Granada would awake each morning with bells and cries of vendors in the streets: I have oranges, papayas, jocotes, watermelons, musk melons, zapotes! — Who wants to buy? and water vendors with their casks crying out: Waaaaaaaater, waaaater, waaaater! All day long that cry of water would cool the streets and there were stands with … More Walk(er)ing further in Nicaragua

In Portuguese today we read Pedro Kilkerry, who never published during his lifetime but is now a famous writer, and Torquato Neto, whose poetry I had not read before and which amazed me. One of the students is new and I told her I was impressed with how much progress she had made. You learned … More Leo en la nebulosa

Rivas was left filled with shouts and blood and fires burning in the sun’s glare and we returned to that blue port nestled in hills with their curved yellow coconut palms swaying and a small Costa Rican ship in the harbor. There were high winds that night with the moon swift among the silvery dark … More Continuing with Walker in Nicaragua

Hornsby had been in Nicaragua and he spoke of its blue lakes amid blue mountains under a blue sky, and how it was the Transit route and the great passageway, the pier of America, and how it would teem with merchant ships and with foreigners speaking all tongues, waiting for the Canal; and each ship … More With Walker in Nicaragua, continuing further

My companions on that expedition with William Walker: Achilles Kewen, the aristocrat, who fell fighting at Rivas; Chris Lilly, the boxer, his throat cut while drunk one night beside a shining lagoon; William Stoker (Bill), with his pirate’s face — and a good man — who got married there afterwards and lived by Lake Managua … More With Walker in Nicaragua, continued

Whereto answering, the sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whisper’d me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak, Lisp’d to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous’d child’s heart, But edging near as privately for me rustling at my … More …endlessly rocking