Diaspora Dialogues

Supporting new fiction, poetry, and drama

Donate

Social Links Widget

Shorthand

Author of the Month: Anne-Marie Woods

by

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Anne-Marie Woods aka Amani. Amani is my spoken word performance name and it’s a combination of my birth name Anne-Marie and my company name Imani. Amani means peace in Swahili. I have always loved to write and started writing letters to my Godmother who raised me till I was 4 years old at the age of 5. I was always one of the top readers in school from primary grades onward, so I think that my love for language, words and expression started in elementary school. I can remember this amazing book that I had called Young Years, it had fables, nursery rhymes, fairy tales and was a humungous book. I knew many of the stories and rhymes by heart. I also loved the library from the time I was 5 years old and could take books out on my sister’s card.

I describe myself as a shy extrovert. I can do almost anything onstage performance wise and I love speaking and teaching theatre and literacy workshops to young people. But, when it comes to going to banquets or attending networking events, I’m not always as comfortable with the one-on-one conversation with strangers, especially industry strangers. There are people that find this hard to believe, but I think a lot of artists feel this way. I was born in England in East Hackney, and then baptized in Trinidad, West Indies and then at the age of 4 my family moved to Nova Scotia. I am so glad that I grew up there; Nova Scotia has shaped and prepared me for the career that I have now. I am the type of person who doesn’t take no for an answer when I really want to do something or really believe in it. A few examples of this are the time I spent in Philadelphia at Freedom Theatre. I was running a cultural youth organization at the age of 27 and took a group of youth to Philadelphia, and Freedom Theatre ended up being one of our stops, but also a place that had a huge impact on me. I decided while visiting that I wanted to go back there. I asked them if they ever had interns from Canada, and they hadn’t but I went back to Nova Scotia and worked out a way to go back there and share in their Africentric theatrical experience. I wrote my first Canada Council Grant in 1996 to do a residency at the theatre and received it. I spent 9 months at Freedom and those 9 months changed my life considerably. I was challenged, because it was a different culture, I had to stand up for myself quite a bit (being the lady from Canada), and I actually cried a lot at night, but always went back down to the theatre smiling each day ready to face the challenges again. In the end, I made life long connections and learned that I don’t have to be afraid to try/do anything in life. I can’t say that I’m fearless but I will say that I can face my fears. I think if I’ve never faced my fears I would still be sitting in an apartment in Nova Scotia wishing I could do things.

Another story about my perseverance was when I ended up in the National Black Theatre Festival in 2001. I had a new one-woman comedy show called Waiting to Explode. I tried to get into the festival last minute in 1999 and no matter what tactics I tried, nothing worked, so I told them point blank: “That’s okay I will be in your festival in 2001!” I applied for the festival, they lost my application and I had to resend it, I called the office every single week, and then I moved to Toronto. In the summer of 2001, I got a call from Larry Leon Hamlin the festival Creative Director: “Miss Woods, this is Larry Leon Hamlin, I am calling to say that your show Waiting to Explode has been accepted into our festival, and you better be good too cause we bumped another show to let you in.” I was very calm when I talked to Mr. Hamlin but when I hung up the phone, I jumped and screamed and ran around my basement apartment. From that phone call, I decided I had to get publicity because I would be the first African Canadian featuring my play there, so I tried to reach people at CBC in Toronto, but couldn’t reach anyone. So I called CBC in Nova Scotia and asked them who they could connect me with in Toronto and they told me, Joan Melanson. I called Joan and sent her a press release, and from that phone call got a live interview on the air with Andy Barrie. Now, as I said before, I am not good with one-on-one interaction, so when Mr. Barrie came in to speak to me I didn’t say much, and I can remember kicking myself internally because I know I should have said more. I didn’t know this until later but he went back into the studio and asked if there might be a replacement for me as he thought I might be a dud. But when I got on the microphone to talk about my one-woman comedy and did each of the characters, my 2-minute interview stretched to 9 minutes, which is long on radio . . . and from that interview, I was offered a job on Metro Morning that I started in the year 2002. I have many stories like that with my career and there is so much you can do with writing. I happen to write and perform, but I have also written poems, and stories and plays and presentations for countless people, organizations and businesses at this point in my life. So, I would describe myself as a young woman with a dream who has lived many parts of that dream and now that I’m older I still believe in the dream, and I feel that the only obstacle that can hold me back from achieving things is me.

