The Wild Book (2 page)

Adjusting to the daily
presence of danger
is a challenge my older
brothers meet
with excitement.

They speak of guns,
knives, and fists.

All I can think of
is learning how
to read
terrifying
ransom notes.

I obey the new warnings,
along with all our old
family rules.

I am careful, and I work hard
at my chores, tending babies,
drawing water from the well,
plucking beetles out of the beans,
eating carrots for my eyesight,
and picking the smiling faces
of pansies—
pensamiento
flowers,
which are supposed to bring joy
to my thoughts.

I flavor the rice
with fragrant saffron,
and plant longevity flowers
for long life, and pick
the sweet pods
of a candy tree.
I help herd cows,
brush horses,
and feed chickens.

The only chore I never
finish is reading
OUT LOUD
to my big sisters,
who laugh
and call me lazy.

I hate hate hate it
when they assume
that I do not
really try.

On my eleventh Saint's Day
there is candy, coffee, and storytelling,
with everyone interrupting
to ask questions.

There are candles, paper flowers,
and games where the losers
have to do silly things.

I receive a gift that I truly dread,
an album for friends to write in,
giving me poems that I might never
be able to read.

All my big sisters have albums
filled with verses from admirers.
How will I ever manage to read
the sweet poems, if any boy
is ever foolish enough
to admire me?

When I ask Mamá why
Santa Mónica has failed
to grant me patience,
she says not to worry,
because now I am eleven,
so I must have at least
eleven thousand invisible
guardian angels, all dancing
on my shoulder.

I am afraid that next year,
when twelve thousand
invisible angels
dance beside my ear,
they will just laugh
and mock me,
or get tired
and go to sleep.

Is it possible to grow weak
with fear?

All my efforts are failing.
Sometimes I almost feel dizzy,
and even though Mamá insists
that I am just anxious,
I feel absolutely certain
that the scary white pages
in a blank book
can make a word-fearful
eleven-year-old girl
just topple over
and faint.

I wish I knew how
to become word-strong
and word-brave.

Some of my brothers and sisters
have such long, complicated names
that I can't write them all,
but I can write the names
of my aunts and uncles,
because there are just a few,
and most of the names are short.

My mother's brothers are Abelino,
Miguel, Arcadio, and Félix.
Her sisters are Ana Luisa,
Sarita, and Leonila.

When all the cousins visit,
the astonishing abundance
of long, complicated names
seems absolutely impossible
to spell correctly,
but I do truly, truly
try!
Fortunately, my favorite
best-friend cousin is Carmen,
with her short, friendly name.

She is the daughter of Tío Miguel
and Tía Lucía, his smiling wife.
Before the wars, Lucía's
African parents were slaves.

My cousin Carmen is free,
but we have to attend different
church schools,
and when we volunteer
to help the nuns
at the convent in town,
Carmen has to enter the church
through a hidden back door.
Why?
¡Ay!
Why?

When I ask Papá to explain,
he says if you don't have blood
from one tribe, you have it
from another
—El que no tiene
sangre del Congo
tiene del Carabalí.

He tells me that his own
daring Basque ancestors
voyaged to Cuba
by way of Colombia.

Mamá says she is a mixture
of native Cuban
indios
and musical Canary Islanders,
people who once knew how to talk
like birds, whistling their words.

I am glad to know
that I am part bird-person,
because birds come in all colors,
and they belong to many tribes.
Maybe I should just sing
pretty bird songs at school,
instead of struggling to read
OUT LOUD.

Rumors of danger fade.
We still have to be careful,
but we no longer stay home.

Reaching the village school
means hitching a wagon to oxen,
or riding a horse, or walking
and walking, until I finally arrive
with red mud on my ankles,
marking me as a
guajira,
a country girl who has never
ridden in a horseless carriage
or a steaming train.

Stupid
guajira,
the girls taunt,
even though it's not a real village,
just a rickety old sugar mill
where all the other children
are also
guajiros,
part
indio
and part bird.

There are two textbooks.
One is Cuban,
with colorful pictures
of pineapples, parrots,
and ox-carts, ordinary things
that I see each day.

The other book is northern,
with gray drawings
of woolly sheep and snowmen,
strange things that no one
on this tropical island
has ever encountered.

The Cuban book has poems
about jungle flowers
that are like hands
opening in sunlight.
When a flower is closed,
its fist is asleep.

The northern book
has old English poems
about eagles on cold
mountain crags.

I dread both books,
except for the friendly pages
with Cuban
adivinanzas,
guess-me riddles
like this one:

      Two girls at a window
      tell all without speaking.
      Who are they?
      Eyes!

If only I could answer
all the questions
in my own life
as easily
as the riddles.

