Song of the Earth

Place is as elusive as the dawn. It doesn't have an edge, but lifts gradually and infuses us with light. We can see a town or a landscape, but until we open ourselves to its light - letting its rays seep down into our consciousness - we don't really see it, nor do we know it. When I first arrived on the border in the late 1990s, I was too eager to jump to conclusions, and as the poverty of Agua Prieta sidled up against our fence, I sat down to write: Poverty gnaws like a rat at...
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Place is as elusive as the dawn. It doesn't have an edge, but lifts gradually and infuses us with light. We can see a town or a landscape, but until we open ourselves to its light - letting its rays seep down into our consciousness - we don't really see it, nor do we know it. When I first arrived on the border in the late 1990s, I was too eager to jump to conclusions, and as the poverty of Agua Prieta sidled up against our fence, I sat down to write: Poverty gnaws like a rat at Mexico's very foundation. Cardboard shacks, dirt floors, no running water, wood-burning stoves backed up to paper walls just waiting to ignite. Outside toilets, windows made of plastic, sealing the little hovels off like tombs. A bonfire burning in the streets...men dragging broken pieces of furniture...children in wet diapers and no shirts, running to the warmth.People begging. A woman, with a child tugging at her breast. Her well is dry...child sucking up emptiness...a ragged paper cup, a pitiful extension of her soul...old men clinging to the image, hoping for a glance of the soft brown nipple...pulling them into mother's breast...that mother who reassures against hunger and torment.Clinging to a dream - blisters, snakes and mountain lions, just trudging and carrying those less fortunate, just walking - just running into tomorrow.... I don't need to go on. I, like so many writers, assumed what I saw was all there was, and I was wrong. This rugged landscape, known as the 'borderlands,' teems with diversity. On both sides of the border, I had missed the rich texture of place and its culture. I'm not sure when the knowing started nudging at my senses. Had I fallen off 'the shelf of indifference' or was I dragged? Whatever happened, as I opened up and let this land and its people absorb me, I was able to see and the story was born. I hope you enjoy it.