barefoot in baja

"barefoot I was born
    -barefoot I'll remain"     -alvarez


I'll caretake in Baja
Even if it means
One hundred ten degrees
Brutal humidity and bugs in my hair
So long as I can splash daily
In that sparkling blue sea
The Spanish once called "Vermillion..."


Mexican silver
The Chinese prized for coinage
Back in the day
But pirates roamed the seas
Around Cabo
Also had their way


How do you have
The sound of raindrops
On terra cotta roof-tiles
With a sky full of stars?


She warned us
Keep The Gates Closed
Else the wild burros will come in
Eat everything
And you'll have a devil of a time
Getting them OUT
      -mooney


She got in trouble
In the big Baja surf
That surged up the sand & back,
Carrying its cargo of swimmers
Where it would,
Regardless of their intentions.
Turned out she was fighting allergies,
Just could not breathe
And soon the current brought us rocks
To negotiate--
The girl in the red bikini
Left her towel
When she recognized our plight,
And a grizzled gringo ran down from his palapa
Upset & angry-
"You people have to respect these rocks!"
He shouted in my ear,
Once we got her wobbly
To the steep strand,
Gasping wheezing & giving gratitudes.


that's what we come fer
   that's what we got-
     the mantra "manana"
        ruling our thought---




bodysurfing

Fine white ocean sand
  between my toes

waiting for the Glory Wave
  that never shows




every sailor's delight
turning down-wind
to ride his big kite



little girls share the joy
    of hide & seek
        in the evening zocaloy


Sooner or later
It was bound to happen
Feral burros greeting us at the gate
Back from our evening swim--
And of course we made the sorry mistake
Of feeding them week-old tortillas


BAJA BURMA SHAVE

Why bother with shirt & pants
When they can be such a chore
Why not let your skin freelance
And they'll never call you a bore!


She scolded me
    for my hang-laundry sins
"Don't be so damn lazy--
   always use clothespins!"


Somehow a wasp
Has gotten into the kitchen
Now I've got him pinned to the window
With a broom-
But along comes the question,
Is it him or I who've met his doom?


Ah to plunge into that Cortes surf
And stroke for all your worth
To the dangerous rocks
With their whitesand coves
And sunglimmer narrows
Following the stripers & iridescent scissortails
As the big baja waves
Tumble across your silly snorkel--
Weightless is that dance they show you
Leave your boardrooms & cubicles
Come frolic with the fishes
That know what life's about
Merge with movement color & light


Big five-gallon bucket
On the beach
A sawed-off shovel leaning on it:
FAVOR  CACA  DE  PERRO  SOLO 
     -arroyo


Cloud-connoisseure yes-
But if cirrus be your thing-
Get your butt to Zaca
Batabing!


If your thing is making $
And finding ways to spend it
Go get yourself an oversized SUV
And a well-appointed home
Get to Galleria Mall on weekends-
However!
If on the other hand
You find your pocketbook full of time
And inclination too
Go disappear in Baja
After awhile they’ll stop looking for you
 


I dunno, am I bent?
Somehow it's good
To sign up for this tenement
Where they still give advice
On dealing with mice


How good look those blue pesos
Folded squarely in my straw hat
Ready for a walk to Zac's
For a shot of TQ and a beer back!


The hysterical braying
Of the wild burro at dawn
Produces a quick list in the mind
Of the hacienda's gates-
In particular, left open which one?
And how much damage has she done?


Jet fighters thunder over Baja
leaving long vapor trails
spelling out one ancient word:
t-e-s-t-o-s-t-e-r-o-n-e


Montezuma got more than revenge
With this goofy gringo
Who ate & drank everything put in front of him
With gusto & gracias--
Now!   he's sprawled across the cool terra cotta
In absolute renunciation
Of every institution public & private


It arrived sometime
In the middle of the night
The moon was high
The air was clear
Even though asleep I could hear
Its slow rhythmic roar
In sets of three or four
The big Peruvian swell
The surfers had been waiting for


The subtext of travel
Is to put yourself in a place
Where the Unexpected can


Must be something amniotic
this turning & freewheeling
heels over head
in the warm clear shallows
just beyond the surfline
large groups of fish bright blue
come school about with you


Whooknowz?
How close came I to perish
Throwing meself this twilight
Into that no-man's surf at Zacatito,
Swept immediately
Into currents surges & nasty rips--
This powerful equatorial swell
Way more than I bargained for
Once again some angel
Steered me through channels in the rock
To scratch out gasping
-All dignity canned-
Onto the steep forgiving strand


True!  large spiders subsist here,
  I saw one last night dart under the bed-
    Though it was allergies she said,
      Is this why she actually fled?


Another large truck
Working the dusty network of roads
At Zacatito today--
Single short horn for propane
Two long for water
Thrice just to say Amigo!


"Lo Siento!"
All I knew to say
When I interrupted
The lovers at Land's End
In mid-play


Came out of nowhere
Big eight-foot "sleeper" wave
A top-to-bottom cylinder of pure juice
That caught & hammered me
Heels over head
Into the rough-grained bottomsand
Adios mask & snorkel


She didn't see me peek
When she rolled back her bikini chic
To show her friend
A new rose tattoo
On her perfect end
    -Cabo snorkel boat w/ Lew Toll


Hundreds or thousands
Of silver merelings
Scatter in all directions as I surface
LIttle sun-streaks
Transmitting some kind of bliss
Gone
Oceanic


In all the hundred-degree saguaro desert
What compares
To the bold baja sun
Ashine on the wings
Of soaring
Cawing
Ravenings


Low on the twilight horizon
     -Soundless-
Green and red fireworks
     Stream over San Jose


For fun
We tried guessing the age
Of the dark-haired infant
Held on papa's lap at the next table
While enjoying our desayuno--
Somehow we thought
Between two and six months-
Were we ever astonished
When he told us
"Cuatro Dias"


Try as you will
Fighting sand in Baja
Is strictly uphill!


   I look across the palmfronds at the weathered stone steeples of La Mision de San Ignacio and try to imagine a preterite three centuries or more, a land inhabited only by Jesuit friars & Co Chi Mi primitives- here with all the elaborate theology of the Roman Catholic church, here with hundreds of pages of 'revealed' scripture, here with a detailed iconography of sainthood- what in this vast european heritage would appeal to these indigenous baja indians?  Was it 'deliverance' or Christ's vaunted martyrdom on the Cross- for their sins?  If indeed it was simple subjugation of one culture by another under the pretext of "salvation--" how and why did these robust natives submit?


(this last poem has nothing to do with Baja but is a recurring meditation of mine)--

Tumbling down the proverbial
Loop of time
But Reverse Cosmosis still holds true--
Your condition is universal
And the yardstick is YOU