When did you realize you had a passion for writing?

I would say that I realized that I love writing or had a passion for it in grade school. I may not have understood my passion at that point, but because I loved reading so much esp. when I was younger, the Ramona book series, and then in grade 4 my sister gave me Judy Blume books. I wasn’t allowed to read some of the books until I got older, but I loved Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Blubber and Are You There God it’s Me Margaret (unbelievable that I remember all these titles). I used to make up commercials with my sister Cherrie at home and say them into the tape recorder. I would also write poems and short stories for English class and I loved doing that as well. I was always making up these intricate scenarios and story lines for my Barbie collection. My imagination was definitely an active and non-traditional one. But that was often how I entertained myself. I can remember the books I read in English class as a child: Seven is Magic, The Dog Next Door. In grade five, because I was an above average reader, I got to read a special reader called Northern Lights. To me, reading, performing and writing are intertwined and it’s probably why I started out writing poetry and plays by the time I was in Junior High.

What pieces of writing/authors have had the greatest impact on you?

The pieces of writing/authors that had a great impact on me could take a while. My reading style in elementary school was very, how shall I say this, eclectic. I loved Beverley Clearly books: Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, etc, and reading about Ramona and Beevus. I enjoyed these books because I was often in trouble myself and just enjoyed the characters. I was reading Ramona books in grade 2. I also loved to read the Tin Tin cartoon and by grade 4, I had launched into the Judy Blume phase of my life, and though I wasn’t allowed to read some of her books till I was older; I read them anyway. I read Deenie when I was in grade 5.

There was a poem we learned in school that I saw on the TTC Poetry Series, it was called Annie, I believe. I read this poem in grade 7 English class and it just had a huge impact on me because it’s so true when it comes to life and what’s funny is at the time I didn’t know who Leonard Cohen was and learned that he wrote this poem the year when I saw it on the subway.

Annie

With Annie gone,
whose eyes to compare
with the morning sun?

Not that I did compare,
But I do compare
Now that she’s gone.
—Leonard Cohen

Something in this poem struck a strong chord with me, so much so that I remembered it all of my life. As a matter of fact, when I saw it on the TTC a few years back, I nearly jumped up and yelled: “Hey everyone, that’s that poem, that poem, you know, the one from school!”

Then there was the influence of my brother David Woods who is a writer and a visual artist. He was always at home locked in his room reading and writing. He used to have this gigantic book that was more intricate than a regular dictionary and when I was younger he’d call me into his room, hand me the big book and say, “pick me up words.” Which meant pick any word at random and then he would tell me the definition. I thought my brother was brilliant and amazing. He started writing plays and poems when I was quite young, but I especially remember his work when I was a teenager because he started a theatre company called Voices. He would take me to all of his rehearsals and I was so moved by this experience. He also gave me the book For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf when I was in Junior High—this book was described as a choreopoem by Ntozake Shange. When he gave me this book, I think I was in grade 8. I loved it, I loved the flow of the words, the characters and the stories, I’d never read anything like this before and there was something about the spirit of the writing that vibrated through me. A great story about this book is that I received it in grade 8, and later the book showed up again when I was in a reading of its script in the late 80s. I also saw it onstage in Nova Scotia at the Cunard Street Theatre. But, even more amazing is that Ntozake has passed through my life on more than one occasion. Imagine me as a teenager reading her story, not even knowing what that would mean in my life . . . but she plays a role in my life thanks to my brother. When I was in theatre school, we had to do monologues in class and then turn them into movement/dance pieces for an in-class presentation and I chose lady in brown. I loved that monologue: “dark phases of womanhood of having never been a girl half-notes scattered without rhythm/no tune . . . ”

