Camino

But your loss brought you here to walk
under one name and to walk under one name only,
and to find the guise under which all loss can live;
remember, you were given that name every day
along the way, remember, you were greeted as such,
and treated as such, and you needed no other name,
other people seemed to know you even before you gave up
being a shadow on the road and came into the light,
even before you sat down,
broke bread and drank wine,
wiped the wind-tears from your eyes:
pilgrim they called you again and again. Pilgrim.

Excerpt from the poem ‘CAMINO’
From ‘PILGRIM’: Poems by David Whyte’