http://www.natezeman.com/photo/san-pedrito/

Forgive the exile

This sweet frenzy:

I return to my beloved world,

In love with the land where I was born.

– from “To Puerto Rico (I Return),” by José Gautier Benítez

SF Gate: Born in New York, she returns to Puerto Rico as a child to visit her family and recapture the sights, the blue of the ocean where it meets the sky and the almost sweet taste of coconut milk sipped by a straw through a hole punctured in a fresh green coconut, not one of the “shriveled hairy brown things” sold on the streets of the Bronx. Sonia sips and tastes her “beloved world” – filled with exotic flavors and savored most often in the company of her vast extended family.