A ranchera from the border

Greetings from Tapachula, Mexico, a place you will probably never visit.

I feel like I'm in a country-western song, except this is Mexico, so to pass the time I will write a ranchera about this leg of my trip:


March was wrapping up the morning that I got here
From the window I could see another land.
Things were greener, like the jungle was beginning
and the sun was broiling down to beat the band.

Sleeping on the bus is never easy
I toss and turn and sweat some and then freeze
"Pirates of the Caribbean" on the small screen
and snores of men the only midnight breeze.

But stumbling off the bus into the morning
brought even bigger questions to the fore:
was there a bus that went to Guatemala
or was I doomed to spend two days upon this floor?

Bad news and good were both on hand to greet me
Indeed a bus existed, later on,
but the schedule on the web was only fiction
and they wouldn't sell a ticket, not a one.

"Pues frente hay agencia que se venden"
so across the street I walked with all my cash
Tres cientos pesos later I had my own ticket
and three hours to wait until I left at last.

To fill me up I had a yummy desayuno
watching news from every corner of this pais
then opened up my gmail to discover
that my beloved Barks might soon decease.

Sad day! A dog I've loved for 15 años,
companion on Balmoral whom I grieve,
lymphoma means he's tired and not eating
I won't be there to hold him when he leaves.

Here comes a man with terrible glaucoma
in between the taxis, buses, horns and thieves,
collecting pesos for a mission franciscano
I gave, although his story's hard to believe.

It's almost ten, so there's another 90 minutes
before the border I can ever hope to see
Tonight I'm planning to arrive into old Antigua
where Luis's grandmother will greet me at her door.

Then I'll shower, sleep and think about my canine
and hope his end is peaceful, not a chore
in his last minutes may he smile and think of fondly
the life we shared in what's now my before.


National Poetry Month starts tomorrow, along with my two or possibly three weeks in Guatemala. Thanks for helping me get it off to a good start! If you know any country-western artists looking for some good material, rights to my song "Part-time girlfriend with a full-time heart" are available. Sounds like a grammy winner, doesn't it????