Love Like Salt

A twisty and high altitude-reaching car ride brought us to the Salinas Grandes. Its Wikipedia page is curiously short, its tripadvisor page a trifle more helpful (rated 4.5 stars!). Having no idea what to expect, the sensation of actually standing on and among so much salt was, with the altitude, palpably breathtaking. I almost fell once and reached out to a pile of salt (there are actual piles of them) to break my fall. It was very sharp and to my immediate surprise a pointy bit punctured my skin only slightly. The salt crystals only glittered beautifully back at me, reflective and bemused. I will never reach casually for table salt again. 

It all reminded me of this poem,  which I hope finds my readers and their table salt very well:

Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller

It lies in our hands in crystals

too intricate to decipher

It goes into the skillet

without being given a second thought

It spills on the floor so fine

we step all over it

We carry a pinch behind each eyeball

It breaks out on our foreheads

We store it inside our bodies

in secret wineskins

At supper, we pass it around the table

talking of holidays and the sea.