Ode to Buenavista

My Buenavista, corner of my roots, warm land where I opened my eyes to the world full of sun and roosters at dawn, to my mother's voice between sheets hanging out to dry, to my father's machete shining among the reeds.

There, where the sky has no roof and the trees know my name, my soul grew between wooden planks and the lowing of the ox marked the hours better than any city clock.

How the silence of this tidy apartment hurts now, where the concrete doesn't creak underfoot nor does the rooster crow his morning gospel. Here I have everything, some say, but I don't have my house, nor my river.

Not even that bench at the entrance where stories were told in the cool air, nor the damp earth that embraced my bare feet as if it didn't want to let me go.

My Buenavista! How strange it is to miss the walls without luxury and the dusty roads, when the luxury I have doesn't taste like home.

From Brazil I name you, and in every word I pass through the wind I revive you. For that feeling of wanting to return, and now I long for a piece of land. Because one can change the sky, but never the roots.