Walking to Jerusalem by Elizabeth Rimmer

Footsore and hungry, our hands full

of cockleshells, crucifixes, wayleaves,

distracted by forest hermitages,

by abbeys and basilicas, and archetypal

marshes and wilderness.

Next year, next year, and the wine in the glass cups

thin and sour, and no honey left.

The dogged one foot after another,

driven or drawn. We lost sight

of need behind us, desire ahead.

The road, the dust, cold at night, the shade of olives.

Scents of resin, hyssop and sage,

holm-oaks in the courtyards and the sound

of fountains behind white walls.

The dogs at the road ends.

Dreaming of water in the green grass,

mud and sap and leaf back there, the white

and yellow honey scent of meadows,

cress and the flicker of willow leaves.

City of light, city of slaughter.

Not one stone standing on another.

Not this, not that; neither here nor yonder.

The place where God lives. Shalom.

Salaam. The place that breaks your heart.

Elizabeth Rimmer is a poet, gardener and river-watcher, Catholic, radical, feminist and green, born in England of Irish origins, and now living in Scotland. Her work is inspired by weather, landscape and tradition, the work of craftsmen, gardeners, foresters and musicians, language, legends and heritage. Or anything else that appeals to her magpie mind. Her first collection of poems, Wherever We Live Now  was published by Red Squirrel Press in 2011.

Elizabeth has a blog at Burned Thumb at Lúcháir.