14. Oaxaca

14

Oaxaca, Mexico:

Pink, turquoise, orange and brown,
That’s the way to paint a town!
Pea-green, sea-green, tea-green too,
Blood red, brick red, yellow and blue…
Painted like the evening sky,
Crowds of people strolling by,
Gilded lions guard Fountain Park,
Sunset, lamps lit; now it’s dark.
(Now it’s time to go to bed,
Sharpen up the pencil lead.)

This town peaked out during the Spanish occupation in the seventeenth century. Nothing now to keep the settlement together except some agriculture and a bit of tourism, but it must have been a splendid city during it’s hey-day judging from the leftover bits and pieces.

Hip-type Americans crowd the Town Square’s benches “Buenos diasing” each other. The townsfolk seem to tolerate this new invasion, which brings back a little wealth. Here and now, “American green” is as beautiful as Spanish gold.

A tan monastery-fort has changed into a museum containing church relics, folk costumes and pre-Colombian jewelry that looks like it was made by children cutting out shapes from gold-foil. Though the jewelry is pretty crude, the gold foil itself is flat, shiny and well done. There are also artifacts which Von Däniken might see as crystal insulators from a spaceship of his ancient astronauts but which the museum curators call “earrings”.

What I like best is a statue of Santa Lucia hijacked from some old church. The female figure is holding out a plate containing two large blue eyes.

Thanks. I can use those!

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