shattering the deck.
Shredded sails
and tangled ropes
form a swaying web
of smoky nooses,
choking me,
seizing my breath.
Sailors screech
like demons,
then leap
and sink.
I throw myself
overboard,
onto a frothy wave,
hoping.…
Quebrado
Water
is heavy
and monstrous.
I writhe up
toward air,
gasping and gulping
as the ship’s
last remnants
vanish.…
All around me,
men grasp and pull,
dragging each other
under.
Part Two
Brave Earth
Quebrado
Trapped on surging waves,
I struggle to swim in rain
that feels like spears
of shattered glass.
The ship is gone,
her tree-spirits rising,
transformed into air.
It would be so easy to give up
and just let myself sink,
but as soon as I begin to wonder
if drowning would be peaceful,
a sea turtle glides toward me
like a creature in a dream.…
The turtle is real, with a sucker fish
clamped onto its slick green shell,
and a forest vine tied to the tail
of the wriggling fish.
Out of the downpour,
a canoe appears as if by magic,
rowed by a man with long black hair.
He tugs at the slithery green vine,
leading the huge turtle
toward his boat.
He shouts, and even though
his voice is swallowed
by howling wind
and booming waves,
I understand that the fisherman
is telling me to reach for the turtle,
so I grab the rim of the shell,
and I clamber up,
pulling myself onto
the great beast
as it skims
the rough surface,
soaring toward safety.…
Naridó
The waves are mountainous,
but there is a spirit-boy
between peaks,
so I help him escape
on a turtle I caught
with my bring-it-back fish.
I pull the storm-boy
toward a sandy beach,
and when he cries out
with gratitude,
his odd words
sound like echoes
of my own
human tongue.
Quebrado
Feeling lost
in a whirl
of wind,
I breathe
and discover
that I am alive
with my feet
on firm land
and my heart
astounded.
Bernardino de Talavera
My ship, my crew,
the promise of a long
profitable life
at sea.
All are gone.
Only this struggle
to swim
remains.
Alonso de Ojeda
My poisoned leg
makes swimming impossible,
so I cling to a splintered board
and hope that somehow
it will carry me
to dry land.
I have survived
other shipwrecks
on perilous shores,
but I was strong then
and now I am helpless,
just an old man
surrounded
by devious phantoms
who try to steal
my makeshift raft.
Quebrado
The turtle hunter leads me
through the ragged ruins
of a flooded village,
and then uphill
along the edge of a forest
where the wind
uproots towering trees
and sends them
flying.…
We stop and crouch.
We enter a cave.
I expect darkness and silence,
but the torch-lit cavern
is filled with people, birds, dogs,
and music, a chanted story,
a heroic song.
Naridó
My world is safe in the leaping light
of palm-frond torches that surround
a circle of dancers.
Hollow-gourd rattles, bird-bone flutes,
tree-trunk drums with fire designs
painted on the sides.
Caucubú sees me and smiles.
Her name means “Brave Earth,”
and she is all that I know and love.
I take my place in the circle
of dancers, with the storm-boy
at my side, bringing his spirit world
into the cave, our only refuge
in this time of wind.
Quebrado
The enormous cavern glitters
with jagged crystals
and smooth ones.
The faces of the dancers
are painted with red zigzags
and black spheres.
My mother used to decorate me
in the same way, using bija seeds
and jagua fruit to ward away
stinging insects.
The women wear white cotton skirts,
but the men are almost naked.
Everyone stares at me
as if I am the one
who looks strange.
Quebrado
Safety.
Such a small word.
The cave bristles
with sharp crystals
shaped like beaks and claws,
and flowing ones that resemble
glassy waterfalls.…
If I am not dreaming,
then perhaps I am dead,
wandering along the paths
of an afterlife
filled with wildness
and beauty.
Caucubú
Naridó brings a boy
from another world, his arms and legs
encased in a skin of wrinkled cloth.
We stop dancing to laugh and wonder,
but we cannot pause long
or the Woman of Wind
and her beastly Huracán
will swoop down to crush us
with gusts of rage.
So we resume our rhythmic steps,
chanting about the ancient beings
who emerged from caves long ago.
Some turned into trees or birds,
while others became people—humans
who love to sing like birds
and dance like trees
in wild wind.
Naridó
Everyone calls me River Being
because I catch so many fish
with my feathered arrows
and winged spears.
Caucubú’s father
is our leader, the cacique,
and her twin uncles
are the behiques,
magical healers whose cures
protect our village
from wind spirits
and water beings,
visitors from the worlds
of spinning clouds
and swaying fins.
