#17 Camino Primitivo thoughts

Hamish has written a poem about our Camino…

I think it captures so much of our time there…

Buen Camino 

14 days 14 verses

Come with me, my love, along

To wander on the way of Saints, 

And dearest ones now gone.

Trickling west from Oviedo

They go in thousands strong

Three fifty ‘k’ to Santiago.

Waymarked by shells and arrows,

Paths narrow, tracks or roads

The songs of robins, wrens and sparrows.

A Polish pilgrim - “Buen Camino!”

Soon we know some Californians,

And accompany an Italian trio.

Carrying only what we need 

We read the sky for what to wear

Lodging where the stages lead.

We choose the rough with smooth

And lose all track of time

With the rhythm of our shoes. 

Treading countless fallen apples

By fields of cattle, figs and corn,

We browse the everpresent brambles.

Rising over Asturian passes

Where wild horses and heather bees

Attend to gorse and grasses.

Grain stores mark the border cross

hórreos [orr-ay-oz] of Asturias 

Give way to Galegan esteros [ay-stay-os].

Hazel turns to birch and thistle

Bristling pine and ivied oak

Busy barnyard blackbirds whistle.

Joy is every meal and pillow

Alberiño [alb-er-een-yo] or Godello [go-dae-yo]

Shading walnut and weeping willow.

Eucalyptus, hard cash rising

Tinder dry their rank and file

March to a flaming horizon.

More souls merge onto our way

Collate from North, South and East,

A surging river, come arrival day.

Santiago de Compostela!

Fellowships drum in carnival hum

Every pilgrim now a storyteller.

HGN

Sep 2025