Kyrie Eleison
Brian Zahnd
Six months ago I walked across Spain. Five hundred miles.
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Forty days and forty nights.
A full life with two full moons. Harvest and Hunter’s.
Heat and cold. Dust and rain. Wind and calm.
It was all there.
Beauty and blisters.
Ecstasy and exhaustion.
Pleasures and pains.
Mountains, forests, and plains.
Spaniards and Germans.
Americans and Russians.
Brazilians and Peruvians.
Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese.
They were all there.
I was all there.
Every step of the way.
A million, three hundred thousand — give or take a few.
I saw my life. The Camino was my life. My life compressed to forty days and forty nights.
A five hundred mile walk of life. A precise (or at least an approximate) reflection.
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