Pilgrim
Once I leave the territory of youth, and it’s not a gentle
leaving, I walk, no seeker of free land or mere hiker
slogging away her allotted timespan, but a pilgrim
sojourning to a holy place, desiring the cachet of holiness
for herself, though knowing no more of holiness
than the next traveler meeting silence on the pebbled pathway,
brushwood, blackberry, sunflower faces on track
to the Alto de Perdon, turbines spinning in gale-force winds,
towering over a city where men seek to outrun bulls
as I seek to outrun regrets that occasioned the walk
in the first place. I reach the high place of pardon,
park my spine against a concrete spire, evade voices
from another time spinning their complaints:
You knew his first breath, his first steps, how could you
not help him? How could you not know what he required?
I know only sweat, the telltale bead of a blister starting,
some breathless yearning to cease striving, lie down
in darkness, and return to the old morning of my birth
before regrets could take hold. But the pilgrim
I’m becoming plays host to a different voice,
unsullied by animus or time, potent, entreating me:
Sink into mercy. I push myself from the concrete post
and step out, knowing only the pilgrim’s mantra:
Have mercy on me. So I move on, leave off the voices
brandishing blame, branding my heart. I press on
toward a place I cannot know, yet awaiting my arrival,
already speaking my name.
Ruth Whitney lived two years in Zaire, a time that informs her novel, Mimosa Road, forthcoming from Adelaide Books and her novel, Slim (SMU Press), about HIV/AIDS coming to sub-Saharan Africa. Slim received First Book Award from Writer’s Guild/ PCUSA. Other work: in Threepenny Review, Natural Bridge, Assisi, and elsewhere.
Amethyst Review 