Unbelizable: A poem of Mayan Healing

Call in the manatee, body scarred, belly full of new life,

Nurse sharks, churning tornados of teeth,

and sting rays with marks like Masai on their backs.

Call in the full moon and a fire of gnarled driftwood, wreathing.

Call in sea horses, clinging camouflaged to ropes their bodies mimic,

Cat Spur medicine, guarded by fire ants, to heal the bite of death.

The heat of flesh on flesh, bodies intertwined, spirits spreading.

You must try to understand each other or the roads will separate.

Everything with a heartbeat and everything made by hand

has a soul. Be careful what you put your energy into.

Give it as an offering, held by three pillars,

those from the first hearth of creation

in the dark waters of a primordial world.

The deeper into the cave the more devout.

Methods determined by the power of the prayer:

a circle cast in ceramic with obsidian;

a small chip to break perfection;

or absolute destruction, annihilation.

Give blood, the best of the animals,

the pinky of your hand,

and finally the young princess.

Call in the rain in final desperate hope.

Blood of my blood to please the great spirits.

Call in the brown jays, who warn of hunters, snakes and the big cats,

Howling monkeys battling for territory to embrace the dawn,

The rubber tree oozing latex from machete slices to manifest America’s destiny.

Call in Conch shells scattered carelessly across the south blue caye

And bone fish feasting on lobster heads cast away.

Call in Iguanas who cling to facades of fallen jaguar kings—

the faces of rain, of sun, of the tree that spans from heaven to earth.

Weave the cosmos into colorful bands and blouses.

The universe interconnected in every stitch.

What is time? Not chronological as we force it to be.

Nothing is urgent but the snake’s bite.

The healer clasps her hands around leaves on your wrists, your head, your heart

and prays.

Whispers, swish, and cluck in ancient tongues of her ancestors.

The beat is too strong. We must do it again.

Do not touch yourself, the energy will not flow.

She takes fresh boughs from her medicine garden

Sprays alcohol upon them and beats your body

To clear it, to cleanse it of contamination

The Mal de Ojo.

Then smudging, sacred copal. Alone you sit

until the tears come

and flow together in streams down your cheeks

onto the crystal about your throat.

The tears we shed yesterday have become the rain.

She cried once too, she tells you.

The rituals were nearly lost, only her uncle did ceremony

in secret over the mountains.

Dia de los Santos came and she was called

to honor the ancestors in their ruins.

Sadness took her as she envisioned the once flourishing city.

So much lost, so much taken.

Sorrow for the pain of her people.

Then she heard them, conch shells calling,

from the North, the direction of the winds, the messages.

She thought she alone had heard them. But her family was there,

They felt it too—

A turning, a resurrection, the period of recovery had come.

The words are coming back,

hieroglyphics, inherent understanding from deep within.

Collective rituals that cross modern borders,

rebuilding sacred civilization.

Her tears came often during ritual, a recognition,

A reckoning.

For so long, you did not cry.

But there is purpose in the tears, release.

You are guided by a light. It brought you here.

I can see it

and the soul returning to your face.

Breathe again with the wind.

Call it in.

#icelanded

#icelanded

Homage to Odin, of words and wisdom, poetry and bard.
Epic saga of the separated sisters’ quest for a feather, shark meat, and adventure.

Velkominn.

To rolling bucolic green backdrops,
Plates of ripped, ridged earth,

Tectonic shift to surface salt and sulfur.

Rocks remain from Viking victories,

Justice first served for the four kingdoms, to the quarters:
Earth to the north, air to east, fire south and water west.

Ram horn spirals,
Baby black sheep bleating,
Horses muzzling in soft rain.

This is a bridge of trolls.
That volcano of dragons.

Fingers of clouds exhaled by knolls, cascade over elven waterfalls.

We are ice walkers, following lines to horizon beyond.

Carve the sign of Thor into the mountainside to find the bloodstone.
Bless Freya on the compass pillar thrust ashore by captains lost.

Glacial waves crash, gnash, snarled lips peeled back to show teeth beneath--

dark, rubbed soft, revealing.

Sun bleached sea monsters among black stones,

whisper under bare feet ancient psalms in forgotten tongue, the Elder Fudhark.

Frost soaked cliff cracks stone bones

like a holy book left in rain.

Trust no rocks, wander not for shore birds nest below.

Feel the heartbeat of lava beneath moss skin.
Red eyed ravens feast on hidden remains.

House the elves to protect the bridge.

Light on water, fingerlets,

Lupin bundles,

Heath buttercups.

I will call you sugar mountain, you volcano you.

My body becomes the pink beach, flesh-toned sand.

Sticks, stones, bones.

Never forget this spiral, prehistoric symbols swept away in rising tide.

Steel boat beached in high grass a century ago,

Ribs worn through, portals of a forgotten beast.

Race to the ends of the earth, most westerly breast of Europa,

To find the nesting puffins, to make your heart sing.

Press your body into the cliff as it juts to nothingness.

Peer down at the vast below.

Seal your identity on this blood moon eclipse we cannot see.

