killing me,’ I say, ‘and I am sunburnt.
That is the problem with Spain, too much sun.’
‘You must not complain,’ she says and her feet are bleeding.
‘The peregrinación is like life. We must keep going.
We will be judged on how well we travelled.’

We arrive at the city of Santiago on July twenty fifth.
‘We have made it,’ she shouts with joy, prostrating herself on the cobbled square
in front of the cathedral, delighting in the drizzle that has begun to fall.
‘A miracle,’ she says, trying to grasp the drops. ‘The miracle of the rain.’
And I see the strange sight – people in Spain walking around
under a black sky of umbrellas.

We enter the cathedral dwarfed like ants under its enormity.
A ceremony is taking place.
Several turifers raise the giant botafumeiro with ropes.
People clap and cameras flash from the darkness.
‘That’s not religion,’ I say, ‘it’s just a spectacle,
and why do they need it so large?’
‘To fumigate all the unclean,’ she says.
‘Does the size of church paraphernalia enhance religious depth?’
‘Be quiet James’ she whispers, ‘and wait and pray for the miracle.’
‘What miracle?’ I say.
‘The rain has stopped,’ someone whispers from the back.
She looks at me, no longer cheerful, her face contorted,
showing pain now that was hidden all along,
and copious tears flow out of her eyes
as if she had gathered up all the rain of Santiago.
She presses her pilgrim’s staff and I see the skeleton of her hand.
‘Pray to Santiago,’ she says, ‘that he may cure me.’
And I move closer to her in the pew and we both kneel down.

The poem is from my collection Rus in Urbe available at (copy and paste)

http://www.amazon.com/Rus-Urbe-James-Lawless-ebook/dp/B00MH3KLQ6/ref=la_B001JOXD96_1_32?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442219407&sr=1-32&refineme
rus cover (1)


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Author: James Lawless

Irish novelist, poet and short story writer.

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