Best Pilgrimage Poems
To begin, time and money we give
For our quest, our poetry pilgrimage
Here, our band of bards congregate
Here, we speak the language of language
The secret handshake of simile and sonnet
Here, we meet in metaphor and meter
Here is heard tight rhyme and free verse
Our serendipitous saga, our harmony of haiku
Here, we revere the value of vowels
The roots of etymology forming
Our collective family tree
We barter in the coin of wit
Or trade in pages of penmanship
We recite in rich rolling elocution
Or in bashful library murmurs
We debate the greats - Dickinson! Poe! Yeats!
We ponder, we savor; we may place a wager...
In the end, we've re-met our old friends
And we'll do it again, at the next PoetrySoup convention.
3/9/19
For The First Annual PoetrySoup Convention contest
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
They fought the tide to own some land
A fight I did not understand
They fought the plow, they fought the drought, they fought the debt
But yet, by God, ... they owned the pride
In retrospect, I'm still ashamed
My heart and soul were not engaged
A flippant mood was all I brought, with sighs, and whys and skipping rocks,
the day we made the pilgrimage
A stranger to this twilight zone
I was about to step upon the moon,
A cratered space of rocks and sage, of rolling hills, with no escape
She saw it differently, of course
And though her bones were weary, worn
her eyes were strong. She saw a home
Her age was then, what mine is now,
It had been her life. It was her vow
to come again, just one more time.
Ten years old, I'd been dragged along
I couldn't the great attraction
Overlooked her deep reaction
I missed the tears within her eyes
She scanned the place she left behind
Her gray eyes drinking up the sun,
I saw dust, I saw the sand,
Where she saw beauty, I saw none .....
Nothing more than a sea of weeds, crumbling brick, the rocky creek
A place to shuffle restless feet
The years passed by, and I would learn
a home is more than bricks and stone
The photograph I hold today means more to me than words can say
In the rubble she had found one valiant rosebush left behind
while smiling in the summer sun, among the rocky hills
I wish I could go back to then
But I can smile,… remembering.
_________________________________________________
seagulls surf the wind
my escorts home
across the waves
streamlined gannets
sacred isle in view
saffron tints
ocean flower breezes
with scents of heather mingled
island essence
rites of spring
frolicking hares
scattering morning dew
eagles flying high
above the pagodas
sharing with angels
spectral in shadows
castle walls in moonlight
white stag foraging
eloquent landscape
shrouded in mists of time
stones with stories
ears pricked on full alert
deer transfixed in morning mist
ice cracks the silence
snow on distant hills
wind in ancient rowans
new stars twinkling
melting ice
slips down stippled bark
weeping cherry
beyond the twisted gate
flag irises bedeck the shore
beloved playground
fragile and fleeting
foxgloves in summertime
granite enfolded
exotic rhododendrons
sumptuous and alluring
bumblebees besotted
by the waterfall
dippers watching
trickle or torrent?
rhythmic shoreline
ageless slumbering hills
touching paradise
music for the soul
the lilting of the seasons
an Arran symphony
home again, my soul refreshed,
pilgrimage complete.
with Arran heath beneath my feet,
content- and feeling blessed.
I found her in the forest,
the photosynthetic pigments,
the cleaved sunbeams between the trees.
I found her among the leaves,
in the ovate, the lanceolate,
the smooth, serrated, and lobed edges.
I found her in the gleeful toddlers,
the searching, jubilant preschoolers,
the wonderstruck, young ones.
So many ways, I felt her presence
on my journey,
I longed to acquire her wisdom,
but the acuity of her heart eluded me.
Soon, I came to a parable etched in rock.
A mother risks all for her child, it said.
In this way, your heart must be measureless.
Continuing my pilgrimage after hours,
I entered fabled buildings, abandoned shells.
In the sprawled graffiti, I saw these words:
Hate never finishes hate. Only love fantastic
holds this genius.
Even as I saw the truth of her words,
I studied my hands and felt meagerly human.
I continued my wayfare, many miles until daybreak.
I came to a river crossing, a place of becoming.
I discovered the next precept in river silt and mud:
Self-love is the mud and clay for loving others, it said.
Then I awoke to what I was missing, and she appeared.
