Building Bridges on the Camino St. Jacques a Photo Essay and Poem

While Ol is recuperating from his Camino "injury" he used the time to edit his photos. He noticed that he has taken lots of photos of the beautiful bridges that dot the Camino.

Enjoy these beautiful bridges found on the French portion of the Camino between Le Puy en Velay and Saint Jean Pied de Port.

Bridges bring us together, they don't divide us.

Bridges join communities and make it possible for us to easily travel to remote places.

We could not travel the Camino without bridges.

We could not make the new friends that we have and we would not have been able to explore new cultures and communities.

We need more bridges in our lives and fewer walls.

The Bridge Builder

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

An old man going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and deep and wide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fear for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!