Yacutinga Lodge

I followed a stray straw boy

north on a bus where he snored

all through Corrientes and Entre Rios.

His black and white striped shirt,

left geometric patterns on Atlantic

jungle blurred outside the window

and I marveled at the pallet

of all our true colors.

Solar panels sprout from his hands,

from his geometric core,

so the straw boy and his friends constructed

a panel plethora in the jungle.

I watched with Ana, the German grad

student, as the mathematicians

built metal castles in the mud.

On an early morning, the Guarani

steered us through a mostly clean

Iguassu river, and we picked up plastic milk bottles

and beer cans occasionally. They spoke

of an identity crisis among their people,

a loss of language and understanding of nature.

People drink powdered milk now,

says one of the Guarani,

The pretty pattern on the bottle attracts them

and technology says it's important

to get your calcium. I wonder if the plaid

metal of the solar panel

glistening hopefully in the sun

is really going to save us

or if we are fooling ourselves

into drinking powdered milk, too.