I remember doing my dance piece and interpreting the words in the poetic monologue into movement, it’s one of my fondest memories of my time in the Dalhousie Theatre Program. But, in 1997 I met Ntozake Shange during my 9 month residency at Freedom Theatre. Her daughter was in the stage production of Cooley High that I was working on, and so when we had the wrap party, Ntozake was there. Words can’t describe what it’s like to see an author in front of you whom you’ve read when you were a teenager and never thought you would meet, but there she was at our party. She was very colorful, and I know I have a picture of and with her in one of my albums; I was too spellbound to speak. But, I was too spellbound to speak, even though I did get a picture with her, I couldn’t tell her how much she influenced me. But God has a way of working because in 2001, I met her again. The National Black Theatre Festival that I performed in, well, Ntozake was on the same panel as me (crazy isn’t it?) . . . There I was, little old Anne-Marie from Nova Scotia sitting on an International Colloquium about Black Theatre in North America. And sitting right beside me was Ntozake Shange; this time I told her what her work meant to me. I knew in advance she would be at the festival, so this time I remembered to walk with my book, but of course I forgot it on panel day. But at the airport on the day I was leaving Winston Salem, I saw her in the airport in a line and ran up to her with my book For Colored Girls and asked her to sign it and she signed it “Keep Writin Ntozake Shange 2001.” Talk about a full circle moment!

How and when do you find time to write?

Finding time to write is sort of a funny question because finding the time to write this was a bit difficult because I am in the middle of preparing a lot of presentations and producing a youth production. However, I knew this was important so I am taking the time in the early mornings to answer these questions.

I write when the feeling hits me and that can be anywhere, on a bus, subway, in the middle of a presentation (that takes a bit of maneuvering ahahahaha). Sometimes it’s difficult, I have a very busy schedule where much of my time is taken up with admin work; grant writing, invoices, contracts, preparing literacy outlines and curriculums for schools. But, I just find the time or write when a feeling hits or an idea hits. I don’t write every day or practice writing every day like a lot of writers say they do. I’ve never done that, and I think I’ll be okay. However, I do really want to get published, at this point I have countless plays and endless poems and short stories and I really do have to compile these and get thee to a publisher!

Sometimes I have to write as part of a job, so then there’s no choice, you just make time. I worked at CBC radio for a few years and I had to turn news and current affairs into poetic rants, songs, raps and commentaries for the radio. My turn around time was often one day—get the story and then perform live on the air at about 6 am or so every day. What working at CBC radio did for me though, was it not only gave me the discipline to write and create under pressure but it helped me with one of the skills I always possessed but is now much stronger: writing about anything on any topic within a short period of time. I now use that skill to create signature pieces for organizations or big events. I just wrote a signature poem for the Ontario Black History Society called “Reflections” and performed it on Sunday. The thing is I wanted to write it before Sunday but I was in a big spoken word show “When Sisters Speak” and was busy preparing and writing for that show, so on Sunday morning before the OBHS event there I was conducting research and putting my thoughts and the outline they sent me into poetic form.

So I guess the answer to this is that I make time, I am able to write under pressure or for a deadline, but I also write when the feeling hits me. I also sometimes write out of the pure anger and frustration of being a self-employed artist. My one-woman show True Confessions of a Single Woman While Waiting for her Big Break the off offoffoffoffoffoffoffoffoff Broadway Musical, was written in one day out of the sheer frustration of not being able to get work. I just did a reading of that play in Nova Scotia in October, but wrote it in 2003 or so and performed it at a theatre festival at the Atlantic Fringe.

What has been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a writer?

My biggest challenge as a writer is that I want to be published more than I am. I have a story about my life (very similar to this article I’m writing now) in an anthology called And I Will Paint The Sky by Carole Trainor and published by Pottersfield Press (ironically Pottersfield Press is run by Lesley Choyce who published my brother’s first book of poetry and he was also my English professor in university). I also have had poetry published in a magazine in Trinidad, as well as a travel column that I wrote for Sway Magazine online, and I am a member of SOCAN and have had songs published on recordings and my Spoken Word CD is part of the Archives of Canada. I love all of that, but I really want to get my children’s books, poetry books and plays published. The challenge is that being self-employed, the time to really put these manuscripts together is difficult. I actually tried to apply for a fellowship grant this year so I could go back to Trinidad and spend time immersing myself in the oral traditions there and take the time to write and put my poems together to create my first book of poems. I didn’t receive the grant and now I am just thinking I am going to have to complete at least one manuscript this year. So, that is my challenge. Because I have to pay the bills somehow, and I do youth outreach work, teach literacy workshops, write poems for other people, and spend 50% of my time doing admin work so I can get work, that professional development of “let’s sit down and put a manuscript together time” just isn’t there. However, I am making it a priority for this year and next year. So, it will happen! I am determined!

