The Cocoa Coast – Bahia, Brasil

Idyllic Bahia…
where they brag on old age,
tropical children and laughing family.
On crooked milk crates, houses behind them,
leaned against whitewash
and watching the bay.

Dandelion Coconut Palms
rooted in the bonds of ancient days,
promised salvation on the next wave.
Venus bright in black evening attire.
Mysterious Candonble, Moqueca, Capoeira
Like Elisabeth, a slaver ship
from Mother West Africa
squeezing just under the Southern Cross,
splashed the hot-blood Amazon
onto the decks of the African Queen

Heaven in sand: Olivenca Beach in Bahia, Brazil

Beetles bigger than your hand,
Monkeys share the river, sloths the mango trees.
A scarlet macaw duo screeches through
brilliant skies…blue as the eyes of the European.
Roosters and preachers and motorcycles
take up the rhythm, Forro blasting…Lambada caressing,

I have been an unfaithful lover
to the temperate beaches to the south.
Uruguay sits in the parlor waiting for word.
Beautiful Bahian raindrops dart down
head-first and fast from heaven’s pools
on this morsel of peace,
this semi-serious coconut town.

The beach has seen the full moon
naked through the banana trees.
The trees have touched the soft sand
sparkling with the white caps,
Loud, happy Afro-Portuguese roars
across cobblestones worn slick
over 500 years.

Salvadoran dumpster, skinny cats and dogs
all prowling the streets
where one Carnival is not enough.
Capuchins in the window, chameleons on the wall.
Banana trucks filled to the brim with workers.
Hidden jungle…the dreams of run-away slaves
Tidy colonial towns of the Portuguese kings.

God is a beautiful Brasiliera
Yemaja told me so herself last night on Itaparica.
Every morning she mangoes, then swims in the sea…
At mid-day to her holy hammock
where she is no swift judge of life untamed
only someone waiting for the next breeze.

Santa Cruz Cabralia sits amid great Bahian rivers, abundant wildlife and Brazil’s Atlantic Ocean

Brasil has the largest land mass
and the smallest swim fashions in South America.
A reasonably successful experiment
in 21st Century anarchy…
Twins were born in Bahia last night.
One came out black and the other one white.