Panela, or The Making of Sugar

Where sugar is made,
-not the kind you know, but panela
beige bricks of saccharine condensed from a sea of cane
that swallows the hut where grim campesinos furnish stalk to the shredder’s maw
ladle brown syrup from vat to vat, each one darker than the next
shovel husk to the flames.

Only a sticky toddler stops to stare at a foreign face.  
No questions asked, none taken.

Four Bolivares buys a green pole rolled in the caramel,
the same that stuck to my six year-old face at the fair
the same that steamed from a rolling boil of birch sap in my back yard 
a world away.

A woman tells me that around here,
there’s always a little panela in empty cupboards
takes the edge off like white sugar never does
of this she is sure.

Hands ladle, shoulders lift, brows sweat  
sweet mist glazes the air
candy coats the way things are.