Back to Basics in Costa Rica

Already on the plane, life
(or something like it) opens up
its chest, breathes in deeply,
looks around carefully.
Pushes my horizon back.

To my left, a hunched old man
keeps the spark in his eye
hidden until he's more relaxed -
then he talks of cycling,
and camping, and surfing,
which he still does around Quepos,
where he sleeps on the beach.
He pauses, then takes his
dentures out and reveals
his secret dream: biting into
an apple with his own teeth.

At San Jose Airport,
I can smell traces of
local colour amidst
the neutral international
space on the arrivals level -
which loses all neutrality
at the Exchange Office
where a young woman sits
with red eyes behind the glass
and cries inconsolably
while she's counting the money.
When I ask if she's ok,
she squeezes out a tiny smile,
still crying, and wishes me
a happy new year, some
seventy minutes shy.

Three days later, near Carara,
it doesn't matter that
I'm a tourist, standing
on the Crocodile Bridge,
my knee burning from a scrape
against the narrow rough curb:
life (or something like it)
stares me in the eye from below
where a slender white bird
stands poised in the shallows
facing a tangle of ancient reptiles,
balancing on one leg calmly,
inarticulately,
trusting the shortness of shadow
to show it all it needs to know.