an evening in the life

Honduras is a linen sky stained with cherries hanging above a pocked road covered in a fine layer of gray powder with loose stones scattered about. The blushing air is obscured by a perpetually lingering haze that ominously fills the horizon crisscrossed by wires as the rosé atmosphere melts into jagged, indigo ridges below and smatterings of dirty, swollen clouds above.

Children grin, hailing, "¡Hola! Hello! Gringo!" Women gawk while men shoot by in trucks with blaring horns leaving a suffocating blanket of dust behind. Dumbfounded cows wander along the roadside oblivious to the speeding, rattling vehicles that hurtle by.

Each stride becomes more precarious as the light fades, and the steady whirring, clicking, and croaking cacophony of insects fills the cool, breezy air like an infinite, humming electric current.

Dirty-faced, barefoot girls pad along behind, keeping pace down the hill until they reach the bridge. Then it's time to turn around, climbing back home, "¡Adios!"

Misshapen wooden posts wrapped in endless spans of barbed wire stand alongside verdurous pines whose fallen amber needles fill the air with their scent reminiscent of Oregon summers along mountain passes.

The inky outlines of massive aluminum sheds dent the skyline with their expansive concrete slabs carpeted with milky, yellow beans line the wayside.

On the outskirts, fields of shimmering obsidian and silver flutter in the breeze lit by the distant, burning lemon glow, flickering between beaming and dull, refracted illumination. Above these polyethylene fields, incapable of decay, blink swarms of natural, neon brilliance tracing curves and shapes in the obscurity like streaking, July sparklers. Glimmering green and gold flares of lightening dip and dive between trees signaling that the rainy season is approaching.

Honduras is sitting in a cardinal, plastic chair writing by a wavering flame as the liquid wax cascades down the profile of the emerald wine bottle set upon a wobbly lawn table in my backyard beneath the stars, screams of children, and surrounded by the purr of various winged communities.

Aprovecharlo.