The Campesinos’ Maestra - Armando Garcia-Davila

[Larry Robinson]

The Campesinos’ Maestra


And it was in that season when the countryside is a painter’s pallet of yellows, and reds, and crimsons that I met her.  

She walks in a deliberate step even as campesinos in stained and soiled pants run row to row, slicing stems, stretched from the weight of bunches, sagging with the liquid sugar of the vines. Instinctively they find only the ripe.  

Cut go. 	Cut go. 	Cut go.

But it was her wont to smile and speak with the certitude of a warm breeze, soft, gentile, quiet, but unquestioned resolve.  

She has countless children under her charge loving each as her own, encouraging all to reach for the brass ring of life’s carousel.

And the campesinos, who never knew such a teacher, continue their jog up and down row after row, parcel after parcel, acre after endless acre, making their wage kicking dust into the air, carried by the wind forming tunnels in the sky.

"Save them from this," beckon the men in sweat, and dirt, and juice-soaked shirts.

She smiles and embraces their offspring. "I shall," she guarantees speaking with the measured conviction of the self-assured.

And the campesinos, they smile the smile of hope and wave to La Maestra displaying like trophies their fingers, scarred, and sliced, and bandaged from the errant swing of the hook that divides stem from branch.

"I shall," she vows walking off in a deliberate pace, with her youthful charges in tow.
            
	- Armando Garcia-Davila
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