You might joyously tip the limits of restraint into the barrel of excess where both are possible
And the winsome housewives plentiful about the square where there are also dour faces to be seen
Who walks out of the picture and who meanders into the frame and what is the connection between them and what are they causing?
Ah yes, the possibilities where barrels and bread are rolled out for celebration
So climb onto a window-ledge and watch the ad-hoc procession take its oddly shaped form
Children dance to unheard music
Nuns and beguines are distraught
Steal a kiss from the handsome woman when her husband is not looking
*
This is no Sunday stroll though they are strolling easy –pilgrims, hardly revellers, though the ‘pious attitude’ is absent, and thankfully so
This is the un-hurrying away from the pastoral Iliad to the new horizon, this is the easy afternoon of three friends together
And life goes on behind and beside them
There are markets to be attended and washing to be hung out
There is the unhurried fuss of daily chores
There are idle moments of pleasure
This is no Sunday stroll yet they are strolling into the future beyond the frame where the road it suggests is the only road to be taken
Wish them well, these brothers on our behalf, wish them good fortune and a safe return though “those who go on journeys seldom come back holy”