[Camino Poem No. 20] Late August

This is the 20th of 42 posts about the poems that carried me along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Aug-Sep 2016. On this (the 20th) day, I walked 16km from Ledigos to Sahagun. 

Sahagun is roughly the half-way point between St. Jean and Santiago. I was tired.

On the way in to town, I passed a sign saying '4* hotel, special pilgrim price!'. One hour later, I was asleep in the crisp sheets, body still smiling from the bath I had just taken.

I spent the evening writing, delighted at the clarity that was flowing out of me about how to develop my PhD ideas.

And then this poem. I let my room number chose it (no. 33*).
Bittersweet to read it now. August is gone; the frost is upon us.


Late August - Mary Chivers

It's as if we're always preparing

for something, the endless  roll of the earth

ripening us.

Even on the most tranquil

late August afternoon when heavy heads

of phlox bow in the garden

and the hummingbird sits still for a moment

on a branch of an apple tree—

even on such a day,

evening approaches sooner

than yesterday, and we cannot help

noticing whole families of birds

arrive together in the enclosure,

young blue birds molted a misty grey,

colored through no will of their own

for a journey.

On such an evening

I ache for what I cannot keep—the birds,

the phlox, the late-flying bees—

though I would not forbid the frost,

even if I could. There will be more to love

and lose in what's to come and this too: desire

to see it clear before it's gone.

*technically, my room number was 117. I had only 42 poems. 117/42 leaves 33 as a remainder.