As my friend, Stephen McCormick was about to set off to walk the Camino to Santiago de Compostela a send-off was arranged. I couldn’t get to it so I wrote a poem to wish him well. I’m so pleased that he has included it in his
Reflections on the Camino del Norte
‘Compostela’ means ‘field of stars’ and it made me think of a photograph that I looked at often during a period where I was feeling low. The camera’s eye was deep under the surface of a pond, looking up along the slender column of a water plant’s stalk, to the underside of the flower; up through the water to a new and intriguing sky.
FOR STEPHEN, AS HE LEAVES FOR SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
My field of stars
Floats on the meniscus
Of a watery sky
That I look up to.
Sun-glints on its surface
Are my constellations;
My moon,
The shy side of a flower’s parasol,
Drifting. White. Fragile.
But yours –
You will recount
The stones, and dust,
The many beds,
The heat, and dryness,
And the Gift,
Pooling, drop-by-step
At the cowped jar’s rim,
To topple
Gracefully
At your need.
‘cowped’ is an Ulster-Scots word, common in Northern Ireland, meaning ‘over-turned’. It’s pronounced as a single syllable – cowp’d.
Photos: Stephen McCormick