The Dust Of Stars

I've been thinking a lot about the Camino recently, its history and meaning. I've also been playing around with a Camino poem, which has ended up as a song or poem medieval pilgrims might have sung or chanted as they made their way towards Santiago, Rome or Jerusalem. They must have thought a great deal about their difficult yet rewarding journey together as pilgrim brothers and sisters through strange lands of endless plains and unfamiliar mountains - enduring harsh climates, predatory bandits and painful feet. They must have reflected long and hard on their lives - past, present and future - and on God and the universe. In my imagination this poem or song could well have been translated from medieval French or English...

Pilgrim Song

We are a mystery to ourselves
And a mystery to others.
What are we?

We are the sound of church bells ringing.
We are the smell of incense swinging.
We are the sight of kirk and shrine.
We are the taste of bread and wine.

We are the living and the life.
We are the struggle and the strife.
We are the breathing and the breath.
We are the dying and the death.

We are the hunger and the thirst.
We are the best and the very worst.
We are united in one desire.
We are the flame, we are the fire.

We are the dream of the skylark's song.
We are the right, we are the wrong.
We are the peacock's rainbow tail.
We are the ship, we are the sail.

We are the gale that blows so strong.
We are the singer and the song.
We are the tension and release:
The killing hawk and the dove of peace.

We are the mouse, we are the whale.
We are the hare, we are the snail.
We are at rest and then in motion.
We are the raindrop and the ocean.

We are the teller and the tale.
We are the quest, we are the grail.
We are the path and the destination.
We are the loss and the separation.

We are the joy, we are the sorrow.
We are today and the tomorrow.
We are what was and what will be:
The agony and the ecstasy.

We are the evil and the good.
We are the drought, we are the flood.
We are the riddle and the key.
We are the cross, we are the tree.

We are the touch of hand on hand
Joined in prayer in a foreign land
On a pilgrimage through heaven and hell
Stumbling towards Compostelle.

We are the world.
We are the sun, the moon.
The universe.
The dust of stars.

The dust of stars.