The train moves through the Guadarrama
one night on the way to Madrid.
The moon and the fog create
high up a rainbow.
Oh April moon, so calm,
driving up the white clouds!

The mother holds her boy
sleeping on her lap.
The boy sleeps and nevertheless
sees the green fields outside,
and trees lit up by sun,
and the golden butterflies.

The mother, her forehead dark
between a day gone and a day to come,
sees a fire nearly out
and an oven with spiders.

There’s a traveler mad with grief,
no doubt seeing odd things;
he talks to himself, and when he looks
wipes us out with his look.

I remember fields under snow,
and pine trees of other mountains.

And you, Lord, through whom we all
have eyes, and who sees souls,
tell us if we all one
day will see your face.

Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of 98.  The most typical feature of his personality is the antipathetic, softly sorrowful tone that can be felt even when he describes real things or common themes of the time, for example abandoned gardens, old parks or fountains: places which he approaches via memory or dreams. (Wikipedia)

I remember flying from Sacramento to Los Angeles a few years ago and noticed a woman sitting a row in front of me. She was silent and staring out the window with tears running down her face. I wondered about the source of her sorrow – a love affair, a death in the family, a job lost or a journey abandoned. After we landed I saw her held in the arms of another young woman, a sister perhaps, both sobbing.

Traveling is both an interior and an exterior journey. We touch briefly the lives of other people like those on Machado’s train, and as we wonder about their destinies and destinations (an interesting coupling) we also have the time to contemplate our own lives. This is the essence of the pilgrimage.

“Lord, through whom we all have eyes” is an interesting phrase and reminds me of Meister Eckhart’s ‘The eye that sees God is the same eye that God sees me.” To see God’s face is always possible for He is looking out of the eyes of each person we see.