Traveller

He was bedraggled

mud-dust-grime bespattered clothes and tangled hair.

- No one had smoothed it for a while -

But often on his weather scoured face

a flash of joy exploded

at some old joke , or some last laugh or some unexpected triumph.

He had no home, except the next step on the road,

and all he owned he carried in a battered bag slung on his back

- one flask of oil

- one jar of wine

- one loaf of bread

- some water in a bottle

- and a small reed pipe to play on at the end of day.

And what tunes he could spin!

Laments by firelight for our flowing tears

and jigs and reels for dancing on our blisters. 

And when night came what tales he could tell!

To make the fire leap and the trees laugh

and to break your heart, and mend it.

He had joined my journey where the road divided,

I suppose,

for thinking back, I didn't see him coming.

When I asked his destination he just smiled and answered,

“Mine to know and yours to find!”

But I can tell you where he'd been –

for each foot had a red raw hole

and, as he travelled,

walking on his wounds,

his steps left bloody footprints on the road behind.

Aug 90

When I wrote this I lived near Glastonbury, a place which attracts many people, for all sorts of reasons. Many of them seemed to have been battered by life in some way. It was common to find a traveller on the doorstep, homeless and penniless, and to be rustling up a cheese sandwich and a mug of tea to keep them going. Who knows who those travellers were, underneath the inevitable grime and scars their lives had left them with? I was always aware that I might be meeting Christ in the guise of a stranger, just as the two disciples making their way back to Emmaus did on the first Easter Sunday.