Reparation

I've done a lot of sinning in my time

both home and away,

now it's time to pay;

to whitewash stains with penitential lime.

Some beat their breasts with clenched claws,

others fast and pray,

this is not my way,

I prefer the Camino of plod and pause.

Like Padraic Colum's 'old woman of the roads'

I meander quietly in lanes

exercising varicose veins

hauling hempen sacks full of discard loads.

For my sins I walk many miles by day

Picking up litter and dirt

sharing a common hurt

with all things rejected and thrown away.

I wipe plastic bottles from the face of the grass

beer cans and cardboard

soft toys once adored

daily mirrors, daily mails, brown and white broken glass.

Like Frost I take the roads less traveled

remote trails and paths,

rusty pails and baths

I haul to roads with surface graveled.

Today in a farmer's feeding bag I found a little lamb

still warm but dead

the plastic red

and pondered the memory of the little ones mam.

Was there grief for the life finished at the start

no gambol or bounce,

no flurry or flounce,

just the basin of a drain to house a silent heart.

Everyday a pilgrimage of recovering the dead

and useless forgotten sins

without the benefit of bins

or the dark restful sanctuary of a garden shed.

Sea of penance never ending debt of compensation

for wayward ways

and wicked days,

an endless trek in search of reparation.