Camino

I felt the movement of the train
in my body
when I lay down this night:
seven hours of rails
told in the bone.

The sun struck the snow fields
white on navy;  it kissed
the moss banks into dayglo
green;  it slanted the fields
in bright stripes:  March sun.

Little horses in fields;  new
building schemes encroached
the land;  industrial estates
ringed them.  In Oxford

the magnolia tree, lilac-purple
swelling with buds not yet
ripe, offset against
ancient stones.

A day of contrasts, of
movement for my soul.
Pilgrimages are not comfortable
things.

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