She floated glistening, bright, and blissful before me.
Shanti, Shanti, my name is Guanyin.
Her voice rang like a bell.
You can now cross the river to learn love transcendent!
UMRAH PILGRIMAGE.
Third time I am going for Umrah,
Feels great like a Mukaramah,,
Will pray for welfare for all In sha allah,
Will miss dear ones and poetry soup tundra,
Tour is with the Iqra travels primera,
My eyes moisten with happiness in the papilla,
A trip full of blessings, Alhamdullilah.
Rizwana Bhurani.
P.S- Umrah- A short pilgrimage than Haj in Islam.
Mukaramah-A lady very highly regarded.
In sha allah- As planned by Allah.
Alhamdullilah-Grateful to Allah.
7/5/2016
1 December 2010
The Pilgrimage
From young people of every nation
Will gather again to exalt
One faith in God for salvation
Inert spirit to offer salt
Will gather again to exalt
Jubilee of youth in pilgrimage
Inert spirit to offer salt
Of reaching hands, no blockage
Jubilee of youth in pilgrimage
To symbolize the living faith
Of reaching hands, no blockage
In horizon mingling with interfaith
To symbolize the living faith
Rainbow of races as covenant
In horizon mingling with interfaith
Song of praise resounding in rampant
Rainbow of races as covenant
One faith in God for salvation
Song of praise resounding in rampant
From young people of every nation
Written by: Noel N. Villarosa
8th place in Paula Swanson's Pantoum Contest
Contest Date: 12/21/2010
Pt I: The Pilgrims
1991
he’d pick ‘his’ path up as it fell
between the dunes toward the wood
and as the trees knew him so well
they’d all bow down right where he stood
and every day with time to pass
he’d walk and find his secret seat
surrounded by the marram grass
divorced from life’s hard grind and heat
and there he’d sit and watch the sky
feeling the calm he craved back then
- the only place that saw him cry
before he walked his path again.
2021
they picked the path up as it fell
between the dunes toward the wood
despite their health and age as well
they struggled on as best they could
now thirty years had come to pass
walking the route to see the seat
surrounded by the marram grass
where they sat silent in the heat
then just before they headed back
with one last look their will was done
they touched the seat's small weathered plaque:
"in memory of our loving son".
Pt II: Gethsemane
1991
the flood that drowned his will no less
were the tears that he had cried
while trekking through his wilderness
and the storm that raged inside
yet when the sky lit up right there
it ‘spoke’ to him at length
- the rainbow brought a purer air
and the clouds some inner strength
then in the cooling midday heat
feeling calmer than before
he stood up from his secret seat
to walk his path once more.
Pt III: Evensong
2021
a photograph that takes pride of place
"we tried to help and always prayed"
in uniform with a pre-war face
"he turned to friends but felt betrayed"
some polaroids of a young child’s smile
"the three of us when we held hands"
all neatly kept in a grey box file
"he loved to play along those sands"
a secret seat and a place of peace
"discharged, divorced - and yet still strong"
sunsets, psalms and pain release
"this parents' path is hard and long."
I am content to walk alone,
but to walk in company with others
adds vigor and passion to the journey.
Rumi
Good Taoists,
although I am not sure I actually know any,
refine their inclusively subordinate clauses,
and sentences,
and contracts,
and lives
Define eternally and mutually satisfactory gratitude,
anthrosupremely alone
LeftBrain dominantly apart
We camouflage EarthTribe's cooperative ecological praxis
producing win/win healthy outcomes
consistent with multicultural peak experience research
within human natural systems
Analogically synthesizing sacred principles of Earth's nature,
Her natural flow and spirited functions
Her decay and lifeless dysfunction;
like post-millennial PermaCulturalists.
But, Western Monotheistic Cultures
prefer more compassionate vigor in our strut
through this divinely manifest live-system
we inherited from Indigenous Elders past,
comparatively short-sighted
about EarthMother's healthy global future.
All newborns are experiential researchers of balance,
symmetry,
flow and rhythm,
form and beauty,
capacity and lack thereof,
time's sufficiency and spatial synergy,
and lack thereof.
Human children also evolve as recreative muses
of color, shape, paradigms, stories,
rhythms of patterned confluence,
and denigrated dissonance.
