Deborah Leipziger
How extraordinary to awaken in a new place, an historic city and to see it for the first time with my Beloved. We open the shutters and see the terracotta roofs before us, and beyond them the mountains. Bird song.
We are here in Tiradentes to write and to celebrate my birthday in the coming days. We are staying in a wonderful Airbnb, full of wooden features, terracotta-tiled roof and look out to sky and the mountain range – called a “serra” here in Brazil.
We are in the state of Minas Gerais, which is between the states of São Paulo (where I was born) and Bahia. The state of Minas is stunning, and our stop in Tiradentes is part of the Estrada Real, a path of colonial towns, including Ouro Preto, Mariana and São João del-Rei, among others.
This is my second time in the colonial town of Tiradentes. I visited as a teen with my Nonna Augusts and mother and fell in love with the birthplace of Tiradentes, the nickname of the independence leader, Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier. It gives me joy to learn that amidst the patriots who gathered here to plan for independence were two poets: Tomás António Gonzaga and Dr. Claudio Manoel da Costa.
I am writing on an old wooden table, looking out at a tiny garden filled with terracotta pots filled with flowers. It is summer in the southern hemisphere, and so the trees are blossoming, the purple quaresmeira tree and the yellow ipe tree. The palette of Tiradentes is a bright blue and mustard color which contrasts so beautifully against the sky.
One of the great joys of this visit has been wandering the cobblestone streets of Tiradentes in the early evening, once it is cooler and marveling over the houses, the way flowers and trees provide contrast to the historic homes. The region is known for its soapstone and for a legion of doces, or sweets, many of them made with doce de leite (or in Spanish dulce de leche) – which can be mixed with coconut.
Despite the beauty and timelessness of Tiradentes, our hearts are heavy with the recent murder of poet, Renee Good, in Minnesota by ICE. I feel a kinship with her, as a mother and poet. I also cannot keep thinking: it could have been me or you, caught in the crossfire of ICE.