How have you changed as a writer over the years?

My writing over the years has changed and I find myself actually wanting to write more and am even looking at doing my masters in creative writing. What’s funny is my degree is in theatre, but because of the type of work and projects I’ve been involved with since I was in my 20s, people often think my degree is in English, Creative Writing or Education. I feel that through my experience I have earned a very non-traditional education with honorary degrees in all of those subjects.

My ability to write my artivational speeches, poems, short stories, anecdotes and plays are still a huge part of my life, my existence, but what has changed is that over the years, my writing is really becoming more personal, more reflective.

When I was younger my poems seemed to be about love and heartache and about my culture which is very important to me, but boy, I have a lot of Black and Proud titled poems. I think that for me, writing has always been a response to personal or societal stimulants.

Finally, I just want to say to the young writers out there to keep on writing, there are so many resources available to you now that didn’t exist when I was younger; utilize them. I also want to say it’s okay to dream and it’s okay to love writing, there are endless possibilities of what you can do with your writing. And finally, please don’t ever let anyone hold you back or stop you from using your words!

Check out my artist website www.imaniartsbiz.com for more information.

Emerging Author of the Month: David Cozac

by

Tell us about yourself.

I was born and raised in Toronto, and studied English Literature at the University of Windsor (B.A.) and Queen’s University (M.A.). I have long loved reading and books, so perhaps it was inevitable that I would eventually get around to writing one of my own. Professionally, my career has centred on human rights communications and program management, both in Canada and overseas.

Tell us about the piece you’ve decided to share.

This is an excerpt from Finishing the Road. Set in Guatemala in 1991, while the country’s civil war still continues, the novel tells three stories of individuals who’ve travelled through the country searching for and contemplating family, identity and belonging in a world in which they have come to feel estranged. One of the protagonists, a woman named Claire who is part Belgian and part Guatemalan (due to a fleeting affair that her mother had while travelling in Guatemala) travels to the country to meet the father she never met (but whom she had recently spoken to by telephone). However, he is murdered before she has an opportunity to see him in person. She chooses to remain in the country, travelling to several places in the country that had particular meaning for him and that he had told her to visit. She does so, writing personal, impressionistic accounts for an English-language newspaper in the country, using the motif of the rare and beautiful quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. In travelling to, writing about and experiencing these places first-hand, Claire hopes to learn more not just about her biological father but also about her Guatemalan half.

One of the other main characters in Finishing the Road is a Torontonian, Marc, who is in Guatemala to study Spanish. When he accidentally comes across the first newspaper article by Claire, he is instantly drawn to her and impetuously decides to embark upon his own journey in Guatemala, letting her words be the guide, tracing her steps through every article that she writes. His is in a quest—unwittingly led by her—done in the hope of stepping into his own life and grounding his drifting soul, one that has never felt rooted in his hometown.

The excerpt is an article by Claire about one of those places where she travels: a remote Mayan village called Lancetillo.

When and why did you realize you had a passion for writing?

As mentioned, I have enjoyed reading for a long time. However, it was only after I had returned to Canada in 2000, after having lived and worked in Guatemala for a couple of years, that the need to write came to the fore. I came back armed with so many experiences and memories from my time there that I felt the need to channel them. So, I eventually decided to write a novel, which, while a work of fiction, does contain some elements based on people I know, stories I heard and places I visited.

What pieces of writing/authors have had the greatest impact on you?

