Pilgrim, Who Calls You?

This poem is written on a wall outside of Najera on the Camino Frances.

I have spent quite a lot of time at the end of my walks trying to

 translate it as gracefully as I can.  

I thank Roberto, Manuel, and Irene for their input 

over the course of a late afternoon in front of a hostel 

as they pored over this poem with me.  

Dust, mud, sun and rain

are the Camino de Santiago.

Thousands of pilgrims

and more than a thousand years.

Pilgrim, Who calls you?

What mysterious force draws you here?

Not the Field of Stars

nor the great cathedrals.

Not the bravado of Navarra,

nor the wine of Rioja

not the bounty of the seas of Gallego,

 nor the Castilian plateau.

Pilgrim, Who calls you?

What mysterioius force draws you here?

Not the folk of the Way

nor the ways of the country folk.

It is not the history and the culture, 

nor the cocky Calzada rooster

not the palace of Gaudi,

nor the Castle of Ponferrada.

All these things I see in passing,

and they are all a great joy,

but the voice that calls me

fills me with an even greater feeling.

The force that compels me,
the force that draws me here
I cannot explain:
Only the Most High knows!