My father and I arrive by plane
to spend a week beneath the waves.
Our taxi stops a dozen times,
repairs, reconstruction, rebirth.
The roads and hotels recover
faster than the trees, from Wilma,
the bitch goddess, born to destroy.
When an area’s natural beauty is considered to be a certain order of magnitude above the perceived poverty and savagery of the locals the best business investments tend to be “all-inclusive-resorts.” Wealth for those in the third world and those who travel to it is a hermetic bubble that prevents contact with the unknown and the difficult to predict. These spread around the beaches first, the skin of the island. From the Yucatan side of Cozumel down south along the best reefs for scuba diving the resorts came, claiming their own strips of sand. The back side, or Caribbean side of the island is much less congested with these resorts but does have a much quieter brand of Tiki bars, and mostly snorkeling areas. The backside of the island seemed to suffer much greater consequence from Hurricane Wilma, the tropical storm cum Category 5 hurricane that spent 64 hours battering Cozumel in October of 2005.
The Mayans thought or, if the dead
never change their minds, still think
a goddess lives here, a moon goddess
of fertility. Which makes sense
I suppose, with its starlight sonograms.
Women waited here for full moons
to pay respects, their babies dropping
Cozumel was originally a Mayan enclave for oceanic trade either between parts of the Mayan empire or with other powers in South and Central America. There seems to be some variations in the origins of the name but the one I like the best is Ah-Cuzamil-Paten or “Land of the Swallows.” I would imagine because there were a lot of the aforementioned bird residing there. Although trade was important it seems secondary to the main function of the island; it was a temple to Ixchel , the moon goddess of fertility and childbirth. It seems that pregnant women, women about to give birth, or women wanting to conceive generally made a kind of Hajj to the shrine on the island. The irony of course is that women going to see a fertility goddess during a full moon are a little more likely to give birth on the spot.
like snacks from tipped vending machines
onto the piles of rocks marked brown
on the resort’s tourist maps. Ruins.
A good word to describe any place Cortes
passed through. He found 40,000 Mayans
and chased the last three hundred back
to the mainland with their moon babies.
Cozumel was of course not overlooked by the Conquistadores. The first incursion with the Spaniards happened in 1518 when the nephew of the governor of Cuba, Juan de Grijalva left Havana with four ships and 300 men. Sailing around as sailors are wont to do they found Cozumel 18 days later on May 3rd, Holy Cross Day. It is rumored that Grijalva’s reports of the island, which had no gold reserves, may have sparked Spain’s quest for gold. It did not take long for the infamous Hernan Cortes to follow the rumors of gold for the plundering and he arrived at Cozumel one year later in 1519. I have read conflicting reports but apparently Cozumel was one of the only places where no major battles between the Spanish and the Maya occurred, even with Cortes throwing down all the temples of Ixchel and claiming the land for Spain. There were 40,000 people on the island when Cortes arrived. However, regardless of whether skirmishes ensued all sources indicate that smallpox from the Spanish nearly annihilated the inhabitants of the island, whereby somewhere between 30 and 300 of the last survivors high tailed it for the mainland.
On rented scooters we retrace
The steps of musket martyrs through
hurricane hovels, still smiles linger here.
Though a paradise by most standards
without gold it was a barren land.
But an empty century called
pirates to the nest of sand and ruin.
Most of the maps distributed by the resorts in Cozumel are nearly identical, and they don’t dispute the locations of the half dozen or so Mayan ruins scattered about the island. Some of these ruins are said to be almost 2,000 years old, but most were destroyed down to the foundations, even Ixchen’s temple. Oddly enough, even after going through all the effort of destroying these things the Spanish basically abandoned Cozumel shortly thereafter. There were more strategic ports of call, and places much richer in gold to spend their time, and the Mayans did not seem in any hurry to return to the place they could only associate with strange diseases that killed everyone. It was in the 17th century that pirates began using the deep coves and bays of Cozumel to ply their trade. This area was obviously ripe for the plundering as war broke out between the Spanish, English, Dutch, French, and Portuguese. You may check your history books for the exact times and dates when the dance partners changed mid-song. Many of the areas most famous pirates were actually privateers, getting their orders to umm…pirate from the kings and queens or navies of their home countries. Though the Cozumel based websites all agree I can’t find any real validation for the rumors that Henry Morgan, of rum fame, and Jean Lafitte visited or based their buccaneering adventures from Cozumel for any length of time.
In the luxury of silence
black markets thrive and wenches scream
prayers to the goddess left behind
Bound in sails, and plumed with parrots.
The ravaged island shelters ravagers.
With a flashlight and vacation friend
I spend my nights drunk and spelunking
through quiet, dark places – hoping
that light will meet its gold reflection.
But it may be that memories
are the last guardians of that
Swashbuckling legacy. Those men
Were long gone, long dead, by 1848
when the island again answered prayers.
