November 25, 2016, an Era Ends

A flurry of wings greets the day. Doves and vultures and falcons circle above. A bald eagle, curious, looks on.

An epochal figure has passed, one revered in most of the world but despised in the United States, one who survived everything thrown at him by the most powerful among us for over half a century. A divisive figure to some and the symbol of a nation’s unity to others.

Fidel Castro is no longer among the living. That will be a cause for celebration in South Florida but will illicit much more complicated reactions ninety miles to the South on the Island which for several centuries, several centuries ago, served as the stepping stone to the Americas. The Island that loaned us Jose Marti, for a while, before he became a part of humanity’s patrimony.

A worthy adversary to some, the face of evil to others, the symbol of hope for a better future to many.

He is now the future’s to judge
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2016; all rights reserved