Planet Locals, Planet Travelers
Today 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,
something changes.
In Zinacantan,
Rosa Teresa and I![IMG_2235[1]](https://i0.wp.com/susasilvermarie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/IMG_22351.jpg?resize=576%2C432&ssl=1 "Rosa Teresa at home")
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 pew
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.
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.
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