Puerto Padre: its sun and salt

Puerto Padre bay. Photo: Liudmila

By Liudmila Peña Herrera
A friend has written a post that I have "taken the words." It talk about the semi-abandoned villages that still keep their magic to not forget them.
My town are not abandoned (I think it never will be). Because poetry of the sea, the breeze that ruffles the loves and stirs the clothes ... protects it against forgetting. And it can happen that tomorrow comes another hurricane to steal their wealth, in attempt to steal their soul, but the spirit of my Villa Blue Mills backtrack along Libertad Avenue, in search of a pier-magnet that keeps stories of love, initiations and farewells.
I loved as a child, when I started my trips to the local library, for books "I should not read yet." And I found among the lyric poets (Renael Gonzalez, Maria Liliana Celorrio, Miguel Navarro ...), the painters and afternoon sun and salt to keep their parks.
I loved the small space after wooden benches near the waters of the bay, because there is nothing better than sitting back waiting for happiness as evening falls under a coconut tree and feel the caresses of the wind and the waves in this quiet town without much traffic or walkers. That's when one is torn between indecision to stay forever or open the wings and fly away.
Then, a seagull lands on my shoulder and if I said before: "No, I'll never leave," now I'm facing this computer screen, just under 60 miles, collecting snails in my palm. While pressing the keys, I imagine my friends every birthday, telling the same stories about six or seven years ago.
I can tell stories from Independence Park and its amphitheater, the Local Museum, the Salcedo´s Castle , the Mothers´s statue, about the beloved Maximo Gomez Avenue, Columbus's history, its beaches, its people ... But do not seek to take stock of wealth and beauty: just want to get me in good faith in this feeling for my people (always with airs of town), which return each time with a larger space to hold it in my heart.

To see this post in Spanish