Passing Time May 25, 2011
Posted by Jen Pappas in Poems and Misc..add a comment
As many long-term travelers know, there’s a lot of downtime on the road, and not just in train stations or on overnight buses. One can’t spend their entire day sight-stumbling, drinking and meeting people. As much as I’d like to challenge the notion, one can’t spend their whole day reading and writing either. So when we weren’t out exploring, people-watching or eating, Steve and I played a lot of games – namely Travel Scrabble and Cribbage. Those who know us well know that Steve has the obvious advantage when it comes to numbers, while I have the upper hand on words. From the day we left the United States in July to when we returned in mid-January, here are our final tallies for killing time.
Jen: 27 Steve: 24
Steve: 91 Jen: 67
Las Muralles May 19, 2011
Posted by Jen Pappas in Cartagena, Poems and Misc..add a comment
Once impenetrable,
once the cache of pilfered
jewels and money,
where the Spanish came
to bathe in gold ducats
and pull women’s hair.
Once the grand fortress,
once the unconquerable
treasure trove
of the 17th century.
Now anyone can scale your walls.
Cartagena,
even your name sounds romantic.
Who could blame the lights
or cobbled streets –
the balconies adorned in wild bougainvilleas
for drawing the tourists in droves?
Who could have foreseen
the thousands of people
who would pose by your cannons
and enter your dungeons
before ordering overpriced cocktails
on the cusp of your northern walls,
overlooking the sea?
Everywhere we see
the disappointing decay
of Calle Media Luna…
which we have come to learn
means
half moon
and other times, croissant.
Oh, how the walls must wail
some nights,
deep in their mortar.
For the splendor lost,
the secrets untold,
the magnificent duty…
How they must wail too
for all the facades
that have risen up instead,
silencing the past.
1/8/10
