san miguel

Another Kind of Winter

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It is winter in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.  The smell of this lemon when I scratched the peel was remarkable.  There were a few sweet smelling blossoms down at the base of this rather neglected plant.  What fragrance when I picked one. I have a lemon tree in a pot at home and someone is coming in twice a week to check on my house, be sure the alarm is working and water my little lemon tree and my other plants.  They sit patiently in my kitchen waiting for our few months of intense, hot and humid summer.

The plants you see live on a terrace on a little street in the town.  If it gets chilly at night in ” winter” at least they have almost constant sunshine during the day. How extreme our climate is in Montreal.  When I took a taxi to the airport on Tuesday morning at the ungodly hour of 4 am, a bitter wind shrieked a spiteful goodbye.  Our climate in my beloved hometown is so hostile that it affects our freedom to stroll around the streets as I did today in San Miguel.  There is no struggle here to overcome snow, ice, fatigue from trudging through slushy streets.

I know I’m in my honeymoon period now.  This town that is full of artists and writers has a sort of magic atmosphere.  There is a house in this town that is for sale.  My prudent self tells me to be careful.  After all, I love my hometown and write poems about it. I love people who live in my hometown.  Only trouble is, I write poems about San Miguel too.  Love, stay away from me so I don’t do something rash!

San Miguel Pantoum

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I had to study some different forms of poetry at the convention.  One was called a Pantoum and you can just go and look it up.  You will see that involves repeating lines in a particular order as you proceed down the poem..  Tonight just at sunset the moon and the evening star were breathtaking.  This picture does not do justice to the moon as thin a sliver as you could ever see turned up like a perfect bowl and the lustrous star beside her.  How lovely!  So, I thought I would try a Pantoum!

 

 

San Miguel Pantoum

 

San Miguel evening, sunset and a star.

Small pomegranite flowers, lipstick red

Round jewels, a bell rings from afar

A chance, a whim.  I am led.

 

Small pomegranite flowers, lipstick red

Glimpsed above a blue wall.

A chance, a whim, I am led.

A woman sits at the street corner.

 

Glimpsed above a blue wall.

Small jewels shining in green leaves.

A woman sits at the street corner

Among rough cobble-stones.

 

Small jewels shining in green leaves

I wander lost in narrow streets

Among rough cobble stones

After the heat of a winter day.

 

I wander lost in narrow streets

Round jewels, a bell rings from afar

After the heat of a winter day

San Miguel evening, sunset and a star.

 

 

 

 

 

A new theme?

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I really was trying for something a little more romantic than the street dogs of San Miguel but they seem to insist on muzzling in.  Today I went in search of vegetables and found an organic market peopled by many Mexican sellers and many Gringo buyers.  I managed to find onions, garlic and carrots and now can make a big pot of lentils (need tomato paste though) that I can dip into now and again.  These are the joys of living alone!  Anyway, there in the market were the animal rescue people with lots of nice dogs for adoption.  Well, they were nice until a very intelligent Border Collie showed up.  I had met him and his master in the Jardin – sort of town square the day before – magic San Miguel.  Here came the hero and all the rescue dogs started to bark and fight among themselves.  The handsome collie avoided them in a most dignified way, having foiled any adoption tendencies.  Those street doggies soon reverted to type.

To pacify my romantic tendencies, I post a view of the parish church – San Antonio – from my roof top.  Note the hammock.

 

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