To Estella
To Estella
by Rebecca Ring | Salt Lake City, UT
Children’s voices behind us
made us turn and yield the path.
Backpacks loose upon their shoulders
their chattering and clucking
bounced off the vineyard, echoed
against the hill, dared the sunflowers
to turn their way, pay attention.
A parade of them
only two or three adults, only one
thing that could be, a school group.
Twenty years of fourteen
field trips each, the sounds
of nine and ten-year-olds
still ringing in my ears, I recognized
the elation unleashed
the vigilance of their teachers
the joyous clatter. Yes,
I thought, yes, I know the joy
of their liberation. I walk now
in celebration of mine.
I had run to the world
open-armed on the day of my retirement
when good-bye was bittersweet
the days ahead outnumbered by the ones behind
when my winnings—the flare of insight
in a pair of young eyes—
fell short in the weighing.
I’d clapped the dust from the erasers
never thinking
to encounter it down the road.
Then one of the young teachers
drew us into conversation.
A field trip, she told us in English,
to Estella
a town we’d planned to pass through
Look, I imagined her saying, a perfect example
of Homo peregrinas americanus. See how they walk
despite the ache in their knees
the weight and burdens they carry. They
follow the yellow arrows, The Way. And you
too, will have burdens of your own one day.
Of course, I thought, shouldn’t
every Spanish schoolchild be taught
to carry a pack, walk the Camino?
My students had learned about earthquakes
and pioneers, visited mountain ranges, wetlands
and salty lakes—but not
the Camino de Santiago.
That was something I’d had to fly
to Spain for, give myself
permission for, distance myself
from those twenty years for.
What we
at our age and in our foreignness
had embarked upon
looked so effortless on their backs
an escape from the classroom
a chance to tell tales out of earshot
—and for one boy, a way
to strut his command of English
to communicate what truly mattered.
He broke
from his clutch of friends, took a few steps
off the path to shout at me
“Minecraft!”
a video game any of my fourth graders
would’ve had on their mind. But he didn’t
expect the smile
and the echo
from me
“Minecraft!”
I had wanted Estella to mean
star, something to reach for
but it’s only a name, a town
we would pass by. And
on our way
the light in his face
the startle of his sudden win
and mine.
Editor’s note: This poem and accompanying photo are from the collection Dreams of Passing Fire: Companion Poems from the Camino (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2024). Find a La Concha review of that collection here. Ring’s poem “Tandem,” which is also part of that collection, appears in the Spring 2025 La Concha.