I have been lucky enough to read a wide range of great literature by writers from around the world. If I were to select certain writers whose work has had a significant impact on me (and my writing), I would point to Jim Harrison, Cormac McCarthy and Gabriel García Márquez. With Harrison, he is simply an incredible storyteller with a gigantic heart and unyielding love for the world. McCarthy is a master of language and scenery. My single favourite novel is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was my introduction to García Márquez.

What kind of writer do you aspire to be?

I suppose that I aspire to be a writer who is faithful to his vision and who writes with passion and conviction about it.

How and when do you find time to write?

I have to make time to write; otherwise, it won’t get done. For example, when I beganFinishing the Road a couple of years ago, I found that I was not making much progress. It was particularly difficult because I had a full-time job. Being at home was also a distraction, given the easy access to the Internet, television, etc. So, I joined the Toronto Writers’ Centre and went there every Saturday and Sunday over the course of almost a year. The TWC provided an ideal, distraction-free quiet space in which I managed to complete my manuscript. It involved a great deal of discipline on my part; however, because I was determined to complete the novel, I made the effort to spend weekends at the centre.

The Meeting

by

The old professor was camping with the bearded professor in the abandoned playground miles away from the highway. One was chewing a candy apple while the other sat on a table staring up at the night sky.

“Did you know that space is opaque? ” he asked the other.

The old professor carefully chewed on his words as he ate his apple.

“No,” came his blunt reply.

“Neither did I,” said the younger man, scratching his thick red beard. “Until today.”

The old man nodded.

“Why do you have that table? ” He asked as he took another bite of the bright green apple. Some of its juice was already slowly rolling down his chin. He loved green apples. They were one of nature’s sacred gifts and also a forbidden fruit. He loved the word “forbidden.” His spine tingled every time he heard the word spoken. Anything forbidden was forbidden for a reason and therefore he had to be the one to commit the act of treason, curious of the result. Zeus hadn’t struck him with lightening yet so maybe the fruit wasn’t really forbidden or the god had just given up. He probably had better things to do than worry about professors consuming apples.

While he was chewing on his thoughts, however, the younger professor was looking at him quite strangely. His eyebrows were raised and his lips were sealed, but his bright green eyes, the same colour as the apple, showed confusion.

“What? ” blurted the wise man as pieces of chewed apple flew out of his mouth and splattered onto the bearded man’s face.

“Nothing,” the confused professor replied. He really didn’t want to say what a quack he thought the old man was. But the old man had noticed his stares.

“I’m a professor of philosophy,” he replied. “I think a lot.”

“I don’t,” mentioned red beard. “I teach sixteenth-century history. All I have is facts and knowledge. I don’t think, I know.”

Night like Velvet

by

The night is black velvet, devoid of anything but the stars and her; it wraps around her, a dark cloak fashioned of the very sky.

She trembles, a shiver that begins in her neck and traverses the path to her toes, despite the fact that layer upon suffocating layer of cotton sits between her skin and the cool surroundings. However, she knows that the ice in the air isn’t the sole culprit to her discomfort. There are many other spiteful mechanisms at work here: anticipation, exhaustion, dread. It could be a number of them; a sick combination of catalysts, working in the same direction, propelling her down the frost-laden street.

Tears were no longer an option—she’d left them behind on her pillowcase, and had not a single droplet to spare, now. The only remnants of their existence are the tracks through the dirt on her face, which she leaves as a reminder. Though she has no chance of catching a glimpse of herself—the ice is the only remotely reflective surface here, and it leaves her likeness distorted, eyes bulging and jaw protruding—she can feel their presence on her cheeks, acidic and foreign.

Hours ago, when she had still been weak—fragile as a sheet of glass—uncertainty stabbed from every faucet of herself.

That is all gone now.

She isn’t weak anymore. The fragility has disappeared. If she was made of glass before, she is now fashioned entirely from stone. Her resolve is firm and cold as steel—durable, unbreakable—reinforced by every teardrop she’d lost. Thinking had led to hesitation earlier, so she now quiets her thoughts, and focuses on the motion of one foot in front of another.

Left and right. Left, and right.

