A
WEEK IN MEXICO CITY
CAFE MORNING
The waiter opened the second story window near our
table, and I heard a bird singing. I
walked over and spotted a nest woven into a tangle of wires on a wooden utility
pole, maybe ten feet away. A chickadee
(I call most tiny birds chickadees,) stood peeping on the edge of the
nest. I looked away, and back, and it
was gone. There was enough activity
inside the nest to cause it to shake, though there were no visible chicks.
I motioned Reggie over, and we watched for a few
seconds when the chickadee shot out of the nest, flew straight toward the open
and barred window, and in two blinks rocketed up and out of sight. For that moment it seemed as big as a hawk,
and supersonic, and its effect was like splashing cold water.
We looked back at the nest, laughed, enjoyed the moment,
and went back to our breakfasts.
02.17.20
***
Ichigo Ichie (Japanese)
One
encounter, one chance
Maybe the last chance
We will never
and
those who
most fervently say
they will
never seem to
The water is wide.
Those three blocks
to the neighbor’s house
may never be traveled again
and the six steps
up
to
her
door
may
be
an Everest
to summit.
One encounter, one chance.
What would you like?
One encounter
gentle
rushed
angry
pleasant
forced
violent
sweet
bitter
direct
kind?
One chance to
conspire
confound
connect
correct
create
cajole
clarify
chastise
cull
carress?
One encounter before the mirror
one
chance to clearly see…
02.18
***
I’m in
continual
mourning
as
losses
layer
upon
losses
in a daily theft
of our common wealth.
It’s a
minute-by-minute
degradation
of what we thought
was sacred.
But –
move along
there’s nothing new
to see here.
It’s all for
the love-of-a-buck
need for a burner
desire for the latest.
Seven billion of us
who all want
something.
02.19
***
TEOTIHUACAN
Squats in
space
&
time
Not my heritage
not my memory
not locked
into my
meat or bones
yet
here I am
a late arrival
to a civilization
that
reached
for
water
&
fell
into
sky
Serpents
Jaguars
Hungry Gods
Corn
Adamantine City
bathed in blood
Cosmologies
of stone
80,000
souls
vanished
gone.
02.20
***
KIDS ARE
DRAWN
to wonder.
Earth magic
comes easy.
What’s found
on forest floors
or washed
onto beaches
are powerful things
shells and feathers
bones and stones
worth collecting
and keeping safe
in cigar boxes
with hooks and eyes
to hold them squarely shut.
Traveling with parents
stopping at road side stands
or beachfront stores
finding dusty things
that once were magic
now desacrilized
and as devoid of power
as shuttered churches
No Sale – but thank you, ma’am.
In time
most treasures
are forgotten
stored in attics
or basements
though some few magi
have carried them
from home to home
like household gods
Wherever they rest
in boxes, on mantles
or on altars
they are charged
and emit
a subtle
hum
and
light
that may attract
a kid who senses
power
and with a touch
sets a piece
of the holy world
back into place.
RW
02.23.2002
Mexico City
