Walking In Camino Portuguese E-Book

Rand Engel

• Herausgeber: Poets Choice
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

More than 350,000 people walk the Camino de Santiago’s various historic pilgrimage routes every year – pilgrims whether religiously or spiritually motivated, or pursuing adventure, health, exploration, good food, friendship. The poems in  Walking the Camino Portuguese are intensely personal in their unfolding of the author’s challenges and joys walking from Lisbon, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Leseprobe

All Rights Reserved

Published by

Poets Choice & Free Spirit LLC

1216 Broadway Floor 2 PMB 1010

New York NY 10001 USA

www.poetschoice.in

Second Edition June 2024

Cover Design by Koni Deraz, Germany

Edited by Kaneez Zehra Razavi, India

Book Design by Adil Ilyas, Pakistan

Printed In India.

Price: $30

ISBN: 978-81-972256-4-2

BCID: 013-17243400

No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The creators of seven images noted on page 52 generously permitted use of their images in Walking the Camino Portuguese.

Contents

Forward

Day 1

Pão Pão

How Cold

Arboretum

Rain

Openings and Closing

Building Blocks of Boredom

The Digital Laundry

Muddy River

Burning

Blocked Road

Heart Felt

Bamboo Roads

My Road Flows

Sense Detector

The Food

What is this Way

Shadow Light

Fear

A Destination

Verdant Camino

Camino Companions

The Keens

Tous les Jours les Chiens Aboient

A Lost Orb

A Bridge too Far

Grand Wrecks

Stone Walls

Pastries

Mapping

Snoring on the Camino

Boardwalks

The Ponte Eiffel

If it Rained

Not the Interstate

Granite 2

Walls

The Author’s Day by Day

Credits – Images

Resources

Forward

As I’ve edited, organized, and illustrated this “journal” I’ve been amazed, amused, disturbed, by how much of the writing is complaint. Some of the complaint is amusing enough. Some isn’t amusing enough.

I walked the Portuguese Camino, from Lisbon to Santiago de

Compostela, Spain, December 20, 2022, to January 22, 2023. It was the beginning leg of six months in Europe and Asia, a response to COVID. Previously, in 2019, I walked the French Way from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela.

One of my exercises while walking was to write a daily poem, a goal of at least 30 poems during the walk. My purpose was to cultivate awareness and write. I didn’t imagine publishing. I’m doubtful awareness was cultivated. And the output, as noted in the first paragraph, is… well…. some is amusing enough. Some of my writing recalls a favorite line from Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.”

Nevertheless, as I work through it, and am drawn to remember and reflect more on the journey, I wonder if owning and sharing not only the joys, but also the fear, complaint, and unreadiness might offer the potential hiker an on-ramp. It’s okay to be clumsy, afraid, unorganized. None of that must be part of the journey, but any and all of it may well be – and that’s okay. I’m not suggesting that you decide to walk unprepared, unplanned, unorganized. No. Prepare, plan, organize. Still: this journey’s challenges are intrinsic to its power.

There are great resources online for planning a route – some noted on the final page – what to carry, where to sleep, what to see and experience – if that serves you. I hope this offering stimulates your interest and encourages you on the path.

Rand Engel

April 2024

Day 1

Is there something more than dissatisfaction or

Self-critique or misery in the first day of travel

Quitting Dulles on TAPAir

Sitting next to a sublimely tall Rastafarian with

Dreadlocks to his knees

… A lifetime creation…

Was he really on the plane… or a dream?

So unprepared.

Leaving Virginia: a grand checklist –

Reserve a hostel room

Box my things

Pack travel kit

Buy a ticket

Talk schedule and visits with friends

Arriving Portugal –

Check the weather…. No

Plan my days…. No

Ensure my communications work…No

And they don’t

And that’s just the beginning.

So

Lisbon, this city

Spread long upon the river Tagus,

Restaurants in old factory garb,

A bridge to make the Big Apple jealous,

Pre-war districts,

The nineteen thirties, maybe the nineteen tens…

Buildings mass street by street

In all their 1930s – or 1910s? – splendor - Or inevitability.

Each wears cages: metal railings,

Building upon building with “balconies”

Faux balconies

Door-size openings

No exterior porch –

Air in,

Waves and nods and laundry lines out,

To shake a handkerchief,

Shout a joke, throw an insult,

Keep watch –

No overhang protecting from the rain.

I didn’t check that … the rain.

Cars are bright and new,

People happy,

The moment…Let us

say good.

A great falafel, artful in its shredded beets and small chunks,

First meal

An abundant falafel Euro 4.15,

Would my flight seatmate like the baba ghanoush?

And it rains and rains.