Town is even farther
than the village.

The streets are cobbled
with smooth, rounded stones.

There are elegant shops,
and an orchestra that plays
in the park, where rich girls
stroll and smile
in pretty clothes.

Every weekend from Lent
until the Feast of San Juan,
guajiro
boys gallop into town
with flowers on their saddles.

The country boys toss
wild orchids
to the pretty town girls
in their fancy dresses.

I am sure that no boy
will ever give me flowers.

My dress is too old,
and my eyes are red,
red and swollen
from crying
while I struggle
to write
and read.

This is the pattern
of each year in the lively town—
contests to see whose caged birds
are the best singers,
then Holy Week, and flowers
for the Virgin of the Sea.
San Juan's Day, San Pedro's Day,
and the feast day of Santiago
on his white ghost horse.
Summer carnival, hurricanes,
yellow clothes for the Virgin
of Charity.
All Saints' Day and the Day
of the Loyal Dead,
Christmas, Three Kings' Day,
Fat Tuesday, Lent,
Palm Sunday, Easter,
and once again, wistful
caged songbird
contests.

This is the pattern of my year
on the farm—find a string,
grasp a crochet hook,
make last year's lacy shawl
a little wider, so it will fit me
like a wraparound wing.

I wish the wing-shaped shawl
could carry me away
to any place where no one
would ever ask
if I have finished
my homework.

I gaze at a page.
I am so weary of trying
to fill my blank mind
with wisdom.
I close my schoolbook,
discouraged.
Where does courage go
when it is lost?

Finally, I open my wild book,
and write a bold word:
Valentia.
Courage.
Maybe if I claim
my own share of courage
often enough, it will appear.

Imagine the celebration
I will enjoy someday,
if I ever manage
to read one entire book
OUT LOUD!

Is it possible that I am
no longer completely
discouraged?

I do still dread reading,
but I dread it a little bit less
each day.

When I consider
the happy possibility
that maybe someday
I will feel smart,
I grow a little bit hungry
for small, tasty bites
of easy words.

My big sisters spy.
They read my wild book.
They laugh and laugh,
because each stream
of rippling words
looks like a crazy poem
that doesn't even
try to rhyme.

Why can't they understand
that rhymes are hard for me
to see and hear?

My drifts of verse
are free words,
wild and flowing.
The world is filled
with things that flow,
like water, feelings,
daydreams, wind...

My Saint's Day album has finally
received its first verse!
Fausto the farm manager
is old, but he gives me a poem
that he wrote in my honor.

His handwriting is jagged
and sloppy, but the poem
calls me a rose in a garden.
From now on, should roses
be my favorite flowers?
No!
I will study, so that someday
I can read a lovely poem
from a younger admirer
with graceful handwriting
that does not resemble
the claw marks
of a beast.

I keep thinking about poems
while I work in the kitchen,
making scented decorations.

I pierce oranges with cloves,
sprinkle them with cinnamon,
and set them on the table
in a nest of jasmine petals,
where they look like gold eggs
and smell like perfume.

While I do my fragrant chores,
I vow that I will improve
my own handwriting.

I don't want to scrawl words
that look like Fausto's
ugly poem.

When Mamá says go
to the pharmacy, I know
she means the garden,
so I wander past sleepy herbs,
whispery ones, and
mariposas—
flowers with flute-shaped centers
and outer petals that resemble
butterfly wings.
The wives of rebel soldiers
used to hide secret messages
inside these flowers
during the wars.

While I think of battles
and my own struggle
to read, I begin stringing
a bright necklace
of shiny red and black
chocho
seeds,
even though I know
that the prettiest
parts of wild plants
are often the most
poisonous.

Gardens of thought
are not always
peaceful.

I memorize all the little
guess-me riddles
in my schoolbook:

     A bird has a little white
     treasure chest
     that everyone knows
     how to open
     but no one can close.
     An egg!

     Why does an unlucky shrimp
     swim backwards?
     To return to a time
     before he lost his luck!

I dream up new riddles
and write them all down
in my wild book.

My slow handwriting
with its careful swirls
and loops
has almost grown
beautiful.

Am I patient?
What has changed?

When I write riddles,
the pen in my hand
feels mysterious.

I feel as powerful
as a girl in a fairy tale,
a brave girl who climbs
dangerous towers
and sips water
from magic wells.

Is this how it feels
to be smart?

Rumors of the danger chain
are quiet now, so we enjoy
Sunday outings to town.

After church, I walk
around the lively plaza
with my cousin Carmen.

We are chaperoned
by one of our stern,
black-clad aunts.

Girls promenade
clockwise, while boys strut
counterclockwise.