2004-03-10

Going back

Have you ever been more beautiful, and your leaves such a profound shade of green? Refreshing you are, and you provide me with life and peace as I make my way across the small bridge. The water flows across and babbles and spouts...two spiders dance across their delicate web pasting together the sticky strings.

Of all the wonders that I yet have seen, what I still cannot fathom is life's abilities to regenerate in such a manner...life regenerates after each passing winter as the soul regenerates after each passing storm. Soon it will be summer--July...a year already? No, that can't be...

Alas, time can slip by as the cool water can trickle down rocks...time can pass as the webbed feet of a duck dance through the pond's undulations.

For so long I didn't notice these things--I did not live. One can be alive and yet not live...the new dawn only appears to those who are awake, and you ask a man what it is that he has done, and he must respond...for if you are awake, you are alive.

"To be awake is to be alive"--Henry David Thoreau

How could I not see the world's beauty? I wasn't alive...I rushed through without noticing what was really important. After stopping, I realized that I had nothing. I planted dried seeds in a barren soil...what plant can grow from that?

Early this morning my mother informed me that we are going back to Cuba and visit sometime next year...I do miss it, you know. After all, I was born there...but Cuba is more than its government. Cuba is just an island with many inhabitants. It has warm beaches, and it smells like sugar at dusk.

In the afternoon, when the sun begins to set, people sit out in their porches and smoke cigars, drink bacardi, or play dominos. When I do go and visit, my pasttime of choice is taking care of my grandfather's animals (he has a farm, and I take care of the few animals that the government has not confiscated). I ride the mares (female horses), and at times I feel like I'm going to get knocked off, but at the end...I enjoy my ride through the countryside. I play around with the chickens and make the hens scatter around...my grandmother makes eggs and tries to feed me (she still has not grasped the concept of my being a vegan). So I run barefoot and play in the river...then I come back, and I change. Why?

aeka at 4:41 p.m.