Planet Locals, Planet Travelers

San Cristobal de Las CasasToday I am traveling

far from home.

You, a Tsotzil woman,

here in Chiapas

are home.

I greet your beauty,

which belongs here.

Your land, for me

a place to pass through,

depends on passers now.

I long to gaze at your face.

I want to draw you,

smile wide into your eyes.

Instead

I turn away so you won´t

think I might buy what you sell.

I cannot connect with you

without misleading.

Instead

I draw arches, flowers.

Traveling like this

isn´t the way.

Traveling like this

hurts my heart.

 

As soon as I say it,Rosa Teresa & parents

something changes.

In Zinacantan,

Rosa Teresa and IIMG_2235[1]

cross the boundary that says:

tourists and locals

move only in our own dimensions,

only in our separate tracks!

At home in Zinacantan,

Rosa Teresa and her family

share laughs and café with me.

 

As soon as I say it,

that traveling like this

cannot enlarge any of us,

something else changes.

I climb the steps

to the Templo de Guadalupe.

A woman in the first pewClimbing to Connection

bends in grief.

Her black-clad shoulders

heave with silent sobs.

I stay and

from another pew,

bear witness, share kinship.

As I pray for us,

it comes more clear to me:

We each are planet locals, and

we each,

all of us,

are travelers on this earth.

3 Responses to “Planet Locals, Planet Travelers

  • david
    11 years ago

    ooh very nice. smooth

  • It seems to me that in Rosa’s home, the most elaborate room is the altar. Imagine! Everything else is so bare, so simple. I can feel the woman’s weeping, her shoulders heaving, and her grief turns in my heart.

  • Pattie Sartori-Wharton
    11 years ago

    Sorry so long in responding. You have moved my heart; written from your heart to mine. This beautiful poem. I can feel and see it. I see you in it. I too focused on the altar behind the 2 of you. They reminded me too of Natalie’s “family” in Guatemala. Eagerly await your return so we can talk again. I miss that. Love and hugs, Patra