Saturday Feb 21, 2009

We caught the bus last night
On the brown altoplano,
Surrounded by the mountains of La Paz.
We awoke this morning
In the lush green tropics.
Grasses as high as trees sway in the breeze.
Chickens wander freely.
Pigs are tethered on ropes.
White humped-backed cattle graze
Along side small white birds.
People eat ouside their thatched adobe huts.
Small brown boys chase and dig and climb trees,
Their sisters play house
Caring tenderly for younger siblings.
Occationally, we pass a town where
The houses are brick and have windows,
The roofs are metal or tile.

Here, approaching Santa Cruz, Bolivia,
There are power lines on big metal poles
And pipelines on the ground.
The pipelines are raised on tresles
Over the huge rivers and small streams.
Everywhere is green.
We are back in the land of giant ant hills.
Fields often have hundreds of these 5 to 6 foot brown mounds.

Sugan cane is grown here,
Date palms, tobaco, soya beans, corn.
And from the road side stalls,
I suspect that avacados and oranges are also grown.
In the wet areas, pink mallow-like blossoms
Look like Disney gardens:
They´re reminescent of the Amazon jungle
Seen on last year´s adventure.

And the back drop of all this green undulating beauty
Seen from the bus,
Is the relentless violence on the bus televisions.
Even though I can ignor the images of
Shooting, smashing, killing, pain,
I can not escape the sound track.
The sounds of fists hitting flesh,
The groans and screams of the dying.
Would they just get it overwith
And die already.

A indigenous lady on the bus reaches
Over to an open window
And tosses out a large bag of garbage.
It bounces close to one
Of the many road side shrines.
One more bag added to the many
That are strewn along
Every road side in Bolivia.

This is the dicotamy that is Bolivia,
The great beauty next to the ugliness.
This is my personal see-saw,
Do I love this land and it´s beauty,
Or can I hardly wait to leave the noice and filth?