Corre un viento cálido y fuerte.
Una guitarra soñolienta: Bolero lento.
El nombre del niño es Pipo.
The boy wandered along the dusty arroyos and across the llanuras of Cuñamadera, a leather sack weighing upon his shoulder, along with the heavy August sky.
Every few minutes he would stop and gaze at the landscape around him.
Saguaros, high plains, scrub. A lone burro in the distance.
Pipo took in a long breath of the warm air, and from his sack drew a flat piece of slate, etched with the image of a shrouded woman.
Who was she?
Lupita, o Tonantzin? O Madre?
He could not say. All he could remember was a face in the corner shadows of an adobe bohío. Tears of one who had clutched to the storybook endings and knightly sunsets as promised by her abuela. Bitterness rising in the throat, the self-pity of fruitless perfection. He saw a sadness, but not without hope or promise.
That hope pushed Pipo and his mysterious devotion across the high llanos with the stony talisman securely in his satchel.
He roamed onward past a thicket of mesquite, a Gila woodpecker darting past him. Lost in thought with the image of the woman, Pipo startled when he noticed a burro standing but a few paces away. It was the same burro he had seen earlier from afar.
“Stubborn thing,” Pipo sniffed dismissively as he approached the animal. The silent burro watched him in the sun, heavy lashes blinking lazily with the odd swish of the tail.
“Beasts such as yourself can be much trouble, can’t you?” The boy stood watching, as if awaiting an answer. But the weathered burro simply blinked with a slight sway of its head.
“You are not one to complain, mi amigo,” Pipo exhaled, softly petting its mane.
Stubborn, perhaps, he thought... But still, these beasts did bear the thankless brunt of everyday toil. And did they not ask for very little in return?
Pipo looked off to the horizon, squinting through the arid breeze.
The etching of the woman in his satchel, and the gaze of the burro, both heavy upon his back. One soul, with the burden of expectations; the other, with the expectation of burdens.
Each life was missing a piece, and in Pipo’s eyes, this itself was a piece missing from his own life.
The boy wandered along the dusty arroyos and across the llanuras of Cuñamadera, two souls weighing upon his shoulder, along with the heavy August sky.
Corre un viento cálido y fuerte...
Inspirado por la admiración de Mateo hacia Panchita.
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