A German Pilgrim’s Penance
I saw it with my own eyes, the photo proving a preposterous tale
A great wash of stark white light
impales itself on the garden seat
determined to make it through the day.
On the ground, a haunting shadow
of leaves forms a swaying mosaic.
I am caught by the green & white stripes
of the swing, transported to my pilgrimage
across Spain in the spring of 2014.
Often, tall tales would run back down
the line to St Jean, growing more preposterous
by the day. Yes, I saw the woman carrying
a canary in a cage but struggled when
news came in of a remorseful German
atoning for multiple affairs by towing his
wife across the roof of our world.
As time ticked on, the story grew
longer than Pinocchio’s nose, every ten
kilometres marked another lover with
only 700kms to go. Then, by some miracle
a modern relic appeared to transplant the
bones of St James, awaiting trippers in Santiago.
Icon number one — surely worth a holy day —
a photograph of a wiry man in leather braces towing
a red-and-white striped cart carrying
an enormous prone woman, all 130kgs
smiling & waving at the crowds like Cleopatra
or some other adored figure from antiquity.
Somewhere, I suspect, not far from Munich, is an
ice-cream vendor looking for the one that got away.
Copyright Simon Heathcote
