December 2023
Bio Note: I am a wandering troubadour whose poetry appears in over 400 journals on six continents, and 23 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Caribbean Interludes (Origami Poems Project, 2022). I also author travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. My writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and nominated for the Best of the Net. I journey through Latin America with my faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
Southern Cross
I awaken from another
fitful sleep
The bzzz of thoughts
my icy family
my impending journey
The bzzz of a mosquito
hidden in my
suffocating net
~
I awaken … again
& enter the fresh breeze
blowing across an even sea
The many-day clouds
have cleared, revealing
the waning moon
the Southern Cross
& many stars
The Road of Death
(La Paz to Coroico, Bolivia)
– for two voices
Climbing, climbing out of the city, to high barren puna & snow-streaked mountains.
Then the descent
air brakes gasping
Through a landscape of grasses whipped by the wind. Trees & moss-carpeted stone hillsides …
& the descent
air brakes gasping
… towards the Yungas & the Amazon, hard-packed road wrapping the mountains, heavy jungle – giant ferns, vibrant flowers, prehistoric plants, an occasional palm …
air brakes gasping
… the abyss always to our immediate left …
Maintain your left
the signs remind us
… sprinkled by waterfalls cascading over the road. Vultures & condors graze us.
& our descent
gasping
The wrought-iron crosses, small spirit shrines honoring relatives fallen into that profound verdant gorge. Our driver tosses coins to the Ferry Man guards on blind curves. We squeeze to one side to allow an up-mountain bus to pass. Dirt swirls from beneath wheels, powdering plants.
& the descent
These mountains tower further & further above, dark against the clouded sky, deeply creased, sometimes erosion-scratched.
Air brakes gasping
& gasping
We back up to a wider spot of road to allow an up-mountain truck to pass.
& the descent
We traverse miles before another home tenaciously grasps the slope.
Adobe houses become more common as we curve & swing nearer a red village atop a hill. A platinum-green river winds below.
& the descent
gasping
Distant boulders below are strewn with twisted chassis, splintered wood …
& gasping
… hillsides terraced into cornfields, banana groves …
Finally the descent flattens into a crossroads settlement bathed by strong early-afternoon sun & dust, that río rushing & rapiding.
©2023 Lorraine Caputo
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