Three days a mockery of my reality
A maskless carnival in a little northern town
Where people cover their faces solely
With smiles lighting up their eyes.
As I got off the train greeted warmly
By a couple of strangers eager to seduce me
With kindness and abundance of striking generosity
They took me to their home.
Eat! Drink! were the imperatives of the hour
My politeness and vices compelling me to obey,
I listened to their stories got acquainted
With their humble origins modest expectations
An underlining unconditional devotion to their heir.
From a family of fifteen siblings deprived of education
Any sort of formation forty years of tireless labour
In a factory producing cars. The man now retired
Seems imbued with special wisdom, communicates
With the intensity of his regard, helps his kids at the bar.
The lady an archaic concept of the perfect housewife
Persists in cooking and cleaning for her children
Her grandchildren and her four great-grandsons.
Still they laugh as if they hadn’t met an obstacle
Hadn’t had a worry nor a day’s work in their lives,
Though nothing would be further from the truth.
People of another epoch I posit as I gaze in wonder
Perusing their traits unconvinced by their rarity
The unfamiliar power of their façon d’etre.
I awkwardly felt loved and suddenly inclined
To believe once more in the marvel of mankind.
[Featured painting: Family by Fernando Botero, 1991]