This poem came when I had been invited on a walking tour where, each day, we made a small pilgrimage to a different “sacred site.” The Zennie in me didn’t like this so much: why are these places special? What’s wrong with right here, and isn’t this whole life a pilgrimage anyway?
So I wrote this poem intending to debunk the whole idea of pilgrimages to special places. But the poem took me in an unexpected direction – back to the blessed bike rides our dad had taken us on when we were kids, to an ancient “wishing well” just outside our home town of Oxford.
Enough of sacred sites.
What about the daily pilgrimage
from the dark to the light,
and the light back into the dark?
Or the weekly journey
to the day of rest?
Like those Saturday afternoons
with dad, when we biked
across Port Meadow
to the well at Binsey,
on the far side of the river,
where the trees surrounded
the little church and whispered
over our heads while we waited
in the gloom beneath,
by the little stone cistern
where the special water was,
cool and dark in its tank.
Half-silted pennies rested
on its bed, some dark as the water,
others giving off a copper gleam.
Go on, he’d say, drop it in,
and we’d reach for the pennies
in our pocket he’d given us earlier,
and take our turn to squat
at the mossy brim, and watch
as our coin turned and swayed
like a leaf falling through the air
and settled in the place
the well chose for it.
My penny, my coin, at home now,
where it would stay my whole life long.
✨ Thank you for reading this week’s poem. Explore my Events Calendar when you get a moment, to see upcoming online and in-person meditation events. To dive into more of my teaching, download The Way for a deep and progressive meditation program.
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