Tico Mothers’ Reflection

Everyday, large buses fill our dirt road
Stuffed with gawking tourists
following the same road
our ancestors did to find this place

These strangers peer at us
like some carnival sideshow attraction
Their squinting eyes miss our world
The place we live, and matters

While the buses slow, enough
for the strangers to snap their pictures
So little they will ever know
So much we will hide from them

So few of their dollars, francs and yen make it our way
Just barely enough
to make us dream past our rusted white icebox
made in 1939 in Evansville, Indiana

Just enough they leave behind, to make us wonder
how long before our sons and daughters grow restless
with their Tico roots, and trade
their Costa Rican country life for some LA ghetto

~ by diannone on April 7, 2008.