[Camino Poem No. 18] The Dolphins

This is the 18th of 42 posts about the poems that carried me along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Aug-Sep 2016. On this day, I walked 34km from Itero de la Vega to Carrion de los Condes. 

Here is what I scrawled in my journal after my early morning start: 'walk alone in the furious dark. breathe deeper, see deeper into the darkness. Find only love.'

At lunch I met a pilgrim who was making the lonely journey of walking in the opposite direction, away from Santiago. She explained how she got to meet everyone once, and only once. She was struck by the intensity of what she saw in the faces of the many pilgrims she passed - the joyful, the angry, the sorrowful.
That evening, there was some rare entertainment. The church in Carrion de los Condes organized (as they did every night) a free guitar concert for pilgrims. In the subsequent mass, we were welcomed warmly, blessed, and given colored paper stars.

The day's poem was rough. To me, it hits home to the realities of living for years with unspoken grief. 'Music of loss forever // from the other's heart which turns my own to stone.' It speaks to the desperate darkness that is possible in human life.

A dolphin belongs in the ocean. In a world that will 'deepen to dream in'.


The Dolphins - Carol Anne Duffy (1955-)

World is what you swim in, or dance, it is simple.

We are in our element but we are not free.

Outside this world you cannot breathe for long.

The other has my shape.  The other's movement

forms my thoughts.  And also mine.  There is a man

and there are hoops.  There is a constant flowing guilt.

We have found no truth in these waters,

no explanations tremble on our flesh.

We were blessed and now we are not blessed.

After travelling such space for days we began

to translate.  It was the same space.  It is

the same space always and above it is the man.

And now we are no longer blessed, for the world

will not deepen to dream in.  The other knows

and out of love reflects me for myself.

We see our silver skin flash by like memory

of somewhere else.  There is a coloured ball

we have to balance till the man has disappeared.

The moon has disappeared.  We circle well-worn grooves

of water on a single note.  Music of loss forever

from the other's heart which turns my own to stone.

There is a plastic toy.  There is no hope.  We sink

to the limits of this pool until the whistle blows.

There is a man and our mind knows we will die here.