Palm Sunday (Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago wear the shell of Saint James on their bags)

 

Came through the thicket

Road strum, fuddle, sink

Your tongue into hot dough,

Just cooked enough to fluff

Your heart and muddle your

Head with its sugary puff

Crusted round and filled

With ham grazed on Spanish

Farms not far from here, the

Heat and the dust swelling through

The bricks and filling out the

Beer-branded umbrella stands that

Shade indiscriminately the pilgrims

And the old bar-hands who’ve seen

The streams of human sheep pass

By for years, without the urge to keep

Time with them, along

The path. Better to sit and watch it

Flow along, bobbing shells

Connecting the morning sun between

Their rucksacks and their swinging palms.