In Guatemala

4 May 2006

XELA—I think of Guatemala as a place where the curtain between the worlds is a thin one and reality of an uncertain and changeable nature. I think of the clouds that shift over the volcanoes and the sheen of gold and of silver playing simultaneously over the land. I see the clouds that conceal the peaks you are among shift in the electrum light to reveal fantastical shapes of up-thrust rock and green-clad earth. It is watching the moon dance over Mt. Fuego and the depth of the water in the navel of the world.
It is moving from ancient temples climbing to the sun from monkey-shrieking jungle to cold mountain passes where sheep graze in perpetual mist. It is the tons of incense burned over the millennium for one religion or the other so that earth and stone seem permeated by a constant perfume. It is the same earth and stones that have drank deeply of their people’s blood and thirst for more.
It is knowing that whole villages here were massacred and many of the killers never caught. It is knowing that the man you sit next to in the park may be guilty of genocide. It is knowing that the Maya here still worship at their ancient alters, to their old gods. It is that sense of trespass, of uneasy wonder and fear, knowing there are things here you will never know and those you would rather not.