The dust has now well and truly settled from the August 21 climax of World Youth Day in Madrid - a Mass celebrated by the Pope attended by some 2 million pilgrims. As one of them I can say it was awesome. It was also exhausting given I lost my bed after heading off to find water etc and spent the wee hours of my 60th birthday roaming around in the dark, trying to avoid falling over fellow pilgrims.

This article http://www.catholicleader.com.au/news.php/top-stories/wyd-hospitality-in-spain_75251 gives an idea of some of the adventures in Spain..

(Pictured above) The happy Aussie wanderer at Toledo is found and claimed by a group of Brazilian  pilgrims


At least one poem had to emerge from all this, and it did. So here we go:

Spanish soil/Spanish soul

(El corazón de España)

España - mesmeric matador!!

Swirl your cape of colours

swirl red and orange,

orange/red…

launch ambushes of colour from

bus stops, billboards, anywhere

down these drowsy Aussie streets.

Hail God-burnt country -

now burning in the heart

still blazing in the mind;

ecstatic envoy, hail:

fevered and fervoured,

fantastic, yet focused as

El Greco the great at Toledo.

Slumbering Aussie, me,

awake, alive at last

wandering, wondering

this time-allotted grace

glimpsing traces of your

spirit-south: Cordoba,

Pedro Abad and Montoro.

Sensing your soul

flagging but immortal yet -

fading/flaring into view,

battered yet bounding bull,

searing orange supernova,

white hot even, in afternoon sun -

sizzling synapses to Madrid…

Fitful pulse throb beneath

scar tissue carved and

flapping loose – like the

scorched remaining arm of the

Homeless’ Christ, glass-encased,

redeemed in 800-year-old

Civil War-sacked Church.

Holy Toledo!!

Roaming with Brazilian pilgrims

who’ve adopted me

lone Aussie wanderer:

quixotic quintessence.

Tilting towards insanely

immaculate heights

I walk the cobblestones

where once El Greco walked,

till lost and all alone once more

I wander crazed in heat,

plummeting above chasms

portraying water above which

wheel wordless birds -

Ecstatic mutes

like St Teresa, St John of the Cross -

creation’s highest flyers

touching down on castle walls

at mighty Ávila this very day -

Teresa’s gaze dissolving earthly chains

John’s heart-hand bearing eloquence…

Recalling living love

aboard a bus from Pedro Abad

where Pura my host will always fare me well

from ancient laneway far below -

eyes locking mine, hand held to heart

my own forever held alive and burning

on Spanish soil long as life persists.