We can,
Taoist or not,
child or not,
use dissonance to show us our way
toward appositional confluence.
We are each compelled to survive,
and sometimes togathering thrive,
in this Tao way,
within double-boundaries of systemic spacetime trauma
and therapeutic imagination,
rooted in regenetic memory.
Imaginations grow intuitively fueled,
empathic powered,
passioned,
vigorous,
with polysystemic comprehension of Prime Relationship
P-Yang=NP-YinYin,
binomial win/win thermodynamic balance,
as +1 = -(-0)
co-binary eco-empathic.
Cooperative economic polycultural balance,
exploring inclusive oppositional subsidiarity
to optimize EarthDay's slow-growth atmosphere
as one EarthTribe Community,
both compassionate,
and, hopefully, still content
with being less lonely
hiding behind all our LeftBrain dominant
verbal camouflage.
The suburban pressure cooker expelled its multiethnic horde north. Laden with implements of leisure, bicycles, kayaks, canoes and camping gear; world weary travelers of urban and suburban bent surged north ever, north. Bucking, they wrenched in unison at road repairs, shunted into single lanes by flaming orange cones of warning like so many track horses at the gate. Tail bitten, truck locked windows up; the denizens drove forth cocooned in metal steeds seeking the clean air and open expanses, north.
Few, freer souls dare the unfiltered air of the artery, north on motorcycles or in convertibles, hoods down, or windows down, blaring an enlivening mantra of sixties rock as they shimmied forward in the in the endless conga line of commerce, past urban blight. The trip north became a Chaucerian Pilgrimage from Nutmeg State to the Green Mountain State of Vermont.
The border crossed, the sky opens wide-eyed, ridge rimmed dolphin gray clouds swim in a cerulean scene. Roadside picnic tables fill. Monarch butterflies flit in the breezes between majestic rows of pungent pines. The whoosh of traffic dulls and the robin’s call emerges over the roiling hills and gurgling brooks. Silence falls, complete; upon the entrance to the first gravel road. Heaven is immersed in the scent of fresh hay and sweet purple clover.
the dark raven
beckons my soul
amidst quaint cackling of
the jackals mangling hisses
I witnessed flowers bloom
as the giant oaks
began to kneel at my feet
I witnessed his face
why I heard his voice
the mauve sky rumbled
the clay ground crumbled
at this beautiful coming
sweet Jerusalem in view
the clouds took a bow
as the sun rose over
the weeping sea
the earth lifted tilted
pouring salted tears into
the ravishing springs
leading to rivers edge
where naught is bathing
my heart on fire
at this coming desire
upon mount olives
Zion is removed
my soul grooved
the master's plans
created in his hands
a holy reunion
of spirit and man
WRITTEN BY YOLANDA JOY NICHOLSEN
Moon’s Pilgrimage … Across The Sky To Praise
The Maker and All His Wondrous Ways
Moon’s Pilgrimage … Rises High, In Grace
Yet, Still In A Humble – Pilgrim’s Place
Moon’s Pilgrimage … Will Not Betray
All The Moonlight, GOD Lets Display
Tho’ She Moves In His Cosmic-Stage-Play
From His Theme-Theatre, She Will Not Stray
My Pilgrimage … Thru Deep, Dark Space
With Silver-Wings and Beams, I Chase
The Unknown and Known Questions Raised
Will Be Answered, When The Maker Says …
My Pilgrimage … To Touch Heaven’s Face
That Beauteous, Elusive, Mysterious Trace
Borne At The Blessed-Beginning’s Base
My Pilgrimage … Takes Me There To Pray …
My Pilgrimage … Takes Me There To Pay –
My Vows, My Voice, In Vesper-Vase
As This Moon, Is In Harvest – Phase
And Beams Brighter Now … Tho’ Slanted-Gaze
… The Moon … Glowing Ochre-Gold Or Silver
The Moon … Is Making Pilgrimage, Remember
The Moon … Is Trying To Help Deliver
Lost-Souls, Who Can Not Find … Moon River …
… Moon’s Pilgrimage … Keeps Steady Pace
Even Climbing Thru Dense, Cloudy-Lace
Moon’s Pilgrimage … Is Like A Dance, That Sways
Moon’s Pilgrimage … Into The Night’s Embrace … …
Let me tell you a story …
Many pilgrims had passed this way before him
but had rarely stopped before trudging up the muddy path to the top of the hill
and then disappearing out of sight forever.
