With a Star in My Hand
Page 1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank God for poetry.
I am grateful to my husband and the rest of our family, especially my mother, who taught me to love poetry.
Special thanks to the memory of my abuelita Fefa and bisabuelita Ana Dominga for their reverence for poetry, especially Rubén Darío’s. I am grateful to Carol Zapata-Whelan, Emily Aguilo-Pérez, Alma Flor Ada, Isabel Campoy, David Rojas, and Claire Annette Noland.
Profound gratitude to my agent, Michelle Humphrey; my wonderful editor, Reka Simonsen; and the whole Atheneum publishing team.
For Alma Flor Ada and Isabel Campoy, heroes of bilingual literature; and for all the heroic poets of the future
¡Momotombo se alzaba lírico y soberano,
yo tenía quince años: una estrella en la mano!
Momotombo rose up lyrical and free,
I was fifteen years old: a star in my hand!
—Rubén Darío
ABANDONED
My first memory was one I could not understand
until years later: playing with towering animals
under a palm tree, all around me gentle eyes,
feathery green fronds,
and sticky tidbits of fruit
stuck to cow lips.
The cattle were smelly
and friendly,
just as hungry
for palm fruit
as I was
for milk.
Where did Mamá go?
I was too young for a sense of time,
but somehow I expected to be exiled forever
in that musical tangle of thumping hoofs
and clackety horns, my own wailing voice
adding a flutelike magic
to the noise.
LOST
When I remember abandonment,
all I feel is a sense of my smallness.
The roaming bulls ignored me.
I must have been too tiny
to seem
truly human.
Muddy legs, grubby face.
If I’d stayed in that cow world
long enough, I might have grown
hoofs, horns,
two more legs,
and a swishing tail.
WILD RHYMES
Jaguars, pumas, and other big cats,
poisonous snakes and vampire bats . . .
when Mamá abandoned me in a jungle,
did she think about all the fearful creatures
or was she merely offering me a green gift,
the sneaky hunt
for shy
sly
strangely
prowling
rhymes
to help me pass safely
through a dangerous
wilderness
called
time?
AM I AN ANIMAL YET?
With the rhythmic music of the herd
rattling through my busy mind,
I tried to moo like a cow,
coo like a dove,
then holler
and bellow,
just a lost and lonely little boy
whose human voice rose up
in an effort to transform
beastly
emotions.
No, I was not an animal,
but yes, I felt grateful
to four-legged creatures
for the lullabies they sang
to green trees
and blue sky.
Someday I will sing too,
instead of moaning.
FOUND
My mother’s friend found me.
He was an angry farmer who spanked
my bottom.
Thwack!
Smack!
The crackling shuffle of rustling hoofs
sounded like a dance, as my cow friends
saw their chance to escape, leaving me alone
with the shouting stranger
who tossed me across
a mule’s broad back,
where I bumped and swayed
all the way
to a palm-thatched hut . . .
but Mamá was not there
in the little house.
She had gone
away.
LIKE A BIRD
Black eyes.
Slender hands.
Dark hair.
Waterfall laughter.
Trying to picture
my lost mother
has become a race
of entrancing words
that gallop
faster
and faster.
Did Mamá fly into the sky
like a winged being,
or is she alive
and hiding?
BIG MOUTH
A bearded man on a spirited horse
rescued me from the gloomy farmer.
We thundered far across the green hills
of Honduras, hoofbeats making me feel
like a centaur, as we galloped over the border
to Nicaragua—my homeland—but not
to the small room in the back of a store
in the little town of Metapa
where I was born.
Instead, we ended up in a rambling old
horseshoe-shaped house in the city of León,
where I was finally told that Mamá wanted me
to live HERE
with strangers.
I soon learned that the bearded rescuer
was my great-uncle, called El Bocón
by all who knew him.
Big Mouth, such a suitable nickname
for a man who tells tall tales
in a booming, larger-than-life
story voice.
He speaks of steep mountains with icy peaks,
and of gallant knights who battle ogres and dragons,
and of smoothly rolling hills in distant lands,
countries so remote
and amazing
that I can hardly absorb
the fascinating range
of exotic names.
Has he really traveled so much?
France? California?
Soon, when I grow up,
I plan to roam the earth
and be a Big Mouth too,
speaking truthfully
whenever I choose,
never caring
if anyone
is offended.
Any harsh fact is so much better
than telling lies like a tricky mother
who pretends
she’ll just be gone
for a little while.
ADOPTED
El Bocón and his wife,
my great-aunt Bernarda,
decide to make me their son.
He’s huge and loud, she’s small and flowery,
with curly hair, a delicate voice,
and an eager way of making children
join all her songs, parties,
and prayers.
Living in their vast, echoing home,
I soon learn the essential skill of storytelling
along with horsemanship, hunting, fishing,
and wild fruit harvesting.
The only art I never master
is convincing others that I don’t really care
how
and why
Mamá vanished.
SO MANY STORYTELLERS
The city is musical
with church bells
and chirping birds,
heels tapping
on cobblestones,
and lush green gardens
that grow so fast that every morning
brings new blossoms, each with its own
enchanted fragrance.
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El Bocón is not the only one who fills
the humid air
with ribbons of words
that seem to draw pictures. . . .
Serapia is the cook who tells tales she learned
from her africano ancestors, and Goyo the gardener
speaks of our shared native heritage,
my brown skin and black hair
just as indio as his.
Was Mamá a mestiza of half-Matagalpan descent,
or did she belong to the Pipil Nahua,
Maya, Chontal, Niquirano, Chorotega,
Miskito, or some other proud forest nation?
When I sit in church, the stories I hear
are even more improbable than El Bocón’s
fanciful tales of foreign lands.
