On the other side of the village, there lived an old woman.
Every day, she walked barefoot on a country dusty road,
passing by our neighborhood.
In the summer, we played all day long in the dust,
We, curious children, asked:
- Why do you walk barefoot when every villager wears sandals?
She didn’t answer, she didn’t speak.
We, waggish kids, threw at her feet thorny branches.
One day my mother heard us giggling in front of the gate,
as we planned an attempt to hide some stones in the dust,
and cover it well, make it unnoticed, wondering if she can hit her feet,
bleed and scream from pain, and scorn us all ...
“ Why do you do these children?
Don’t you have any respect for old people?
You better ask her those words of healing, only she knows in this village!”
Big curiosity, and fearful eyes, looked at each other.
The next day, all children in the neighborhood were waiting for the barefoot “witch”
It rained for one week!
When it stopped raining,
She walked barefoot again.
She walked towards me.
Silence dropped down from the sky,
and silence rose up from the ground,
and trees stopped moving their branches,
the leaves watched her touch my forehead.
My heart stopped beating.
She touched my forehead and after whispering to herself,
“ White little bird, fly in the sky, fly back to the ground,
touch the hard rocks,
White little bird, swim in your mother’s milk,
breathe fire in your wings,
breathe fire in your wings,
fly again into the blue sky, and again return on the ground”
~
I never learned those words she whispered to herself, but
I have repeated them every day since then.
~