Volume III Archive

Sierra Nelson

First Pilgrimage

Pilgrim—
Awake to bells with no melody or reason.
You were given this tongue and body
and all day long your life rings you,
rings you for what you are worth,
but you can’t hear it amidst the pounding
of traffic, heat and senseless shouting.

Sit down by the fountain
outside the closed church
and listen to water
diffusing into light.

All pilgrims’ feet are painted black.
It is good if you’ve lost something—
your map, your luggage, your companions,
your favorite ring, your last coin,
your metal heart, your language.

Go to the marketplace.
Touch everything, pilgrim.
Let every cloth remind you
that you have hands.

Let your eyes go blind
on their clever toys and cheap purses;
pay the toll to the King of Fleas,
his plastic cane rapping
on the world’s refuse.

In the heap, find a book of poems
written as if in your heart’s own tongue.
Did you know you were this hungry,

pilgrim, here by the clamor
of handmade wind-chimes and songbirds
for a penny—happy as you are,
despite everything—cracking open a seed?

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