Yucatan Holiday

Margot and I spent two warm weeks in Mexico. The trip was part holiday, part research for my upcoming historical novel: Blood, Feathers and Holy Men. We visited Teotihuacán – City of the gods, about 25 miles northeast of Mexico City. While in Mexico City we also visited the Museum of Anthropology and, of course, Guadelupe.
Next, we flew to Yucatan where we visited Chichén-Itzá and Tulum, once known as Zama – the City of Dawn.
Finally, we relaxed on a beach at Akumal where I wrote a handful of poems.

Of Daydreams and Seaweed

From bitter memories of snow and ice,
of sleet and fog and rain and traffic screams,
I waken to a beach of golden sand
and breathe deep of the sea's perfume –
honeyed air of the Mayan coast.

Peek-a-boo morning sun rises swiftly
to cross the Caribbean sky.
Now and then it hides
behind fluffy grey-white puffs of cloud –
only to blaze forth, promising the day’s heat.

As far as I can daydream,
I see soothing blue.
Grandma in her sunhat looks for shells.
Fair-skinned toddlers race in the surf.
Bikini maidens chat along the shore.

Stiff breeze sets hats flying across the mottled sand.
Cormorant swoops and dives for breakfast on the waves.
Jogger puffs off last night’s revelry
and ogles topless beauties on the beach,
reminiscing perhaps of loves gone by.

Then, I see them:
As sports fishers troll beyond the reef
and kayaks glide in tandem past snorkeling youth,
the beach's only Mayans rake seaweed into orange barrows.