Emigrants #5

The afternoon hums with motors, voices, activity, machinery, motion.  
Sometimes the day rises cocked and loaded, atop a stiff incline, angled 
and freighted with kinetic energy ready to go.  The wind drives across 
the river through coconut groves.  Palm trunks aslant, like they will 
appear later as sunset backdrops to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South 
Pacific, other musicals of the period, the waving fronds chuffing over 
the water.  Four women follow an older couple into the little ferry boat 
one after the other, stepping gingerly so as not to wet their shoes.  The 
wind whips the women’s dresses against their calves and flanks as they 
step into the boat that will ferry them across to Mazatlan, 1935.  Nacho 
rocked back on his heels in the sand, checking the viewfinder.  
Snapped a photo, advanced the film, took several.  The canvas erected 
as a shade on the boat flaps as the boat rocks; the women settle down 
and the ferry man has to put his back into it to shove off.  Nacho 
thought the boat was overloaded, the wind splashing on the tarp may tip 
the women into the middle of the wide river, its fast current carrying 
them toward the sea.  The water shines out where it merges there.  But 
the pictures will be good, even with the wind rising, carrying grains of 
sand against his face, the pictures will be crisp, clear.  I had Nacho’s 
curled negatives from the 1930s printed; I fanned the prints and 
selected that picture of the women stepping into the ferry boat.  I carry 
it clear in my mind today as I descend the soccer field – by the club 
teams – to begin my run.

Sesshu Foster