5 AM Melaque bus station concrete seat with chipped tile. I feel like I’m in a Kerouac story. Lost boy, I wait for dawn, and an open restaurant. A metaphor for enlightenment and nourishment of the soul, on these lonely streets in the half light of a new day.

Finally, an open door at Posada Clements, a place I connect, with no evidence, to Samuel Clements (Mark Twain). I leave my bag and guitar, go in search of food, and, later, my friend Nathan. He awakes at my knock, and we go for coffee.

La Manzanilla. The Little Apple. A long sand beach, bracketed by lagoons, home to large crocodiles, at each end. The crocs appear to like their freshwater havens. They emerge only unwillingly, when washed into the sea by occasional torrential rains. What ancient wisdom sits in their reptilian minds, eyes and nostrils in the air, bodies and huge jaws below the surface, as they wait, older than mountains, patient, ready to erupt, jaws wide, deadly teeth bared, to rend the life out of a careless bird or dog.

    We frolic, on the beach, and in the town, newcomers, where crocs, palms, and egret lived for millenea before our ancestors walked upright. We share the lizard brain, but our kind has upper lobes, the ability to rationalize. We bite the Little Apple, pretend to know good and evil. We are soft, and vulnerable. But somehow, neither crocs nor fevers have so far stemmed our impatient spread over the planet.

      The crocs are patient. When we have passed through, they will be where they have been. They will wait for whatever bird or beast follows us, as they waited for those that came before us.

       What ancient, simple wisdom did we share, and have we lost?

Since Fred doesn’t have his own blog, I asked if I could feature this piece by him in mine.