The lonely malnourished Spanish man who lives <br />by himself in a house without a kitchen practising <br />Franciscan-learnt Latin; the lonely widow offering <br />Nicholas Shrady a walking stick, the poor people in <br />Bosnia relying on apparitions of the Virgin Mary <br />for an income, the bloated corpses in the Ganges <br /> <br />Lonely hamlets in India where people live and die <br />without ever learning to read and write, the young <br />boys with rotting teeth working like pack animals; <br />the learned young man in Jerusalem who could not <br />find a job due to his Palestinian Christian descent – <br /> <br />Impressed by a true pilgrimage, Nicholas Shrady’s <br />ability to travel on foot – relying along the way on <br />strangers for accommodation and food, <br /> <br />Seeing so much misery, so much hatred and bigotry, <br />criminal banditry and decadence – and yet still read <br />his religious books as he lay down at night; Bible, <br />Koran, Vedas, balanced by Gerald Manley Hopkins’ <br />poetry… <br /> <br />Trying my best to cheer up again, sad images <br />stuck in my mind… <br /> <br />“Sacred Roads” by Nicholas Shrady; Penguin <br />Books 2000<br /><br />Margaret Alice<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/2011-04-03-sad-images-rev/
