Cruz de Ferro
30 April 2022
We awoke before dawn and climbed the mountain track in the dark.
Light had broken by the time we reached the mound:
a pile of rocks left over the years by the pilgrims before us,
a pole rising from its heart, an iron cross at the top.
People broke apart to sit alone on the dewy grass.
No one spoke. Even the merriest there were silent.
I thought back to the week before when we ate
at long wooden tables, after passing
round a candle and speaking about why
we had chosen this pilgrimage. No one at that table
was there for God, but even those who walked
only to joke and drink with new friends were respectful
and spoke a few words. Here at the cross it is the same.
The dawn is too quiet for laughter. Someone near me is crying.
It is tradition to leave something here. So, one by one
we climb the mound, lay down a rock or memento, touch
the cross, and go on. I write myself a letter to leave folded
under a stone, carrying the words away within me.
I love and have loved and will love.
That is okay. It may sometimes hurt –
I think of a boy somewhere on the road ahead,
with bright blue eyes that will never look twice
at me
– but it will not kill me. Far from it –
I think of his smile when I told him so.
He didn’t take my hand but I didn’t need
him to. He had met my eye
– it will make me more alive day by day.
This journey is remaking me. I have never breathed so deep before.
One day, perhaps, I will step into a holy space
without bending it – but not today.
I pull on my rucksack again, and walk on.
The sun is up now. This is all I believe in
– this, right here.
Finlay Worrallo is a queer cross-arts writer studying Modern Languages at Newcastle University. He writes poetry, prose and scripts, and his work is published in VIBE, Queerlings, 14, the Braag’s speculative fiction chapbook Unfurl: Portrait of Another World, and the Emma Press’ anthology Dragons of the Prime: Poems about Dinosaurs.
Amethyst Review 