The Girl's Guava Tree

- and the good earth sustains
With thanks to the El Rural Centro Metodista.
Mirador, Costa Rica
March 10, 2010; revised March 30, 2015

Beyond the gravel-pocked streets
lined with cinder-block shops

and child-packed homes
capped with corrugated tin

christened in the sweat of strangers
called from a far land

past the worn-out weed field
trampled by children to dusty flat

where rough tracks fork left
below fenced hills of cane and cattle

down, down the rutted path
to the rushing boulder stream

where a nimble girl parts barbed wire
and clambers up the guava tree

through distant light she smiles
and shares


Other poems from Costa Rica:

• Jessica's Blessing
• The Night Music of San Rafael de Guatuso 
• A Friday Morning Devotional in Iglesia Evangelica Metodista