Poet Laura: A January Pilgrimage

Remember that year, the Millennium, when the turn of the clock carried us to 2000, and everyone shuddered as we feared the power held by computers would rebel? And here we are—in 2025! Happy New Year! Yes. Life is short and travels at the speed of Time, and Time is mysterious.

In our lives, how many of us have made a journey of focus or reverence, and what is a pilgrimage? A journey, often religious or a place holy and sacred to you, perhaps a place that stirs the heart or curiosity. I have several, and though there are few short distances in Texas, some of them are near enough that I can still travel to them. I call each of my sacred destinations a querencia—a Spanish word I learned from my grandson when, at 15, he wrote a poem with that title about his love for the Chihuahuan Desert and his trips there with me. His words still touch my heart and, along with hearing Maryhelen Snyder read her poem Waltzing with Stephen at Jessica’s Wedding, I was prompted to write a poem titled In Response to my Grandson’s Poem Querencia.

One of the world’s most popular pilgrimages is the walk of the Camino de Santiago in Portugal. Many have courageously made that trek, including poet Julia Fehrenbacher, who shared her documented journey in poetry and photos. But any journey to a special place or person can be a pilgrimage.

There is Herman Melville’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a journey made by many, detailed in verse in Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land. And there is a poignant poem, by Natasha Trethewey, that reminds me of a pilgrimage with my grandson—from Texas to Gettysburg to Lookout Mountain to Vicksburg—visiting the battlefields and tombstones, the hard truths of a Civil War. Here is an excerpt from Ms. Trethewey’s poem Pilgrimage:

This whole city is a grave. Every spring—
Pilgrimage—the living come to mingle

with the dead, brush against their cold shoulders
in the long hallways, listen all night

to their silence and indifference, relive
their dying on the green battlefield.

I found the Vicksburg National Battlefield in Louisiana to be a beautiful war cemetery, if there is such a thing, and I believe there is. As my grandson and I meandered through the monuments woven through the harmony of a forest, I wondered if the dead, as well, wander about with the living? I did once have such an eerie sense at dusk at the Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland. No one was there, but I was not alone.

Yet there are all kinds of journeys, and for those of you who’ve read Laura Boggess’ novella, Waiting for Neruda’s Memoirs, here is my poem inspired by her novel, a story of another kind of journey:

Toward a New Path

… Amy’s journey in Awaiting Neruda’s Memoirs

Storms raged and blew,
days tumbled about in winds
where refuge escaped me—

cowering with knees weak
in search of the words,
                                 rhymed and free

in the hands of another.
All the head voices whispering
weaknesses binding me absent—

then I found, in my hands,
Maureen’s poetry held
a greater need than I—

and we read together,
holding pain at bay,
giving flight to prayers

in a place where comfort
offered was rebuffed
and angels blinded my way.

Time passed, as time does,
kindling healed days and hearts
where I was found—

whole, a familiar room full
of words calling to be shared,
and I opened to the page of praise.

—Sandra Fox Murphy

Two women—one, the author’s character, Amy, and the solace she finds in poet Maureen Doallas’s poems—and two, the poet writing verse through her own loss. Two pilgrimages through struggle and grief toward healing. So poignant.

When I travel to the deserts and mountains of west Texas (my querencia), there is always a search for nature’s heavenly silence and communion. For me, it is like a sanctuary in the wide lands and grand skies where I encounter a hush unlike any I’ve experienced. My favorite spot to find this peace is not far from the McDonald Observatory, and standing there transports me to that reverence we seek.

On the side of Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of west Texas (photo by author)

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.

Not all journeys are easy, and as Epiphany comes, so do the Magi journey long and far with their gifts to pay homage to the infant Jesus. The ultimate pilgrimage to the stable beneath a star that led to hope. And speaking of hope, let me end on a capricious note—here is my poem in my quest for silence and renewal:

The Last Journey

When I’m, at last, put in a jar,
I’ll relish its cool dark silence —
pretend I’m in a room with you
urging me to dust in the corners

where there are none, I’ll find
the place where words are my friend,
spinning like the rings of Neptune
orbiting endless and cryptic—

and when my ashes are thrown
from a heavenly rim—into a caldera,
per request, I’ll bubble like a stew
where new life is shaken as if a cocktail
                                            on the rocks.

—Sandra Fox Murphy

Your Turn

Do you have an urge for a pilgrimage in this new year? Write about where you’ve journeyed that’s moved you, where you want to go—be it a journey of miles or a journey of the soul, often both. Wherever you go, may you find resonance. Find the words of how it changed you or how you anticipate it will echo within. Find your querencia.

Post photo by G. Yancy, Creative Commons license via Flickr. West Texas photo and post by Sandra Fox Murphy.

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Sandra Fox Murphy

Sandra grew up everywhere as a USAF dependent, rootless, and when exposed to the beatnik poets at Indian Valley College, was smitten with poetry. After retirement from the U.S. Geological Survey, she found herself immersed in storytelling, and ensconced in Texas, researches small-town history and is the author of six novels, including Let the Little Birds Sing, the beginning of the Fidelia McCord Trilogy inspired by a young girl who came to Texas in 1847. Aging Without Grace is her first poetry collection, and her poems have been published at the Ocotillo Review, The Write Launch, Humans of the World, The River, and in several anthologies. Sandra's muses are the environment, history, and the natural beauty and mystery of place.

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