discarded map

.
navigating by the stars & ignoring the signposts,
following neither scent nor sound but a sculpted moment in space,

clambering along a rocky outcrop, at the hand of which i might have fallen again like a weightless stone,
somehow i stumbled upon a clearing in which i could breathe, if only fleetingly.

but now the hairline of home has become visible over the horizon,
i don't know which way to look.

Cartagena

snake oil merchants wave smoking herbs under noses, trumpeting the healing powers of sacred oils and bottled holy water. a battered suitcase lays open to the street as a clam revealing its pearl to the light. a woman dances slowly with a dissected fruit on the corner, singing a song that drips with centuries of sweat. the sound of a beating drum rises from the underground - a great pulsating, terrestrial heart - as bosoms heave and muscles tense under a buttery yellow sun.
the Alley of the Scribes fills as the sun sinks into the incubating pool of the night below. the arteries of the city run thick with the juice of a thousand fruits and the thick syrupy voice of melody saunters down the gutter towards the carribean dawn.

El Místico Lago Atitlan

precede me

i forced myself one day to remove those guilded gloves i had donned for so long and feel the perspiration gathering on my neck. i revealed fingers, exquisitely imperfect fingers that clambered ahead of me, serving as my sight when my eyes were wounded blind. i began to feel the ground for irregularities, taking note of upturned pebbles and scrapes on bark.
these hands in their searching have found dry leaves, birds' eggs and stones, have clutched at knives and blunted arrows, burying in hideaways the necessecities and discarding the superfluities.
they tell me that to know form  one does not need to know light. to know depth one does not need the perception of sight.
i'll hold my hands out in front forever now, fingers spread wide to greet the twilight,

and save these weeping eyes for another life.

Guatemala..

thank you, Galeano

i look on as nations devour themselves from the inside out,
the aftermath of riches torn from the earth as meat from the bone.

these plundered lands through which i walk lay like open carcases, free for the picking.

El Caribe

The Caribbean, first sighting, last moments in Mexico.
A tourist fun park on the first few layers, but to follow smells and sounds into sandy backstreet shacks leads one to something more alive and enduring.

I figured a list would suffice for these few  days..

white. tourqouise. mojitos. daiquiris. turtles. coral. frivolity. son jarocho. salsa. insufferable gringos. shonky deals. overpriced coconuts. sweat. sunburn. palms. lizards. crystal. caves. light.

Although, by night, when the masses have receded, and the velvet remains intact but for a body or two, she is a different sea, under a different sky.

Chiapas