El tiempo se detuvo

There is a man with a white beard standing in the ocean at sunset in his underwear bathing two white horses in the salty water of the Caribbean. Running barefoot on the jungle path to the beach, I give myself over to the soft black mud and slowly ease with arched feet over the sharp roots of trees. Big blue and red crabs duck and draw their claws into their burrows as I pass. Walking barefoot in the garden overgrown with vines, edible food and spices tangled together like weeds. Everything is damp with or without the rain. I don't care about clothes, about smell, about any sort of image I might otherwise care about outside of this place. There is no point in caring, the humidity of the jungle washes away all vanity and necessity to be vain. Baptized in sweat, saltwater and sand I am reborn into the tranquil days at 5 am when the rooster crows. The bat, the cricket, the frog, the neon colored viper, the hummingbird and butterfly. The well fed buzzard picking through the trash bins. The deceptively slow sloth with its alien mask. The dogs all of which I affectionately call "pups" and the cats that have managed to outlive the owl's claws, I will carry you with me. I will cradle you in the skirt of my dress with the ginger root, Cinnamon branch and fern leaves. We will drink coconut water, suck on raw cocoa beans and stand on the shore at dusk, where we will listen to the water rush and sigh at the end of every day for the rest of our lives.