Partying with The Virgin

1 December 2006

for Imelda, wherever you are

It’s early December,

when cold rain begins

to lash the city I left behind

snow rests heavy

on your rocks and trees,

and here we are

in Granada, Nicaragua

crossing the street

to walk in what’s left of the shade,

comparing processions

through our two neighborhoods

these last few days:

my Xalteva, ancient indigenous

pathway to volcanoes,

your Calzada,

leading to the lovely, filthy lake,

where you won’t be caught alone past dark.

They call it La Purisima,

their game of hide-and-seek

with Maria Auxiliadora

along eight dark streets –

one each night –

spokes of the city’s wheel.

All you have to do to be loved like that,

is to stay as chaste as you were born

through all the number of your days -

too late for us already.

La Virgen smiles with old world benevolence

on the mischief of these sanctioned thieves

spiriting her away to the edges of the city

before dawn nine mornings running,

then seeing her safely home

to the cathedral every night,

where her return is greeted with explosions

that remind me of a war

I never had to live through here,

half my life ago. How the time flies.

Nowadays everybody’s welcome.

A few bold tourists play their unsteady

role in the antics, beer bottles held aloft,

big guts outthrust. We laugh politely

with the residents of one more place

we’re trying to call home.

Neighbors

McLeod Ganj, India 30 November 2009

If a story that begins with a four-inch millipede on the kitchen counter at five in the morning can have a happy ending, this one did. As it was undulating and I was trying to figure out how I was going to dispatch it – first definition: to send off something, for example a letter or a package, to a particular destination – and yet not dispatch it – fourth definition: to kill a person or animal – it oozed into a hole between the counter and the splashboard that I didn’t even know was there. I ran for the poster putty. I wonder how many other holes like that there are here.

One of the first things I acquired here was a yellow towel that I promptly shaped into a cylinder and tied with the brightly-colored string that I can tug from outside to seal the gaping space under the door. I found a small mild-mannered beetle in my keyhole once, but I keep my key there when I’m at home, so I don’t envision many invasions through this orifice. But how are six-inch spiders – “Not dangerous, madame,” the hotelier assured me – getting in?

Hunger is the Best Sauce

Atlantic Coast, Nicaragua 2006

A few hours after this photo was taken, it got dark and cold. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and while we weren’t quite miserable, we were in the vicinity. Before we wrapped up in our hammocks to shiver in little bundles on the grease-stained deck, I began to talk about the food I would choose at that moment if I could have anything I wanted: lasagne. It was a peculiar approach to coping with hunger – not ignoring but rather indulging it – but it worked. I haven’t just eaten lasagne, I’ve constructed it, and I described the process in long and loving detail, the wide noodles with their wavy edges softening in a pot of salted water with just a touch of olive oil. The ricotta – firm and pure – contrasted with the slightly silly mozzarella and the rebellious parmesan. The sauce of Roma tomatoes, garlic, carmelized onions, a dash of every spice I could find and two dashes of tarragon, salt to taste and taste and taste, brown sugar and grated carrots – the secrets – already simmered all day and wafting about the neighborhood. I hadn’t even begun to layer it, let alone slide it into the oven, and already we’d begun to feel better.

Bells bells bells bells bells

McLeod Ganj, India, 2009...the sounds of each bell tinkling as the bell-seller put them away in the dark last night. I thought I had noted his location so I could return in the daylight, but now I’m not so sure. Here’s a synchronicity: I’m writing about bells and the chime-ringer up the hill began with a little trill this morning before the series, and the series itself seemed even a little more thoughtful than usual – go beyond, go beyond, go still beyond – as if this is a special day for the chime-ringer… Dueling chimers of a sort now, the first delicate and competent, the second loud and rude. 10

Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2010 Wind chimes across the courtyard, pealing gently in the breeze that kicks up before dawn. I could buy a Cambodian cowbell for $20 at an upscale shop. Wonder how much a farmer would ask? I've been thinking there are animals you put bells on and animals you don’t. I’ve seen cats and elephants with bells, but never a pig or a chicken.