The streetlamps are now small, golden pinpricks of light behind her back—her destination lies in the far reaches of the town—and only darkness remains ahead of her. It occurs to her—a lilting whisper tucked in some remote fold of her mind—that she should be apprehensive. She knows well enough that this neighbourhood holds countless sorts of criminals and other maliciousness. This thought, as the others were, is disregarded. Thinking leads to trouble. Leads to turning around . . . going home.

Just keep walking.

New snow commences it‘s long and silent journey, falling silently upon her shoulders and soaking them until a dank chill reaches her collarbone. Her boots provide the only soundtrack to her solemn procession forward; sombre crunching of snow beneath them. Crunchcrunchcrunch.

Confronted as she is by the total and absolute blackness—to her left, her right, surrounding her. Mind-numbing detachment begins to settle in her bones; a subtle disconnect that threatens to leave her stranded in her own thoughts. She begins to feel that she isn’t walking at all. With no visible points of reference, it’s impossible to tell if she’s moving at all. She entertains a ridiculous fear that seems more real by the moment: what if she never reaches her destination? What if she remains in this darkness, with no way out?

Panic begins to flare, and she squelches it as soon as possible. Find the house, she tells herself, and you’ll forget this darkness even existed. Finally, she does.

The house is directly in front of her. It had begun as a small, glowing iota in the distance, among a cluster of others, and was now a large, off-white square, a few steps away from her. She steps quietly up the two stone steps, as she has many times before, and knocks on the door.

Once, twice, three times.

He answers just as she is about to knock again.

She didn’t think she would cry, but she realizes now that wetness is sliding down her cheek, gathering on her chin.

He isn’t angry until the plane of light from the doorway slides onto her face, and when he becomes angry, he’s furious. His lip curls up as if the very sight of her is disgusting and revolting in a thousand ways she’d never thought possible. His teeth are yellow beneath the angry line of his upper lip, and she can’t believe she never noticed that before. His chest expands in a livid intake of breath—to yell at her, she thinks—but it’s released explosively when he recognizes the item grasped in her pale hands. With morbid delight, she watches the transformation of emotion on his face between blinks as if it were a macabre stop motion film: Confusion. Understanding. Panic.

He’s frozen.

After a short moment of well-earned victory, she raises the gun. Presses the barrel of it close to his face. Then, spares an endless second in which she simply looks at him. His eyes—those mean, ugly irises which used to view her with overt disgust . . . now the pupils dilate with fear.

He is crying now, begging.

No. Oh, god, please don’t shoot. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Sorry? The word is ridiculous and alien. Sorry for what? There were a multitude of things the sentiment could refer to: Sorry that he broke her heart? Sorry for the years of physical, mental, and total abuse? Sorry that she used to lock herself in the bathroom when he came home, or he’d slap her silly?

She decides that, though there are many instances he could be apologizing for, he isn’t.

He is on his knees. The deciding factor is this second. This would fix it. This would fix all the hurt. All she needs to do is

Pull.

The.

Trigger.

She tries. She can’t. She still loves him. She wants to hate him. Wants to hate his guts for all the tears, the heartache, the bruises he’s caused her. She’s not strong enough . . . probably never will be. She was a fool to think that she could do it, that she was made of something stronger than him. She was always a creature of glass, and always will be.

The barrel of the gun is lowering—relief flashing through his face—when something is revealed by the slipping fabric of her coat: a circular burn, puckered and ugly from a cigar, placed with careful cruelty upon the delicate skin of her wrist. That’s all she needs to push her over the edge.

Bang.

Little Magic Child

by 

There’s beauty in the world, no need to look too hard

Even in a game of greed, she smiles at the queen on a card

And all the parents watching, smile at the thought

That the grass seems to be better than the presents the child got

They laugh at how little it takes to make her smile

Because they haven’t had the magic, not for awhile

It disappeared when all children’s tales were proved false

And shines for a second with the rapid beating of pulse

When love sinks in, the magic flickers in their hearts

But it’s nothing like the flame inside a child, a real work of art.

