Confianza
Confianza
by Suzanne Doerge | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
It’s all about trust,
the young Costa Rican exclaims,
over the morning’s café y chocolatine:
I’ve gone through life
building walls around myself
afraid to risk, step out on my own.
Sin confianza.
Until here, on the Camino,
at last! I dare
to travel alone. No one knows
who I am, where I’m from
what I’ve done.
Free to become whoever I want.
But then, I got injured. Terrified
outside my walls. Certain I couldn’t
go further. The whole trip, over;
I would return home a failure.
Who did I think I was?
Only to find, to my surprise,
there were angels who would catch me:
a hostel host who said I could stay a few days,
a massage therapist who appeared in the night,
pilgrims, like you, who held me as I cried.
Angels who gave me the courage to say:
“It’ll be okay. I can go at my own pace.”
And to trust, confiar, for the rest of my life—
there will be angels ready to catch me
as I catch them,
and when there are not, con confianza
I will catch myself.
Editor’s note: This poem is from Doerge’s collection, Footfalls: Poems of the Camino (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2022). Find a review of that collection in the Winter 2023 (page 36) La Concha. Other poems by Doerge have appeared in the Summer 2022 (page 32), Autumn 2023 (page 13), Winter 2024 (page 46), Spring 2024, Summer 2024, Autumn 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025, and Autumn 2025 issues of La Concha.
