By Grant McGee
It's early winter 1994 and I am alone.
I have moved from the urban mess that is Phoenix to a dinky town just a rifle shot from the border with the Republic of Mexico.
Bisbee.
The town is legendary. In Phoenix the word was around that there was a hippie utopia off to the southeast about 200 miles, a former copper mining town.
I found a job in a "normal" town about 30 miles away and set up housekeeping in Bisbee. There were few "normal" jobs in Bisbee, mostly county government, health care and retail stuff.
So I'd make my daily commute and back and spend my evenings in a lawn chair in front of my apartment pondering stuff and things.
I looked off to the mountains in the distance framed by two hills. Those mountains were in Mexico. I often wondered what it would be like just to wander into Mexico and see what life threw at me, like Ambrose Bierce so many years ago. Of course I didn't because one doesn't simply wander into Mexico with no visible means of support or money.
But I thought about it.
It's early winter 1994 and I am alone.
I have moved from the urban mess that is Phoenix to a dinky town just a rifle shot from the border with the Republic of Mexico.
Bisbee.
The town is legendary. In Phoenix the word was around that there was a hippie utopia off to the southeast about 200 miles, a former copper mining town.
I found a job in a "normal" town about 30 miles away and set up housekeeping in Bisbee. There were few "normal" jobs in Bisbee, mostly county government, health care and retail stuff.
So I'd make my daily commute and back and spend my evenings in a lawn chair in front of my apartment pondering stuff and things.
I looked off to the mountains in the distance framed by two hills. Those mountains were in Mexico. I often wondered what it would be like just to wander into Mexico and see what life threw at me, like Ambrose Bierce so many years ago. Of course I didn't because one doesn't simply wander into Mexico with no visible means of support or money.
But I thought about it.
As the cactus wren chattered its nightsong from a nearby
broom sage I stared off into the distance.
Every now and then I’d look down and I’d write. It was a Wednesday night, December 28, 1994…
“Looking into Mexico”
Looking into Mexico,
The dreamer sees adventure,
people, places to see, cervezas at an outdoor cantina and a siesta in the town
square under a tree with his hat pulled over his face.
Looking into Mexico,
The
lawman sees people waiting for night to sneak drugs into the country.
Looking into Mexico,
The
lonely boy sees a winsome senorita with dark tousled hair who’ll love him
forever.
Looking into Mexico,
The
politician sees an issue he can use to win an election.
Looking into Mexico,
The
lonely girl dreams of a lover who’ll make her lonely no more.
Looking into Mexico,
The
merchant thinks of low wholesale, high retail.
Looking into Mexico,
The
middle-class woman thinks of how dirty it must be.
Looking into Mexico,
The
paranoid thinks of being surrounded by federales.
Looking into Mexico,
The bigot sees hordes who would
take his job, his home, his boat, his car, his money.
Looking into Mexico,
The
campesino dreams of going home.
-30-
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