Finishing the Road

by

My aerial journey takes me north-west, the highlands unending, the beauty constant, the breeze unwavering. The roads—those man-made veins on the landscape—gradually lessen, shrink and, finally, wither before the elusive region of the Zona Reina is reached. My new destination is there, a land in isolation in a tiny country. It is a place where the spread of wings provides ease of entrance, where vehicles are a rumour and where the collapse of mud-caked shoes into the yielding terrain remind one that advancement is dependent on human energy in the face of a land that inclines toward the uncompromising and defiant.

I, as the bird, can swoop down and penetrate the thick layer of cloud that canopies the village. As I glide, I sense that the Cuchumatán mountains, beyond in the north, enjoy the spectacle of an insignificant quetzal almost reaching their imperious heights and nod in approval as I descend and make my way to this hidden territory, unknown even to most Guatemalans, where the foliage is so dense that it immediately swallows any human who passes through.

The valley is low and the hills are a full, emerald green, and they enclose the village with protective attention. There is security in solitude; and, for Lancetillo, where the rest of the world must seem non-existent, much less a dream, each new dawn announces the continuation of permanent respite. If I chirped just once to herald my arrival, it would echo between the hills and ring louder than a church bell. However, I remain silent in my approach and scan the sparse human structures for my perch. I locate the parish. My flights over humanity have caused me to rise up to avoid the arrogance of church steeples; but here, this one demurs and dazzles: a tripartite ascendance in lucid amethyst; three carved wooden totems that are cut to diamonds and lead up to the pointed arrowhead that, tipped with the cross, prepare to be launched and pierce the sky with requited caritas.

In front of me lies the imperfect field, a jagged patchwork of exposed, dried mud and grassy segments both green and moribund. And, for once, my place atop the steeple causes me to look up, for the ceiba tree that is beyond the church steps rises higher, a silent, steady evolution that will continue to grow and humble those earthly inhabitants who would deign to topple nature. Yet, the power that gave us the Earth need not worry, for the people of Lancetillo seek not the restless scaling toward the heavens but rather the peaceful coexistence with the land.

Sparkles of sounds radiate from unknown clefts. I listen to the animated songs of the other birds, the daytime chirp of the crickets, the snort of the spotted pigs as they scour for food, the dissatisfied neigh of a horse as it prepares to be mounted, the muted clicks of the villagers speaking K’ekchi and, further off, in some secret crevice or dirt lane, the glee of playing children and their laughter of forever.

Is this truly a hidden paradise or am I deceived? The constant idyll entices. I feel that there is a niche for me here. (If not, then I shall construct one high up in the ceiba.) The peace elates and, buoys, I let myself drift downward toward the church entrance. Seeing it empty inside, I spin around for prying eyes and, seeing none, swoop inside. Rows of worn wooden benches and whitewashed walls give way to the colours that flourish on the altar: flowers bleed shades from the entire spectrum, demonstrating that eternal life inhabits their very scent and sight, and the space that they enliven. I chance a spot on the pulpit and look outward and admire the twin stained-glass windows over the entrance, the morning light injecting them with such brilliance that the rusty-coloured crosses and blue backdrop appear as if framed directly from the sky.

There are crudely-framed pictures on the walls. These are weathered, black-and-white photographs of Mayan men, unsmiling, evasive in their gaze and hinting at a time not far past where torments rained down upon this otherwise veiled patch of earthly bliss. I do not know their stories, nor even their names, but can guess that these still-life photographic depictions hanging in the church indicate a grandfather lost, a husband disappeared, a brother extinguished or a son vanished before his time. I look again at the pictures and see what is there: grief made evident and never to be forgotten in these austere, visual accountings of man’s attempt to vanquish another, to defile the land on which he lived, to denigrate and eliminate a human life conducted differently and to erase everything connected to it. Yet, however much the link may have been severed, the healing began anew. The land got to work and rose up, cognizant that a branch cut off can be re-grown. The peace of Lancetillo evinced a continuation, a resilience that would sag amid terror, but persists and advances stronger following the attack. Every Sunday, the villagers would shuffle in and out of this church, having borne witness to experienced atrocities and staring at the reminders of those detached branches. And, as long as people remembered and let water mix happily with the land, these men would live on.

Top