Sitala

Black specks of dust settle into my shoe. I look around, pure silence. Sheer tranquility. My brother's sleep is comforting, his breathing keeps me company. Once in a while I dream fantastical dreams. Worlds of the impossible surround me. The sky comes into my room. The sky is my ceiling. I dream of gently sloping hills. I hear the willow trees gently rapping at my door.

Mexico is only next door. With butterflies that take on a Jurassic Park role. Spiny backs with yellow and gold. Hair stretching from their backs to their toes. Wings that seem of leather made. Mexico made. I can see the corn heads grow. The tinge of color taking hold.

Oh, Mexico! Waking up to the same everyday, but never quite the same.

From below you can see translucent balloons abruptly ending their fiery flight, amid the canopy line. Children take to the hills to claim a mesh of paper and wire: ah! a trophy at hand. At night you can hear the river rolling, pushing, humming like an old woman, trying to reach an end.

The smell of ocote penetrates the air. You can almost touch the smell.
Thick slabs of masa are slapped in to the metate. Sopes, the size of my head, are prepared for breakfast. Dog breakfast that is.

The fresh, pipping hot tortillas come next. A brown hand, with depressions running deep into her veins, plucks the last pumpkin flowers of summer. Different hues of yellow ooze from the tortilla. The cheese is so rich, it refuses to be white. The flower nestles in the smooth bed of cheese, both wrapped tight under warm corn tortilla sheets.


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My mom comes home. The scene flees for the cover of night, leaving me alone.

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Ah. I can't quite due justice to Sitala here in this blog. I'll revisit the place again, and maybe I'll be able to write a better description of how it made me feel. Nature was so powerful in Sitala - a very rural part of Mexico.


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On another note: Thanks! For letting me know. You know who you are - I hope. :)