For the light is always bright here, brighter still as home nears.

There is a vastness, as earth in cosmos.

Reminder of mortality, a grain of sand.

There is not the feather.

Nor not the tools to repel down this face and away from fear

As the old men who still collect eggs to honor the ancestors.

Reversal of roles in reverence.

Read runes to harness lunar shadow in everlasting twilight.
Become Uroz, the ancient ox, wild unbridled strength, a seed,

a beacon for self and world.

Chariot on one wing, birch on another, grow roots and go forth.
You are so strong, so brave, and shouldn’t always have to be.
Breathe in presence, out peace.

Breathe in balance, out freedom, connect.

The trolls journey at night, we follow by day.

They have been caught and frozen, shovel in hand,

trying to tear the coast apart.

The fairies watch wondering as we peer through the sorcerer’s door

at cauldron within, foreign markings that feel right.

A struggle, a sorrow, but never more.

Ravens are much larger than crows and

the invisibility spell takes far too much blood to be my magic.

A sickening in this death over stolen milk,

Such scarcity.

Warm water, cold rain, rinse, repeat, release.
“Your heart is the softest place on earth. Take care of it.”

When the world is ending, will you want to know, as Odin, and die in honor?

Will you watch the clouds roll in with me? On these last lava rocks and soak them into our skin.

Ay, Colombiano

Shutters clack against windowless wooden frames, 
crumbling walls
like someone knocking.
Drying towels and blankets billow
as phantoms.

Hay mucha tierra en el viento.
It burns the eyes.
The air tingles 
en la misma manera de las Santa Anas 
de mi juventud.
the kind that starts wildfires.

It can make people mad, 
I say remembering that book
the White Oleander.
Explícamelo, he asks.
No puedo.
It's the ions. Our breaths are charged.
but something is lost in translation
or tequila.

Bailamos, borrachos de deseos.
Él, un tiburón, su sonrisa peligrosa.
Yo, con ojos de una venada.
He guides me in the darkness: 
You must let your body go.
Voy a tratar.
Turn around,
para que pueda ver tu cara hermosa.

After he leaves
I swallow his scent in the sheets,
trace the memories on my skin,
and sweep the trash from the floor.
Era una esperanza 
de una brujita 
a travez de una estrella cayendo.

Ahora, sí, 
hay golpes en mi vida, tan fuertes, 
otra vez.

Street Speak

Her father was left alive because of a boxing match. He had been abducted during the “dirty war” which they now prefer to call “terrorism of the state” because there was no war. He was taken from his home for no reason and beat repeatedly for information he didn’t have. But there was a boxing fight that night and before they’d finished him off they left to watch. And so he survived and she was born, in the villa of Las Bocas, which she’d left when she was two and returned to with us today.

Don’t wander away from the main tourist plaza because it becomes a shanty town, warns the ex-pat who directs us to the right camioneta. I turn to my friends and tell them that I like slums. Me too, they chime in unison. So we walk a bit farther than others might and watch the streets transform from façade to reality.

A guy strums a guitar on the balcony, switching it for a mate gourd between each song, belly hanging comfortably over belt.

Two little girls share one pair of roller blades, several sizes too big. Each wears one on the inside foot and they skate together holding hands and tumbling onto the sidewalk. We hold our breaths a block away until they popped up laughing.

On old man peers out of crooked shutters at his grandchildren splashing in a plastic pool below. 

Sheet metal walls two stories high covered in cracked and peeling paint left over from boats that sailed many decades ago. Burned out cars. Laundry drying the warm river air.

White walls say nothing. So now the city is covered with images of love and loss and violence and fantasy. Identity affirmed and preserved in a slanted signature, even when bodies are never found. 

Mas amor por favor. 

Sos parte del cambio. 

Pensar es un hecho revolucionairo.

Hospital de la Matanza

There were dogs in the hospital. I counted three. There seemed to be more but the same ones simply moved from one floor to another as they pleased. No one there really noticed. But someone in our group did and asked the social worker giving us a tour about them. She was embarrassed.

One belonged to a man who lived at the hospital, in the waiting room just outside the maternity ward. He had nowhere else to go so they let him stay there and keep his dog with him. Our guide was very proud of the room. It had been built recently so that people would be comfortable while they waited for their babies to be born. Looking in, I could not tell which person was the resident, and to me it did not seem like such a bad place to stay. You would see so much joy from this glass walled room… one of the most beautiful experiences of life happening over and over again.

The patients and visitors seemed to like the dogs as well. The dogs had a calming presence, sleeping in corners and strolling casually, unaffected by suffering of such a place. They made it feel more like home and less like an institution. The floor and walls were a bit dirty, but so too where the homes and skins and clothes and of the people of the campo who came here for help and for solace. Perhaps there is something to learn from this… that the little things that make strange situations more normal can bring great comfort to those in pain.  Some broken rules do more good than harm. 

Death and Sunlight

The stench of rotting flesh unearthed and caskets cast aside. Spiderwebcracked glass doors and rusted padlocks let eternity rest. Who comes to care for the remains of loves long lost? Some. Not all.

