Asleep...
I walk the sleek and
sterile labyrinthine corridors
of the Italian Cruise Liner
and disembark to dark, swirling waters
where brown skinned boys dive for coins.

Veils of entitlement and ignorance
shroud my head
covering my eyes and ears
to the wails and laments of a dying village
of a culture wiped away
as chalk dust on the board of a history lesson
where dates and battles won
belie the casualties
of brightly woven fabrics
rich with the sounds of the jungle...

I stand in my ignorance
next to the village shaman
his mortar and pestle
a prop for the ship's photographer
catching my grin and dark glasses
and the bones around the shaman's neck

Oh, Shaman
grind my flesh and bones
as an offering to God
burn the veils of my ignorance
one by one as my own funeral pyre rises
from my very ashes...
I Awake...
and remember.

Lea Goode-Harris©
January 6, 2000
Remembering the San Blass Islands, 1980

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