For we have seen on our way

I have never been on a pilgrimage, nor have any plans to go on one, but am always deeply moved every time I cross, on the highway, people walking for weeks together to a holy place.

Is the very purpose of a pilgrimage to show us our own riches? Maybe all pilgrimages finally lead us to ourselves, the essential "innocent" self open to joy and beauty, not wearied and blinded by "knowledge", the "bluebird" whose song we stifle?

On Pilgrimage

May the smell of thyme and lavender accompany us on our journey
To a province that does not know how lucky it is
For it was, among all the hidden corners of the earth,
The only one chosen and visited.

We tended toward the Place but no signs led there.
Till it revealed itself in a pastoral valley
Between mountains that look older than memory,
By a narrow river humming at the grotto.

May the taste of wine and roast meat stay with us
As it did when we used to feast in the clearings,
Searching, not finding, gathering rumors,
Always comforted by the brightness of the day.

May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks
Remind us of everything we have lost,
For we have seen on our way and fallen in love
With the world that will pass in a twinkling.

Czeslaw Milosz
New & Collected Poems, translations by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass