Joined friends in the Riviera Maya,
Just south of Cancun in Mexico…
For lots of sun, sand, tacos, tequila,
Tzereques, pisotes, iguanas,
Howler monkeys, peacocks, and
One very friendly cat.
Then…
A trip to the ruins of Tulum…
The fort that the Mayans
Built as their coastal defence
Sometime before the 13th century…
And abandoned
At the end of the 16th century.
Yup she’s old,
But with the tourist development
In Cancun, Tulum is now back
On the beaten track…
Indeed she’s now her own destination.
Her splendour renewed
By all the attention, she sprawls aglow
In her own wonder.
Like Tulum, I, too, have become old…
OK less old in years, but still officially
People-y old.
And a few weeks before
My November b’day
I undertook an adventure
To renew my own splendour…
And now after lots
Of generous attention
From dentist Dr. Divya Patel
And the whole delightful staff
At Dr. Teodoro Happy Tsang’s
Main Street offices, I am
Proud to announce:
As of this past Monday
I have nine new teeth!!!
Here’s a pic.
The good news is
You can’t tell the diff…
But I certainly can.
Now I’m learning to eat again…
And
I’m learning to talk again, too.
I have quite a lisp
Which Dr. Patel says will
Gradually disappear.
In the meantime, remembering
Last month’s alliterative poem,
I’ve read the first stanza
Of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Both before and after
Installing the new teeth.
As benchmark, I’ll re-read
That same stanza each week…
Plus…
Throughout each day
I have little sessions where I say
RED LEATHER. YELLOW LEATHER.
Over and over and over again
Just like an eager actor warming up
For a big show.
Yes, I’m practising sprawling aglow, too,
In my own renewed wonder.
Me and Tulum.
There’s a lot to be said for simply
Lasting.
...
As usual this month’s calendar in higher-resolution form, lives here. In the same folder there is also a version without the RED LEATHER-YELLOW LEATHER line at the bottom, in case, like me, you’d rather spend this month with just Tulum’s unadulterated beauty on your desktop. In that same folder I’ve included the animals Kate and David encountered around their hotel... a couple of them are little movies!
...
If this isn't nice, what is?
~ Kurt Vonnegut, of course