How many children went hungry so that mausoleums could be built and strangers could admire the colored light of stained glass ceilings reflected upon floors out of reach? Salvation and adoration. What legacy is left in the corners of Cemetario de la Recoleta? What secrets buried.

Look into the life lines of your palm and see ancestors. Strength and sacrifice.

Cats sprawled across certain stones seem to be missing parts of their stomachs and their souls. The vacancy is more frightening than anything else here. Broken drawers reveal open coffins and steps leading to depth. Let them wander.

In circles las Madres de Plaza de Mayo search for their ninos desaparacidos. Many in silence. Simply walking, with white scarves to show resistance to the evil that exists and never can be undone. Tourists gather and flash cameras at their weathered faces and at those of their children, their grandchildren-- at the black and white pictures that the women string from their necks with names and dates written below and the men hold up on picket signs. The prints are old and scarred by the sun and their hands shake under the strain of the banner but still they walk. With respect, with resilience, with reason that we cannot begin to understand only looking on.

Across the busy street lies the body of one man who fought for the freedom of Argentina and carried its flag across the Andes. Two soldiers guard his coffin and four marble maidens. Outside the cathedral a flame burns for his bravery y that of the soldado desconocido de la independencia. Saludalos! the wall tells us.

And thus some lives are revered by all who pass and others by only those with great strength and greater sorrow... but still so many go unnoticed and are truly lost.

Shit Matters

Today is World Toilet Day but there is not much to celebrate.  

Diarrhea kills at least two million people per year, according to experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO). It can be prevented and treated, but we are not doing enough to address this critical global health problem.  

UNICEF’s 2012 Progress Report, released last month, showed that diarrhea is the second leading cause of young child deaths worldwide (responsible for 11% of deaths, following pneumonia which causes 18% of deaths). Although diarrhea’s death toll has dropped by a third in the last decade, this progress is insufficient for a disease with simple, proven, cost-effective interventions.  

As the causes of and conditions for diarrhea are inextricably linked to desperate poverty, many interventions require meeting the most fundamental human needs. Deaths can be easily averted through practices such as breastfeeding; providing adequate nutrition, safe drinking water and vaccinations; and maintaining basic sanitation such as hand washing with soap. 

Open defecation, which is practiced by over a billion people worldwide, remains a major contributing factor to diarrheal disease. I have seen children in the poorest slums of Kenya, India and Central America run barefoot in streets where feces flow freely. They play in garbage and draw pictures in the dirt, running their little fingers through sewage then have no water or soap to wash up.

The United Nations has committed to reduce the number of people without access to safe water by half, and many of our big-hitters in global health are working to address this, but expenses are considerable. The Gates Foundation recently launched a “Reinvent the Toilet” competition, challenging researchers to leverage new technologies to design models that function without sewage output, water or electricity, yet the cost of winning prototypes may initially be as high as $5,000 (though this drops with commercial production).  In many ways, meeting critical needs and implementing infrastructural changes presents a far a greater challenge than other intervention techniques to treat the symptoms of this illness.

So what can we do to stop this shit? 

First and foremost, talk about it. The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) method, used by the World Bank, Plan International , UNICEF and The Gates Foundation among others, begins with communication. If we can raise awareness for the potentially deadly problems caused by open defecation, we can actually stigmatize it and encourage people to change their common behaviors.  According to the CLTS approach, this awareness is a critical first step to trigger a community’s desire for change, propel them into action and encourage innovation, mutual support and appropriate local solutions, thus leading to increased ownership and sustainability.

Next, we must keep talking. The dialogue must extend beyond the impoverished communities where children are dying from diarrhea. There is an incredible dearth of private donor-driven funding for this cause; by talking about it here, in the U.S., we can spread the awareness, so people will understand the gravity of the issue and support the treatment of the disease. Here, we must remove the stigma associated with diarrhea, so that people will be willing and wanting to publicly help prevent it.

Three key interventions can successfully treat diarrheal disease: administration of oral rehydration salt (ORS) solutions to prevent life-threatening dehydration (the main culprit of diarrheal deaths); continued feeding; and zinc supplementation. These low-cost treatments remain inaccessible for the vast majority of the world’s most vulnerable people. Oral Rehydration Salts alone could prevent about 90% of child deaths from diarrheal dehydration, yet less than one third of diarrhea- infected children receive ORS, and there has been only a 2% increase in this access over the last decade.  ORSs have been criticized as a “Band-Aid” in places where safe water and sewage systems do not exist—only providing the most superficial treatment rather than addressing the underlying causes of the disease. But the fact of the matter is that they save children’s lives, and it’s better to bandage a wound then let it bleed dry.

Oral Rehydration Salts cost about 10 cents each. They can even be substituted with a homemade mixture of sugar, salt and water. If only more mothers were aware of this treatment and the treatment was more widely accessible, many, many lives would be saved.

The technology is here; the effect is proven; the cost is negligible; and the services are available.
So let’s all be potty mouths. The time has come to start talking about diarrhea, why it matters, and what we can do to stop it.