The priest speaks of a man
swallowed by a fish,
a boy with a slingshot
who battles a giant,
burning bushes,
and a talking donkey—but no one
ever mentions children left behind
in cow pastures, so maybe reality
is the strangest,
most mystery-filled
terrible
true story
of all.
MY NAME IS A STATUE, BUT MY MIND ROAMS FREE
I almost melt in the church’s smoky heat,
where a scented mist of incense rises,
cradling murmured words
as we sing all together,
before stepping out
into the blaze of sunlight.
Tía Bernarda leads me across the scorching plaza,
and when I complain, I’m lifted by the strong arms
of Serapia, but I’m too big to be carried
like a baby, so I squirm free, using my liberty
to gaze into the eyes of a marble horseman
who is said to be my godfather Félix, the man
who gave me his name
and who would have adopted me
if he hadn’t died and turned into stone.
Does everyone who has ever been alive
end up motionless in a peaceful park
sooner or later?
Apparently yes, because before I know
what has happened, there goes El Bocón too,
buried in the graveyard
under a headstone
without any clear explanation
other than Serapia’s quiet sigh,
as she says así pasa con los viejos—
that’s what happens to the old.
If life is a story
about the passing of time,
I think God should make
all the sad parts
rhyme.
HOME
Without my great-uncle
we’re suddenly poor,
so the dusty old rooms
and orchard-like courtyard
should feel solemn and silent, but no—
Serapia continues to chatter as she cooks,
and Goyo still weaves legends while he weeds
between fruit trees.
Serene moments are spent reading
under the jícaro gourd tree, beside la granada,
the pomegranate with ruby-red seeds
that offer such a messy adventure,
their brilliant hue
one of glittering gems
in a pirate’s treasure chest,
the taste making me think of distance—a ship
sailing off into the sunset, my hands so juicy
that a few pages of each precious book
end up stained, as if the story has absorbed
bright light from my own glowing
daydreams.
MY TREE FRIENDS
The trunk of the jícaro is black,
its leaves small and feathery,
the gourds dry and useful,
each one a big
wingless bird shape
that can be carved into a bowl
or musical instrument.
The pomegranate is beautiful too,
with its gnarled wood, and jewel-like fruit.
When I sit down to read in the shade
of tree friends, I see a row of hammocks
and rocking chairs, but I prefer earth,
the natural home of growing roots
and rhymed verses.
NIGHT
By daylight, I love the outdoors garden-heart
at the center of this vast house, but after dark
even the bedrooms
are scary.
Bernarda’s old mother tells stories of horror.
Serapia and Goyo share ghostly tales too.
Owls rustle and call from up above on the roof.
Mice scurry
from corner
to corner
like four-footed
messengers
of terror.
If only I could forget Mamá’s disappearance.
It would be so much easier to fall asleep
peacefully.
CHANGING NAMES
I have always been Félix Rubén García Sarmiento,
but now Bernarda no longer wants me to carry
the name of my godfather—that motionless
marble statue
in the park.
Suddenly, I am expected to think of myself
as Rubén Darío.
It’s a change so strange
that it feels like just one more eerie story,
as if my old self is suddenly
ghostly.
Félix meant happy, lucky, blessed.
Rubén simply means look, it’s a son—but I’m not
the real son of this house, just a substitute,
the nephew, more trouble
than I’m worth.
FRIGHTENED BY GROWN-UPS
The stories told by adults
are about a hairy hand
that walks the streets at night
like a spider,
and a headless priest
who wanders all over the city,
and a witch with cruel laughter,
and ordinary people who fly away
high above rooftops.
Whenever the smell of sulfur
rises and pours down over this house,
I want to believe that it’s just the odor
of bathwater in a volcanic hot springs,
but old people
keep warning me
about fiery lava
and other
volcanic
evils.
LIGHTNESS
Pesadillas—heavy nightmares,
the weight of rude questions
from visitors who ask
why my mother
left me.
This happens almost every evening
at las tertulias, Bernarda’s lively gatherings
of shopkeepers and other gossiping adults.
Curious grown-ups should know
that furious orphans don’t have any answers
to questions about wandering parents.
So I lie down
wounded
by words
and wake up
with nosebleeds
headaches
fears
but words are also my sturdy refuge
by day, in merciful sunlight, beneath
the gourd tree,
beside the pomegranate.
So I read, in the morning,
after each nightmare—
soothing poems,
glowing adventure stories,
and radiant tales
of not-quite-rhymed
poetic wishes.
SCHOOL
I taught myself to read when I was three,
but now there are teachers to add confusion,
sometimes a poet who spanks me
for reciting rhymes out of turn,
and at other times a gentle india,
; a woman
who bakes cookies
and refuses to punish
anyone.
Don Quixote, the Bible, horror tales, and comedies—
I never grow tired of exploring the endless variety
of natural and supernatural stories.
Math, geography, and grammar
also have their orderly place in my school day,
but poetry arrives in its own way,
wild like a hurricane,
a storm of turbulent wind
and ocean waves!
FIRST VERSES
The sisters of the bishop sell candies
in the shapes of birds and animals,
treats so delicious that I learn
to trade skillfully rhymed words
about those sweet creations
for sugary treasures,
which I gobble
with pleasure.
Sometimes the sisters
show off my poems
about doves and lambs
to other children,
as examples of work
that deserves a reward,
but I don’t think of poetry
as labor, when each rhyme
about a parrot
or a panther
is so much
fun!
A BURST OF VERSES!
During Easter week, the streets
are decorated with arches
made from branches, green cascades
of coconut fronds and banana leaves,
along with blossoms from el corozo,
the vegetable ivory palm tree
that has pale-hearted nuts
I can carve
into tiny statuettes
of hummingbirds,
the wings just as smooth and white
as real elephant tusks.