Member-only story
Looking for River Turtles in Ecuador
Travel can be restorative. But in this time of COVID pandemic our opportunities to travel are curtailed. So, I give to you my original poem on the subject of searching for joy.
Looking for River Turtles in Ecuador
The rainforest was lush and deeply green where we walked beneath giant kapok trees filled with splendid orchids hanging like libertines among the branches. It was nature being wild and free in a place where the Howler monkeys followed no rules for quietude as they moved unseen to shake the canopy above us and howl in cacophonous roars so loud that we pressed our hands to our ears.
We traveled for hours into the upland forest moving away from the sultry coast where we crossed over an oxbow loop of shallow water. There at the Yasuni River, our joyful fatigue made you cry.
I held you gently and kissed the sharp liquid of your tears until you sighed and pulled me closer, pressing your cheek into my palm as I placed my thumb lightly against the trembling of your soft plum lips.
Do you remember that I whispered gently, “We have come so far”?
That day remains so vivid in my memory — even the improbable truth of white butterflies appearing — their wings tinged with orange — rising by threes and fours from the river’s dark pool to hover carefree around us; and so close to your faultless face that some of them touched you at the contours of your eyes to gently sip the same salt I always taste in the tonic of your tears.
Each delicate creature stayed only briefly before one-by-one our lively visitors rejoined the others that had whirled higher on beating wings to be some distance away and behind us — as if to say:
“Look again!”
That is why we returned to the place we had crossed only minutes before and saw two river turtles resting on a sundrenched pitch in that gently flowing water. We stood side-by-side in silence with our mouths agape feeling happy as we admired the yellow-spotted treasures we had trekked for miles to see.
We never imagined that more butterflies would swarm in their vibrant and auburn hues in our moment of enchanted discovery to faintly touch our lips and the tips of our tongues. I saw it all as our time of new creation — our renewal — standing together in a private Eden so far from our familiar ground of upwelling sadness.
We laughed, and then we howled louder than reborn apes — feeling giddy with love.
[Original poem by Ed Cockrell, December 8, 2020, All Rights Reserved]
