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Discovery & Self-Discovery, Eastern Peru GETTING HIGH BY GOING LOW  The Amazonian pink river dolphin. |
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of TheColumnists.com |
I never ate the heady
seeds of morning glory.
Still I’ve gotten awfully high
Encountering the wildlife in the lowlands of the Amazon.
The jesus
bird (her alias: jacana) bowls us over walking on the
waters,
Proudly striding on the flimsy floating plants.
I hear a monkey howl---
Alas, no monkey, just the mimicry of winged screamer and a rumped
cacique,
The aviary actors coming on the wing.
Yet now a rocking bough reveals a pack of rowdy squirrel monkeys
Tussling, playing in pursuit while giddy bounding branch to branch.
Further
on, the yellow-tinted hawk so elegant
Is perching on a tree to watch intense anhingas with their
snake-like necks
Dive-bomb the murky depths to grab and swallow gourmet fish
Before returning burping to the heights.
At night
a water lily opens up
Attracting beetles drawn by perfume smells
And holds them captive for another day.
The grand
finale is a pod of lengthy river dolphins
Painted shocking pink as if emerging from a beauty shop,
Surrounding us and breaching, feeding silently,
Like science-fiction avatars.
This teeming life upon the tributaries
Fires up the travelers’ minds, even those most dormant.
Yet be
warned that once you’ve lived and loved exhilarations of
the river
irresistible invincible,
No drug will ever be your tempter-Mephistopheles.
---Ucayalli River, Amazon basin
©2010 by Paul Hertelendy.
This column was first posted Feb. 8, 2010.
Paul Hertelendy is critic
and webmaster for the arts-review web site www.artssf.com, and
is also the Piedmont (CA) Centennial poet laureate.
To
visit his website, click here: PAUL
You can comment
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"The Editors" or Paul Hertelendy. To send an email,
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