Mexican Holiday in Poetry

I have been back home for four days, cuatro dias, and I find that reconstructing my trip day by day reveals only an itinerary, not the essence of the journey. I also am discovering that each journey is an individual experience, you have yours and I have mine and there is meaning to "lost in translation". So, a bit of philosophizing, some poetry and photos will follow in the next few posts.

The remainder of the trip is poetry, words falling together as music, color, emotions reveal a Mexico held only in a dream. A dream that occasionally disturbs or at least awakens consciousness, with the graffiti, political signs, protests, beggars, vendors sitting in stalls row after row, selling the same crafts, turning from the lens of tourists, who benefit greatly in understanding the people and the culture by being or becoming bilingual, a goal I will work on this year. This picture contrasts greatly with lavish haciendas, tourist destinations, churches and cathedrals rich with gold, jewels and art and well-maintained colonial architecture. I left this beautiful land with more questions than could be answered in a short time or perhaps at all: from immigration to past battles and conquests, the role of religion in the social structure of the country, the rich history of Mexico is an exploration that invites introspection, reflection and a sense of responsibility. I hope to learn more in the coming years.

LEARNING TO SPEAK

In Michoacan
I have been missing my guides.
Living in Braille
feeling is everything.
The skeletons visit at night,
bones of the dead scattered
here and there, bowing to grandmothers.
What is left of this woman
who escaped death only to rattle into it
before she could spell her name
in another tongue?
In all those years I studied
español I did not know how
to say I love you and I am. Now,
te quiero, yo soy
my first words.

Gloria's parents, both over 92 years old, married 73 years, live in the home of la madre's birth family. Her mother had a stroke right before we were to travel and is now recovering, so Gloria was not able to travel with us as planned. Gloria is staying with her parents in Janamuato to help them, until the end of July, so J. and I were on our own after our visit to this village of her childhood. She gave us a tour of the village and we met many of her family members who were visiting the parents.