Puerto Vallarta, Bucerias, and the Blessing of the Boats

Air hot and close as it has been for days.
Morning sky near the horizon, papaya.
Chachalaca roosts in the magnolia.
Mexican boy walks the lawn with a falcon, shoos pigeons.

Iguanas climb jacarandas, turtles crawl across ceramic tiles
and beneath the succulents in the concrete pond
the barking frogs hush as the sun lifts above the complex.

White-shirted women with coal-hair swept back and fastened,
push carts full of folded sheets and spray bottles.
By the pool white plastic lounge chairs are being claimed
by royal blue towels and bright blow-up mattresses.

We walk slant down an endless shell-less shore of bleached sand.
A curlew rakes the wash for small clams.
Brown pelicans glide, wing tips touch the surf.
Magnificent frigate birds circle, crest, fold into arrowheads and drop.
A dozen waves out, from inner tube platforms, divers
hold their breath for minutes — surface with oysters and scallops.
A girl in a cornflower serape sells silver bracelets and bright scarves.

Today in Bucarias is the Blessing of the Boats.
The fleet moves in crossing Banderas Bay.
They are wreathed in palm leaves, balloons and garlands
of paper bougainvilleas. One has a large cross
from which a priest — heard but unseen — chants a blessing
through a loudhailer as the boats yaw by
or speed toward the beach.

One boat meets a wave sideways and capsizes.
No one is hurt. Just ruffled, discomposed.
Two more boats are blessed then all leave.
The half-submerged and listing one is towed along —
joins the rest to cross the bay.

The ending made me glad. We turn back, take the shore.
Pelicans, sandpipers, bathers and hawkers,
all of us blessed by a taste of paradise.
None of us impervious.
None of us left behind.