Suddenly, the sound of birds brings back colorful childhood memories to my present. Today I write from the landscapes that I left behind, many, many years ago. When every spring the amapas were a gift of colors with their disturbing way of blooming, when the yellow clusters of the aguamas on both sides of the roads could be seen; exquisite wild fruit consumed since pre-Hispanic times. I remember my grandfather Remedios: “Rain in April cob by the thousand, rain in May, not even grass for the horse.” And in recent years the rains They have not arrived in April, nor in May, nor in June…
There's a bond narrow with land when you grow up in a town of a few red brick houses, with walls made by the hands of your parents, with wooden beams and posts that they molded, clay roofs, water and mud from the neighborhood that they put on your head, which is what allowed you to withstand the rigors of the dog days and being able to see from your window when winter fell on your footprints without freezing your steps. Houses that are like a mother's womb that cradles, shelters, protects, where you saw time pass without anguish, houses full of innocence, as simple, as colorful as wild flowers, scattered houses that are lost in the distance, on the margins of that river that is now almost dry and those landscapes, the same place as always but so different.
Everything has changed. There is no rainsthe barren and cracked land, the vegetation ashy gray and strong river engrossed in an eternal low water, an empty channel, a dry furrow. Almost nothing grows in the meadows, the hills are deeply dissected; and despite everything there they are still there mesquitesthe mautos, the palos santos, the guásimas, transcending their humanity because they refuse to die. The trees and the water They have complicity for life, but, without water, sooner or later they will die of thirst, their roots will resist a little longer, however, their branches will no longer rise towards the sky.
I return to this land and my memories suddenly fade away and I see the crossroads, a fork where the paths take me to my past and my future. I see the shading of the mesquites, I stop and sigh, I leave behind my memories full of life, of green. I return to the present where there is only gray and drought, they seem like landscapes from other lands, the usual place but so different, everything seems like a fissure in time. We pray for rain to quench the thirst of the land that does not deplete. Trees are thirsty, animals are thirsty, living beings are thirsty; thirst for aromas of plums and dragon fruit, thirst for streams running on their banks, thirst for bougainvilleas in bloom. My eyes also feel thirsty, they die of thirst in these sterile landscapes.
The exasperated earth demands water, the increase in temperatures in the atmosphere and in the oceans; the highest temperatures on record, and in contrast torrential and violent rains causing flooding; catastrophic changes in climate, ecosystems, biodiversity; They call it: global warming. The critical point where the Earth is simply burning, dying and everything is a consequence of human activity. There is talk of international cooperation, reducing CO2 emissions, energy transition to renewable sources, ecological agriculture, environmental education, energy and water savings, sustainable food, protection of soils, jungles and forests. Empty words without substance, just a speech to comply with the protocol of celebrating “Earth Day.”
I am an inhabitant of this place where indifference and greed destroy this planet, which is also mine… I am an inhabitant of this planet that is ceasing to be blue, tomorrow ocher and will end up black if we do not act. If this becomes irreversible, our hopes will only be dead roots.
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