After the pirates and the era of pirating was long finished the Mayans tried to take one final stand against their oppressors. This is often referred to as the Caste War or The Chamula Rebellion. Apparently beginning for the usual reasons that an underclass majority resents an all controlling upper class minority the battles lasted until into the 20th century. Much of the conflict seems to have been fueled by the fact that the Mayans were armed by the Mexican government to fight the independent nation of Texas. It was during this conflict that 20 Mayan families moved to the abandoned island of Cozumel. They began sowing crops, building houses, and all the other things people do when they settle somewhere. They breathed life into an island that hadn’t had any permanent residents since the smallpox epidemic of the 16th century. It is said that the descendents of these families still call the island home. Though considered a fairly backwater hovel for a few decades Cozumel did capitalize on a strange resource it had in abundance, the zapote (sapodilla) trees which produce a substance called Chicle. This substance remained heavily used by the chewing gun industry until synthetic substitutes came into use.
In wars of attrition, time and blood
are the same measurement. Twenty
families fled the mainland chaos
to a forgotten paradise.
One war finished, they farmed and grew
into a useful outpost for another
war, and an American airport.
During World War II the Americans found ample use for the island, and no doubt the islanders found ample income from the G.I.’s. The Americans built the island’s first airport, and a submarine production facility, which supposedly was the cause for the destruction of some Mayan ruins (maybe accidentally). It was also rumored that planes were constantly flying over the island doing training exercises for spotting enemy submarines.
From whose steel birds it rained frogmen
encased in rubber beneath the waves.
Their eyes and voices alight
stories of the choral began to spread
into the waiting eyes of Jacque Cousteau
whose words radiated out
further than any light house beam
The most important aspect of this early American intervention on the island however is its use as a training ground for frogmen. Now what the hell is a frogman? A frogman was an underwater demolitions and reconnaissance soldier, known today in the U.S. Navy as a Seal. It was the frogmen training in Cozumel, the first divers with oxygen tanks, who got the first view of the spectacular array of choral and marine life around the island. As their stories spread around the USA they attracted the attention of the infamous Jacque Cousteau who upon diving near the island remarked that it was one of the best scuba diving locations in the world.
To his clarion call came the divers
And we sat in a small speedboat
Like a bird perched on a tall branch
Above a circus, with a rainbowed
life beneath. The choral tells a story
as well. Adapting to hurricanes
in its own way, which is to say
After Hurricane Wilma struck that damage was not relegated to the surface of the island. The Choral beds were also irrevocably damaged. I never dove there before the hurricane so I can’t comment on the effect to the bio-diversity, but according to the long time Cozumel divers I spoke to, the most notable damage was the great rents torn into the previously unbroken walls and chains of choral outcrops. This does provide a much more fun dive however, as we can now swim through all of these new holes and caves created by the hurricane.
allowing pieces of itself
to be obliterated, lost
so that we tank strapped lost ones
wandering through a maze of questions
can swim through its beautiful wounds
http://www.eagleraydivers.com/History.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-10-21-wilma-weekend_x.htm
http://www.divetrip.com/hurricane_wilma_report.htm
http://www.cozumelmexico.org/articles/CozumelMexico.cfm
http://cozumelrentalvillas.com/History.html
http://www.islacozumel.com.mx/eng/dest-history.asp
http://www.fodors.com/world/mexico-and-central-america/mexico/cozumel/feature_30006.html
http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/yucatan/tales/0303yucatan.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogmen
And for anyone interested in reading the poem by itself:
My father and I arrive by plane
to spend a week beneath the waves.
Our taxi stops a dozen times,
repairs, reconstruction, rebirth.
The roads and hotels recover
faster than the trees, from Wilma,
the bitch goddess, born to destroy.
The Mayans thought or, if the dead
never change their minds, still think
a goddess lives here, a moon goddess
of fertility. Which makes sense
I suppose, with its starlight sonograms.
Women waited here for full moons
to pay respects, their babies dropping
like snacks from tipped vending machines
onto the piles of rocks marked brown
on the resort’s tourist maps. Ruins.
A good word to describe any place Cortes
passed through. He found 40,000 Mayans
and chased the last three hundred back
to the mainland with their moon babies.
On rented scooters we retrace
The steps of musket martyrs through
hurricane hovels, still smiles linger here.
Though a paradise by most standards
without gold it was a barren land.
But an empty century called
pirates to the nest of sand and ruin.
In the luxury of silence
black markets thrive and wenches scream
prayers to the goddess left behind
Bound in sails, and plumed with parrots.
The ravaged island shelters ravagers.
With a flashlight and vacation friend
I spend my nights drunk and spelunking
through quiet, dark places – hoping
that light will meet its gold reflection.
But it may be that memories
are the last guardians of that
Swashbuckling legacy. Those men
Were long gone, long dead, by 1848
when the island again answered prayers.
In wars of attrition, time and blood
are the same measurement. Twenty
families fled the mainland chaos
to a forgotten paradise.
One war finished, they farmed and grew
into a useful outpost for another
war, and an American airport.
From whose steel birds it rained frogmen
encased in rubber beneath the waves.
Their eyes and voices alight
stories of the choral began to spread
into the waiting eyes of Jacque Cousteau
whose words radiated out
further than any light house beam
To his clarion call came the divers
And we sat in a small speedboat
Like a bird perched on a tall branch
Above a circus, with a rainbowed
life beneath. The choral tells a story
as well. Adapting to hurricanes
in its own way, which is to say
allowing pieces of itself
to be obliterated, lost
so that we tank strapped lost ones
wandering through a maze of questions
can swim through its beautiful wounds