The Pilgrim Road to Santiago

(For Nerma)   

I met a young girl

on the road to

Santiago de Compostela

when the journey was nearly done.

Her load she bore lightly

as she shortened her pace for mine.

I am not a man,

but when the day comes,

for counting the memories

I will recall her beauty.

What gift could be given

along the way, taking each step

closer to Santiago’s gleaming city?

The spires there heavy with ancient meaning,

stone angels in perpetual

supplication and holy desire.

What could I say of life?

There were things I could have said,

but was I able to tell her

what I could not tell myself?

Walking as the dawn broke behind us

I thought to open her eyes

to the magpie’s call

in the dark cathedral of the morning.

Will you be sorry at the end

for the goal we wish for?

But it is not the end, she said.

She showed me the stones

that she carried, each one

fitting the palm of her hands.

What could I tell her?

The vines touched with gold

with September’s chill,

dogs howling at our passing.

And when she was gone

with her swift tread

my heart ached

with the sweetness of life.

Maybe what I sought

had travelled with us.

The gift had been given.

The Shell Collection

Before she died, my friend returned

her shell collection to the sea.

It was where they belonged, she said,

where they gleam brightest.

These are their remains

that in death make a beach.

Caressed by waves, pounded by storms,

marked by tides,

sorted and resorted by shape and size,

part of earth’s pattern in every day’s

new arrangement.

The tide turns and pauses

like a breath, out and in,

then the sigh,

the wait of a moment,

the choice of life rather than death.

And so I remember her.

When I walk the sea’s edge

and stop before a shell,

whose shape and form,

like some treasure dazzles me,

I pass by, letting the earth claim her own.

©Anne Chappel 

No Names but Beauty

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots,

eyes too large. The sun

spreading as blood.

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

© Anne Chappel

Along the Shore

There are new things

along the shore

where storms have carved

seaweed into dark banks

against fallen stands of sea box.

A solitary gum is dying,

broken glass shines brightly

along the thin shell line.

Beach shacks jostle for the view

sharp edged in the sun,

as buildings grow.

We read the signs

sometimes so gently given

with their own strange beauty

showing us the passing world

that our children will,

crying, try to remember.

© Anne Chappel