Contact from two old friends dropped me right back into the Medellin of decades ago, the Medellin of drug lords, of violence, and the great passion of life lived in the shadows of all that intensity. Thanks to Patricia and Harold for reminding me that it was real. I was there in all of my naiveté.
Years later, it’s still almost too delicate to touch. I have rarely written about it save for a few poems. And I’m reminded of Alexandra Fuller (wonderful writer and speaker) who said you have to write with honesty. I’m not quite ready for all the stories.
How did I not know? I’d done research and read all that I could yet I arrived to teach in a binational center and was picked up in a bulletproof station wagon. Many incidents- I’ll save them for later but what remains is innocence, with the world surrounding gone mad.
And connectedness with friends. There were poetry readings, long lunches with my girlfriends, and trips to the country- returning to the city with its sparkling lights on the mountains. Love and language, beauty surrounding, and enough passion to last a lifetime. That was Medellin.
A poem from then…
Santa Fe de Antioquia
The smell of decaying fruit hangs
in the hot sun,
A green as strong
I´d never seen
in years of temperate moderation.
Ceilings beyond reach
in a room very old,
matching the inhabitants
busily fashioning
caskets out of wood,
the family trade.
Neatly stacking them
just beyond the bedroom
where I sleep in coolness,
for babies, tiny and white,
for adults several wait.
This night double church bells
announce another loss.
Bats flutter, then
rest flat
blotting out
paradise in palm trees.
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