My homeland is inland, like the inland of the souls and that, my friend, cannot be put into words. Come, stare at it silently and feel it deep inside.
I close my eyes and still see you, even without my ears I would hear your immense peaceful rumour, even without my nose I would smell your homeland and your fields. Your are inside me; I don’t know if you are monotonous, I don’t know if you are barren…, but I would like to show your beauty to the world, your serene peaceful and calm beauty, which traps to those who have met you, loved you and drank from you.
We have no large forests, or snow-covered peaks, no more rivers than the apprentice Jabalón and its friend Guadalén. Yes, beautiful lagoons as beaches but, what a homeland, my God, what a land you let us…! Demonstration of your greatness, certainly, between veiled appearances, it transmits beauties, eternal contrasts, infinite horizons, heaven more than blue, blond crops after the green sown fields, as green as the olive trees and as brown and ochre as the fallow land; and from time to time, sentinel oaks and kermes oaks as fortress bushes.
Smell of Jara, of thyme and wheat, field that when it rains it delights. Cheeping of sparrows, singing of the partridges, where the rabbit hides and the hare runs. Rocinante and his rider still gallop, or is that Sancho Panza?. And Quevedo, with his limp, by there, it goes hunting, and beyond, St. Thomas, in the shade of the bushes and almost without clothing, to the Mother implores; and it inspires Yañez and at the same time, Bartholomew meditate. Rocks with the blood of D. Pedro, walls victims of Manrique’s lament; land of battles, love and poetry, which gives austere and brave people.
To you, friend, that you do not know my homeland, what will I tell you? I am sorry that I cannot describe it, nor tell you anything extraordinary and magnificent that draws your attention. My homeland is inland, like the inland of the souls and that, my friend, cannot be put into words. Come, stare at it silently and feel it deep inside. Your eyes will see then the chromatic symphony of rolling hillsides and the flight of the partridge, and you will smell to field and you will hear the whisper of the trees, the timidity of the ratchets or the melody of the golden oriole… And, above all, take a deep breath, deep, deep. Then, my friend, your chest will be filled with passion, passion for this land that is for lovers. And, my friend, you’ll have fallen in their networks, and wherever you are, you will feel her.
