Poem

I wrote this after reviewing some color slides I had taken in 1984.

Holy Week in Guatemala City

Everything shouted: Tourist!
Betrayed by height and skin tone:
sallow and solitary in a landscape
of purples, reds and browns;
he watched the procession go by.

White-veiled school girls,
boy scouts in khaki,
matrons in black,
chanting in unison,
fingers busy on rosary beads
of onyx or jade,
their Mayan faces
devoutly gleaming.

Flower-decked floats
swayed in the noon sun;
people in the crowd
crossing themselves
to see the bleeding Christ
on a velvet-covered pallet,
borne by a phalanx
of squat and sweating men
over the cobblestones
across the plaza
towards
the cathedral