FOOD PORN

NOT A SHRINER

It was down in old Mexico where it happened the first time. It happened again in Germantown. I could hear the whispers; make out the strange words, but understand none. There are ghettoes on Manhattan, where their ghosts whisper as you pass. There are cities & towns, in the deep south, where the whispers are louder,...  but nobody hears.

Ancient Sephardim whose bones lay above ground; where no monument marks the killing field; no place to leave a stone. Some of those 'haints' south of the border, were wealthy and influential, before they were found out. Many more were poverty stricken, and had rowed, hands bleeding all day-long, to bring the great ships through the doldrums. Brazil welcomed more than a lone Sephardim; they'd fled Portugal in 1497. Their daughters were raped, and their blood looked mestizo. Their ideas spread like stucco being troweled onto adobe-walls. Their mystics planted holy seed.

Powers, little-understood in mortal breasts, descended in spectral sunbeams. New ideas; potent mysticism. Language shifted away from the European Yiddish; crypto-Judaic tradition passed to new generations in Ladino. Then Mexico won independence. The whispers became shouts from all them unmarked graves! The coin of the realm bore strange insignia.

Other, more sacred coins, never seen in the marketplace, were exchanged at well-attended weddings; fates sealed; estates enlarged.

I went back to Mexico, a total of sixteen times, in just five years, following the terrorist attack on them twin towers. Them ghetto-ghosts had all departed on that day...  trade confirmations, burned at the edge, floating down into my open window; Canter/Fitzgerald. Too many sleepless nights; madness creeping up my spine...  I jumped from a speeding train; a train that had just made the crest, and was serious-high-ballin' towards the Pacific waters. In those high mountains,...  there was a PEACE few can find...  this side of his grave anyhow.

Them Indians, wearing dark woolen fez's...  crosses dangling shards of mirror when the sun peeked out again...  the LIGHT penetrating my soul.

Back in New York, the librarian found some archived material on the Tarahumara; I read everything; became a skilled Mycologist. I spent weeks at a time, wandering forests in them Finger Lakes. Fresh mushrooms were in high demand with Manhattan chefs; some I ate on the spot...  hawks circling overhead, scouring the thick forest for proteins.

PEACE was anywhere...  everywhere; even on the subway at rush-hour; had to grasp it, with strengthened 'claws.' I read more; hungry for evermore! I made my way to Cumorah; a drumlin like no other! They were there...  whispering; Ladino!

Then I sought the emerald tablets; Madame Blavatsky was like wading in a cranberry-bog, blindfolded and alone; getting that librarian on the phone, I'd say I was working a Bolivian crossword puzzle,...  getting a little stuck...

The higher my mind took me...  the more powers that I mastered...  the more I felt like that hawk...  circling aimlessly; 'cause the groundlings were so small now; so insignificant; interchangeable.