Prose And Poems From Travelers Across The Border
Excerpts from www.softseattravel.com
Yolanda
Armond Kelty
I hear the whimper of a lonely dog, a poor apartment dog locked in while his master leaves each day for the city.
I look out to see that the sun has just started to abrade the edge of the roof outside my apartment. The birds have started their frantic chirping.
The dog's whimper turns to a sad whine of loss.
My water bottle gurgles as if there is someone in the kitchen filling a glass. I wish it were her hand pressing on the lever. It's not and never will be, she thinks that my tropical outpost is primitive and uncomfortable and a little backward,
the very reasons why I love the place.
We can always get modern and efficient and boringly predictable at home in New Haven. We often did.
But can we find the pulse of life that I found last night in the plaza where Mariachis played trumpet beneath the trees.
One trumpet played off to one side, another at the other side, distant from their accompanying violins and bass guitar so that the volumes came into balance.
The first would make a plaintive wail with a hard-edged brassy sound; the other would answer, muffled by trees and the porticos of the old colonial building.
The sound was sweet and exotic.
When the Mariachis ended their serenade of a young couple seated at the sidewalk cafe, the pulsing rhythm of the Latin band at the other end of the plaza drew me in that direction.
Eight men and a woman played a rhythmic salsa tune while couples danced and a family member passed a cup around.
"How old are you," I asked the young drummer when the song ended.
He had fired in rim shots without hesitation at just the right time, every time.
The son of the conga player answered, "Nuevo."
Just nine years old and he kept the beat like a pro, tacking out a rhythm on the side of his two drums and then, at every twelfth bar, he would slam in his metallic accents seamlessly.
His little brother handled the clave while his aunt in a skin-tight homemade outfit adorned with spangles in strategic places, danced Salsa while sensuously massaging rhythm from a long metal tube with serrated sides: zt, pause zt, zt, accented zt, pause zt, zt, accented, hypnotic.
A couple next to me stood spooned and moving to the rhythm of the strong electric base beat and I envied them their closeness. She in purple rebozo, stylishly slung over her shoulders and a long skirt split to mid-thigh; just like Mexico, hiding and showing at the same time.
They moved as one and I felt my legs move and my feet move but I was only one and there came a twinge of loss: lost time, lost opportunity, lost love.
The Salsa rhythms crashed to a finale with rim shots and symbol sizzles as the cup passed again at the hand of the sequined aunt.
In the quiet the sweet voice of a tenor crying for Yolanda came from the other corner of the square. Two guitarists with subtly-amped flat-topped acoustic guitars did vocal harmony around Cuban love songs, always full of pain and longing. I listened while sipping a Modelo Negra and remembering dancing to Pablo Milanés's. "Yolanda, Yolanda, Eternamente Yolanda"
That is how I would sing it if I could, but the name would be different. My song might be as fleeting though, as fleeting as the feeling in the plaza on that night of warm tropical fantasy brought on by rhythms and songs and words of love.
The sun rubs higher out my window, my water bottle gurgles again for no one, the dog's wail turns into a whimper, my neighbor starts her percolator, and the sun now burns the patio where I will take my coffee: alone, happy, and free.
AK
Text A Kelty © 2013
related
God's Light
Excerpts from www.softseattravel.com
Yolanda
Armond Kelty
I hear the whimper of a lonely dog, a poor apartment dog locked in while his master leaves each day for the city.
I look out to see that the sun has just started to abrade the edge of the roof outside my apartment. The birds have started their frantic chirping.
The dog's whimper turns to a sad whine of loss.
My water bottle gurgles as if there is someone in the kitchen filling a glass. I wish it were her hand pressing on the lever. It's not and never will be, she thinks that my tropical outpost is primitive and uncomfortable and a little backward,
the very reasons why I love the place.
We can always get modern and efficient and boringly predictable at home in New Haven. We often did.
But can we find the pulse of life that I found last night in the plaza where Mariachis played trumpet beneath the trees.
One trumpet played off to one side, another at the other side, distant from their accompanying violins and bass guitar so that the volumes came into balance.
The first would make a plaintive wail with a hard-edged brassy sound; the other would answer, muffled by trees and the porticos of the old colonial building.
The sound was sweet and exotic.
When the Mariachis ended their serenade of a young couple seated at the sidewalk cafe, the pulsing rhythm of the Latin band at the other end of the plaza drew me in that direction.
Eight men and a woman played a rhythmic salsa tune while couples danced and a family member passed a cup around.
"How old are you," I asked the young drummer when the song ended.
He had fired in rim shots without hesitation at just the right time, every time.
The son of the conga player answered, "Nuevo."
Just nine years old and he kept the beat like a pro, tacking out a rhythm on the side of his two drums and then, at every twelfth bar, he would slam in his metallic accents seamlessly.
His little brother handled the clave while his aunt in a skin-tight homemade outfit adorned with spangles in strategic places, danced Salsa while sensuously massaging rhythm from a long metal tube with serrated sides: zt, pause zt, zt, accented zt, pause zt, zt, accented, hypnotic.
A couple next to me stood spooned and moving to the rhythm of the strong electric base beat and I envied them their closeness. She in purple rebozo, stylishly slung over her shoulders and a long skirt split to mid-thigh; just like Mexico, hiding and showing at the same time.
They moved as one and I felt my legs move and my feet move but I was only one and there came a twinge of loss: lost time, lost opportunity, lost love.
The Salsa rhythms crashed to a finale with rim shots and symbol sizzles as the cup passed again at the hand of the sequined aunt.
In the quiet the sweet voice of a tenor crying for Yolanda came from the other corner of the square. Two guitarists with subtly-amped flat-topped acoustic guitars did vocal harmony around Cuban love songs, always full of pain and longing. I listened while sipping a Modelo Negra and remembering dancing to Pablo Milanés's. "Yolanda, Yolanda, Eternamente Yolanda"
That is how I would sing it if I could, but the name would be different. My song might be as fleeting though, as fleeting as the feeling in the plaza on that night of warm tropical fantasy brought on by rhythms and songs and words of love.
The sun rubs higher out my window, my water bottle gurgles again for no one, the dog's wail turns into a whimper, my neighbor starts her percolator, and the sun now burns the patio where I will take my coffee: alone, happy, and free.
AK
Text A Kelty © 2013
related
God's Light
