A WALK THROUGH LITTLE HAVANA ON A SPRING DAY

HEIDI'S NEIGHBORHOOD RAP 

I'm made my life in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood now for 13 years. Little Havana is beautiful and gritty. Tranquil and urban. Familiar and exotic. We're 50,000 of Miami's 392,000 residents. Ninety-three percent of us speak Spanish at the dinner table. Seventy-four percent are foreign born. -- Heidi Johnson-Wright

Down the sidewalk at a gentle pace

Humidity surrounds like a lover's embrace

Bungalows and stucco and mission-style homes

Spanish spoken with the rhythm of poems

Grassy swales with trash pits and coconut palms

Fuschia bougainvillea and fire-red flamboyans

Little dogs defending turf, stray cats wary

Cut grass and peppery surinam cherry 

Simmering chicken broth and picuala's apple scent

Neon-green lizard chased by strutting banty hen

Salsa and son and reggaeton

Cumbia, soca and bachata tones

To the window for a cortadito 

Into the bodega, need a pastelito

Blue eyes give me away before I speak my gringa Spanish

But it's OK, I'm accepted -- no need to vanish

Girl at the counter says: "mi vida"

We just met but I'm her life, her senorita

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