You make your altar wherever you go twenty-four inch candles in beer and soda bottles set on a rough-hewn table in a room with straw-filled mattresses Outside the wooden shutters through the glassless window there are voices and laughter in the narrow street people in their traje stand at the cantina counter drinking Quetzalteca and beer Here near the top of the world in Central America after dinner at Tres Olgitas with the other gringos I come back to light the wicks of golden hand-dipped tapered candles and begin my evening prayers     La vida es muy extraña y hermosa Life is very strange and beautiful estoy agradecido I am grateful para las sorpresas que vienen a nosotros for the surprises that come to us   Here at this moment at the top of one of the worlds I think of other worlds through candlelight here at this moment the eagle flies on words Now I am one with other birds who fly the night ... ... ... There are times when I say I will never go back to the States because I know clearly that even if I do return there it will never be "going back" there are times when I say that if I do return there how long will it be before I fly back to this

In another room Alvaro stumbles to his bed his teaching job forgotten for a week somewhere Miguel is courting Petra his medical studies at bay for twice that and all day long up on the mountainside women hand-weave cloth for their families colorful, intricate, beautiful A tourist asked a woman the cost of buying the huipil she was making the woman said it was not to be sold it was for her family You see this is the difference: we in the States live to work while here in Todos Santos the people work to live Here at my altar the candles burn and I write to live the dream I sense here in the candlelight of Hospedaje La Paz I write to keep that sense alive