The plunging pool at Tovara, Nayarit

In my mind now: Billy Vaughn playing a glaring Las Golondrinas

Back then –

The rope swing above the Tovara pool,
a round hole at the end of a long, narrow
passage through mangrove –
and splash into the dark glittering water

The black and white pictures I took from the boat
of such glaring brightness and black shadow

Tovara – a destination everybody should know about,
a glimpse of lush and simple paradise

Ramada shack, bright-colored refreshments,
wobbly tables

All a result of being accosted at the campground:
You like watch birds? Tomorrow morning 6 o’clock?

In my mind now: Billy Vaughn playing a glaring Las Golondrinas

– James Steerforth ( © 1999 and 2008 )

Dug out of memory and hard disk and revised for Totally Optional Prompts’ REGIONAL POETRY theme. Goes back much further – to a trip taken in 1977/78.

Reality check note
Moon Travel Planner says, “Finally you reach Tovara Springs, which well from the base of a verdant cliff. On one side a bamboo-sheltered palapa restaurant serves refreshments, on the other families picnic in a hillside pavilion. In the middle, everyone jumps in and paddles in the clear, cool water.”
It’s likely that things have changed since I visited in the late seventies – I remember these springs as a very small and modest place, without any sign of a hillside pavilion. It’s also quite possible that the dark glittering waters I remember in my poem are a figment of the dark glittering waters of memory.

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