Poem To Eliades Ochoa And Cuarteto Patria's Rendition Of &Quot;Saludo Compay.&Quot; Poem by Virgil Suárez

The oxen cart driven to the sugar cane fields,
the look on the driver's faces, years of hard
work had hardened their skin, their hands,

this rhythm of the "vayven" of the carretas,
the smell of molasses thick in the air,
children playing with tires in the dust, eyes

cloudy, ashen from looking at their futures
in this same land of the guarjiros, this logic
of staying rooted in one region, one place

until the forests and fields call you back,
a greeting to the land, bohios in the mist
of rain, a woman breast-feeding a child

on a hammock, a horse passing in the night.
The rooster sings to usher in the new day
in this land of little change. A lizard catches

a fly. A shoe falls into a well and it echoes
the sound of laughter. What the distances
tell you of how to find your way back now.