urban going rural.

Hopping on a Bus, I Reveled in a Fiesta One Weekend in April

So you have the same old story: city-dwellers yearning
for a taste of the country, shedding concrete skins,
casually yielding to that caprice called adventure.
And so it happened that one Saturday morning,
randomly hopped up a bus, and heeded a whim
called the impulse of youth: the longing of the flesh
for the world around it. Or at least a piece of it.
We took off to an incredible pace, past dirt-lined
roads that shook us to and fro. But the wonder on
our faces would tell you otherwise, anticipation
up close, betraying any trace of the awfully familiar.
How soon do you discover that home contains so much
obscurity? The native finds joy in unraveling secrets,
and we are seeking it: that undisputed, yet undiscovered,
happiness. What we really needed was a sense of
direction: keen, brusque, the gift to distinguish turrets
reaching out into the sky, or of the conspicuous azure
at a corner of the highway. This was neither the
Spanish era nor the turn of the last century;
no rainbow-colored flaglets levitating in the wind,
or bands parading down streets, no veil-clad ladies
waltzing to the tune of a kundiman.
There is only a slice of history, the age-old legend of
how everything began, the honored patron saint,
hidden beneath layers of lively conversations,
the crisp clanging of utensils breaking white noise.
And we are simple witnesses to the geniality of life
unfolding in the doorway: greetings and goodbyes,
enter and exit, the oft-repeated joke, some
unscrupulous candidate adding handshake for ballot.
Around us, walls tingle with the strain of laughter,
an ephemeral gaiety, easily given in to the monotony
of tomorrow. Why does nature allow such revelry,
only to fall back into place? And why does the rustic
sunset glisten, only to plunge back into night?
The road home speaks of unhurried contemplation,
the slowing down to omen, the prelude to profaned
warnings. So we must write of discovery, this awakening
to culture, inevitably leading back to that unseen history
of the urbanite, his union with tradition, his oneness
with himself.