But he lingered at this shady spot at the bottom of the dip in the track.
The old stone tablet in the wall was overgrown with moss and ivy.
Rain droplets hung at the tip of every ivy leaf.
Catching the daylight, they twinkled like some distant constellation.
He pulled back the ivy, scraped off the moss to reveal the ancient writing.
By chance or maybe by some hidden force,
this place still belonged to the pilgrim’s way.
But the pseudo-pilgrims had no time to waste as celebrity beckoned.
Eyes fixed on the hill’s summit
they were oblivious of both this place and its significance.
The inscription read
If you look too hard you will not see
If you talk too much you will not hear
If you think too much you will not learn
If you walk too fast you will not arrive
If you are true to yourself you will be content
You will unlock the secret door
He reflected on what he had read but not too deeply and then smiled.
He had another 150 miles to walk which he could do in six long, arduous days
but now it would take him ten days of contemplation.
The climb up the hill was different from what had gone before.
It was exhilarating for the wonders of nature were all around to experience and enjoy.
Every step was stimulating.
The inscription filled his mind.
Slowly but surely the door opened.
The days passed and he realised the pilgrimage was of the mind not of the body.
Walking gave him space and time.
Ten days later he was uplifted and at peace
having stepped through the door of enlightenment
once secret and now so obvious.
He smiled at the pseudo-pilgrims there with him at the end.
He felt sadness for theirs was a superficial achievement
judged against each other with a materialistic prize.
They had been on a walk but not a pilgrimage.
He gave them one last glance,
turned and strolled into life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
25 April 2022
First Place Contest Name: Form N - Narrative - New Poems
Sponsor: Constance La France
Chosen Theme: #1 Journey
Unbounded journey
Pursuit of enlightenment
Clarity found
Dark mind illuminated
Finally, comprehension.
The train, halted under the shade of sacred hill
They flowed out, and, wandered here and there
holding big, small, colorful, old and new packs of belongings
To, find comfortable chests and knees
some carelessly slept on un-desiring places,
but many there stood still
to face the misty, white clouded sky beyond the ridge,
Perceived their feet had reached
the starting point of adventurous tramp
Men, women, young and old with little ones
crept forward Just like a bunchy row of ants
filled with amazement; some stood, and watched
the vivid green forest canopy and flowering ferns
swinging in the frosty breeze!!
The minds filled with compassion, harmony
and respect each other
By murmurous chanting, that oozed into their veins
in the morning twilight
Tenderness of beams brighten the white dresses
of devotees
Time passed slowly
And the far valley down, a string of people moving upwards
on the zigzagged narrow path
Surrounded by thick green vegetation which
being the habitat of bees, birds, butterflies and
variety of big and small animals
Oozy willows dropping pearl like cold water drops
But few of moving people put a glance
at the phenomenon!
What a peregrination, having a cool gust thrill
which each body and its soul begird
The strenuous walk will bring to a halt at the noble foot print
Some managed to reach the desired end
but some could not attain the will
they stopped hopelessly, stepped down
with forsaken aspiration
those who topped the hill, huddle together
engaged customary rituals,
The eco of the ringing bell spread over the chilled atmosphere
through hill tops, forest, and the moving folks
Excitement broke out
Devotees squeezed catch a glimpse of sunshine!
The sun appeared slowly with a trembling smile
through the glistening horizon
Sunshine! Miraculously radiated across the mountain range,
forest canopy and everything
open to tender beams of light
What a huge strength,
Noble hopes and wishes
fulfilled the pilgrimage!
J.Weerakkody
(This poem is about pilgrims who climb the summit of breezy sacred mountain of Sripada, the holy mountain of Sri Lanka, where suppose to be emblematized the footprint of Lord Buddha. After worshiping the sacred footprints the devotees anxiously watch the panoramic maiden sun rise over the sacred mountain. The poem is vividly realized descriptions of nature.)
Pilgrimage
Tired feet walk far;
many moons on our journey,
lifetime trip for all.