I grip the first sturdy branch with my hands.
The third one seems safer.
I climb to reach it.

Oh, how I would sing!

Finally,
my gaze rises above the acacias,
towards Banita Hill,
stretched out like a camel's saddle.

I start to feel
as if I’m in a nest of boredom.
Mother hasn’t finished planting
the corn kernels in the ground.
How long can I stare into the distance?

How the company of the dove would have brightened my mood,
the one I just saw
stretching toward me
its neck with a thin black stripe;
its plumage shone
like a folk costume on a performer.

The cat meows somewhere in the distance,
and immediately
pulls me away
from the thought of being a bird’s chick.

I call out to my mother…
“I’m coming now!” she replied,
but,
instead of her,
came the age of today,
so distant from the day
when the walnut tree,
for me,
was the greatest empire,
gained in a moment of dreaming.