Km. 30

This is not Margaritaville with its azure waters its fruity unbrellad drinks and giddy tourists. This is no one's fantasy island. Here, there is only the primeval wind lashing dull dun dust into a perpetual swirl a maddening dance macabre. Here, rocky cliffs rise and interrupt the horizon sentinel sierras as drab and lifeless as the dust. Here, in this Chihuahuan desert the only brightness - an unexpected rainbow splash is in the skirts of Raramuri women. Here, ancient Apache phantoms and gunslinger's ghosts mingle midst ramshackle shanties in colonias of stark squalor where roosters crow in a new dawn of "No hay". While 35km. east Ciudad Juarez swarms in its terrible beauty city of death though bustling with modernity with its stores and markets brimming with plenty. And I, weary poet wonder how can I love and hate a land both at the same time? Its poverty and grime the numbing nothingness repels me... But- I am mesmerized and drawn as if by the sparkles of stars on a sultry velvet night by the proud endurance a tenacious spirit that preserves this place and its people the stubborn plodding forward come what may- shared by this wandering wordsmith. * Note a "colonia" is a shantytown inhabited by the poorest of the poor. "No Hay" roughly translated, means "There isn't any" The Raramuri area tribe living in the mountains the women's clothing is especially colorful. Also is "umbrellad" a word? As in "with umbrellas" the umbrellad women etc. This is an older poem, one of my own personal favorites but I've always wondered about that one word... The title refers to an area on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.