It’s lovely this sound … swish, swish, swish.
Another beautiful day in this supposedly so poor country. We get 325 days of sunshine, mountain sun.
I’m swinging softly in the hammock listening to Rogelio swish, swish, swish with his machete. It’s cleaning the property week. Things grow like crazy here and soon the dry season will be here and fires - you don’t want to get caught with your pants down and have lots for a fire to burn up.
It will take 4 or 5 days to clear all the grass inside the fence and a couple meters outside the property. Also, got to fix up my dog’s grave, clear it.
I like to treat the workers, the laborers well. It’s a job I understand, believe me. Been there and done that. Lucky I don’t have to do it as a middle-aged man, like Rogelio.
I pay well, especially feed well and also include a good tip if done in the time we’ve agreed. Many other little things to help this backbreaking work along. Like letting Rogelio use the speaker I have. Battery-powered and with a radio.
Everywhere down here, workers listen to their small radios. Or strap it to their bicycles as they go back and forth to jobs. Reminds me of my father, he’d always have the radio blaring, workshop or outside. Partly why he’s half deaf. But I know it helps the day go by for the poor who have little else, not even dreams.
So I gave the radio to him and then the swish, swish, swish was replaced with Glory to God! Grace a Dios!
Now I’m not a godly man - in the traditional sense. But I respect every man’s beliefs. It’s rock bottom, part of who I am. Believe in anything so long as you refrain from violence and harming others.
So I’m swaying softly in my hammock and listening to preacher after preach scream and proclaim their truth. God’s truth. Who am I to doubt - I know nothing. Truly.
At least, over the next 4 or 5 days I’ll learn a lot of Spanish. God works in strange ways …
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A poem from my hammock today. Naked and raw as usual. I let poems just come out and be - if they work they work. If not, no problem.
We Sway
I have tried.
Really.
The house. The lawn. The pesticides.
Getting rid of
what they tell me is wrong,
doesn’t belong.
I have tried it all.
But my clutch is broke.
There is water in the fuel.
I just can’t do it any more,
obey those fools that rule.
Give me my own way.
A disinfectant where
culture has no say.
Where the world is in a way,
natural, here to stay
while the microbes die
and the machetes swing
day on day
in obedience,
in this pandemic
we sway.