River Town Nicaragua

“I know there are those who ask: Why does he not
sing with the same wild harmonies as before?
But they have not seen the labors of an hour
the work of a minute, the prodigies of a year.

I am an aged tree that, when I was growing
uttered a vague, sweet sound when the breeze caressed me.
The time for youthful smiles has now passed by:
now, let the hurricane swirl my heart to song!”

from IN AUTUMN by Ruben Dario, the poet of Nicaragua

In this photograph a man waits in the northern Nicaraguan town of Wiwili on the breezeway of a private home for an eastbound canoe. A woman dressed for Friday night dancing brings her son to her mother’s for sitting.