November 2024
Bio Note: I am a wandering troubadour, as well as a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. My works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 24 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Santa Marta Ayres (Origami Poems Project, 2024). I also author travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. I journey through Latin America with my faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
Photo credit: Lorraine Caputo
I.
On one corner
a woman stoops
& milks her
bleating nanny goats
II.
In the sun-mosaicked
arcade on one side
of the main plaza
tórtolas peck seeds
from the wrinkled hands
of a shoeshine man
III.
The cathedral bells
clang, tolling
for the eight
o’clock mass
IV.
In another plaza
in the cold shade
of an álamo tree
two men strum
their guitars, rehearsing
their morning songs
Photo credit: Lorraine Caputo
This afternoon tastes acrid
dense smoke rising
from yonder, beyond
the east horizon
black ash whirls around
the terrace, swirling in the corner
burnt orange shadows
the red sun shadowed
by dense smoke rising
from western mountain slopes
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