The Gardener Waters Her Flowers

A heartfelt tribute after “Love is in the Air” – Vocalis Antigua

I write these words knowing I cannot fully express my emotions. Sometimes speaking or writing is not enough. Sometimes it takes singing. Not the voice of one alone, nor two or three—but four voices entwined like roots beneath the moist soil of the soul.

Because singing is breathing together. It’s making rain in the desert. It’s turning the body into a temple, and the voice into an invisible river that touches other souls—whispering mysteries, asking questions no one dares to voice aloud, and screaming when it loves… or hurts.

How I wish you—yes, you—could listen to “La Jardinera” by Violeta Parra, sung by Quiet Colors (https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MN4ljYoRmTk&list=LM) while reading this.

Let us begin there—at the river’s source, then flowing down from the highlands.

“Buenos Aires has a riverthat cradles it, that kisses it.If it weren’t so… what sadness!It has song, it has wine at dawn,and a friend along the way—it always must.”

That’s a gentle love. But a wise one. Delicate, yet powerful. A love that doesn’t push or demand. That walks beside you. That stays, like a river by the city’s edge.

What I write now is not only sentiment or song. Above all, it is a tribute. A small offering to my fellow singers of Vocalis Antigua, who on Sunday, May 25, 2025, at 5 PM, gave our first concert of the year. A date and hour filled with meaning, with cycles, with magic. And yes—magic resonated in every song, every chord, every note lifted from the soul.

Vocalis Antigua · May 25, 2025. Together with our director, after a night where love truly filled the air.

To those who came: our friends, our families, familiar faces and strangers who love art—thank you. Thank you for making that evening unforgettable. For allowing the music to land, to echo, to bloom.

Supporting Vocalis means more than attending a concert. It means believing in music as spiritual force. As collective balm. As community. As light in a country still full of shadows.

And our concert was titled: Love is in the Air. Because love needs air to fly. Because our country —so worthy of love— deserves songs of hope in the midst of despair.

Surely —how could we not say it?— the songs flowed. They flowed like rivers. Like channels of memory. Like invisible tears.

After the downpours, water trickles down the mountainside, joining forces with other tributaries—merging, embracing—until they become one main river. And the river turns to torrent. And the torrent, to destiny.

“Ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you, baby.”

Most songs—if not all—had a moment where water sneaked into the melody.

From the wistful gaze behind a rain-streaked window:

“You will never see me as you once did,leaning by the shop window, waiting for you.” (Sur)

Water also lives in the great lights that guide us: the sun and the moon.

The sun begins the cycle, evaporating water, lifting it skyward, turning it to cloud. As Keep It Movin’ sings:

“Every day the sun don’t shine, but oh… keep it movin’.”

And then echoes the ancient Latin, like a choral mantra:

“Ad astra per aspera. Sursum.

Movere, deinceps, sine cura, post omnes.”

(To the stars through difficulty. Rise. Move forward. Keep going. At the end, no more worries.)

And the moon—not just lighting lovers’ paths—governs the tides. Like in Kiss Me:

“Lift your open hand,strike up the bandand make the fireflies dance,silver moon sparkling. So, kiss me.”

The same moon that moves oceans also moves the heart. As Silvio once sang:

“There are crazinesses like arms of the sea. They surprise you, drag you, lose you.”

Because sometimes to love —sometimes to choose to love— is madness.

And to keep loving—when it no longer rains, when all is drought —is a madness without name, without cure…but worth it.

“There are crazinesses that are poetry, crazinesses from a strange place. Crazinesses without name, without cure, without date —that should never be cured.”

That’s why gardeners heal by harvesting flowers, placing poppies beneath pillows, leaving behind shades of garden as inheritance, to be nurses, should they ever be needed.

How could we not be moved, singing such songs?

The air was full of love.

The echoes still linger.

Originally published in La Hora on May 23, 2025. https://lahora.gt/opinion/marco-morales/2025/05/23/la-jardinera-riega-sus-flores-columna-invitando-al-concierto-love-is-in-the-air-vocalis-antigua/