Caucubú
When Naridó is close,
I feel like a storm
within a storm.
My father says I must marry
a powerful cacique,
but I love Naridó,
the best fisherman
&n
bsp; in our village.
When Naridó is close,
my mind swoops
and tumbles
like the wind
in a stormy sky.
I am glad there is peace
at the center of each
hurricane.
Quebrado
Many years have passed
since I was small and whole
and free to dance.
Movement surges
up through my feet,
pounding
and rippling
like a whirlpool
in a stream,
round and round
until the story-song
flows to an end,
like a river
finally reaching
its deep heart,
the wide sea.
Caucubú
I wish the dance
could go on forever,
keeping me far
from the dread
of marriage
to a stranger.
Even my mother
expects me to accept
my father’s wishes,
and marry someone
my father chooses,
instead of Naridó.
No one listens
to young girls
in love.
Quebrado
The hurricane
falls silent.
We step out of the cave,
and find masses
of writhing sea things
that look like snakes,
moons, flowers,
and stars.…
The Woman of Wind
taught all these creatures
how to fly.
What will the hurricane
teach me?
Part Three
Hidden
Quebrado
Villagers wade
through deep mud,
salvaging fragments
of their toppled homes.
All I find is a bell
like the one I rang
on the ship,
when I hoped to calm
the Woman of Wind
with music.
Calm winds were my hope
because I did not yet know
that a hurricane could free me.
Quebrado
I help Naridó weave new palm-frond roofs
beneath a sky of circling vultures
and shrieking parrots.
When children ask my name,
I cannot bear to speak the Taíno one
I knew when I was small and whole,
so I search my mind for a new name,
and while I search, the children decide
that I must have come from the air,
so they call me Hurará, “Born of Wind,”
even though I do not feel bold
and strong
like a hurricane.
I still think of myself
as a broken place, a drifting isle
with no home.
Bernardino de Talavera
Battered by reefs,
my hands are swollen,
scraped by the rough
coral stone.
Washed ashore like driftwood,
I am lost, and longing for sleep,
desperate for rest—but I need
to keep moving
until I find magic
or medicine
for my hands,
and hearty food,
and a big seagoing canoe
to carry me away
from this desolate shore
of shipwrecked hopes.
Alonso de Ojeda
This is my first true encounter
with weakness.
My leg is paralyzed
yet it aches and itches,
and drives me mad with fury.
After other shipwrecks,
there were bells, mirrors, and beads,
shiny trinkets of flotsam
to astonish the naturales.
This time, I find nothing at all
on the shell-littered beach,
nothing to trade
for food and potions.
All I have is my ghosts
and my fear.
Quebrado
Naridó’s village is sheltered
by freshwater marshes
and wind-ravaged trees.
The thatched huts seem hidden,
but even on this peaceful shore
I cannot imagine ever feeling
truly safe.
The dark sea is huge,
and it brims with ships
that carry ferocious men
like the pirate
and Ojeda.
No matter how invisible
I feel, I will always be wrapped
in the memory
of life as a captive.
Quebrado
I give up my Spanish clothing,
and start to dress like Naridó,
wearing only a cotton loincloth
and a necklace of spiky
barracuda teeth.
The designs that Caucubú paints
on my cheeks and chin
soon begin to feel
like a protective covering,
even though they are really
just pictures
of fiery lightning
and radiant stars.
Caucubú
I venture just far enough inland,
to get away from the salty crust
left by hurricane waves.
I mound soft red mud into hills,
and dig holes with a sharp stick,
so I can plant spicy pepper seeds,
sweet potatoes, and corn.
Then I wait
for my world
to grow.
When I am a little older,
no one will be able
to keep me away
from love.
Quebrado
Many years have passed
since I was a child of the land
with my hands in moist soil.
Now, I am eager to plant yams,
peanuts, and papayas,
and pluck hollow gourds
from tangled vines
to make musical
maraca rattles.
I long to eat pineapples
that taste like golden sunlight,
instead of dry ship’s bread,
and salted beef,
and sorrow.
Quebrado
I have discovered
a deepening fear
of the sea.
I stay away from Naridó
while he fishes, and I avoid Caucubú
as she leaps from rock to rock
at the edge of the tide,
gathering shellfish.
The water is no longer stormy,
but it holds memories
of bearded men
who capture tree-spirits,
and turn them into wooden ships
that serve as floating cages.
I have discovered
a deepening fear
of the past.
Naridó
I try to show the storm-boy
how to swim like a dolphin,
but his terror of water
will not let him listen.
So I work alone,
catching silvery marsh fish
in tapered baskets,
chasing swift river fish
into stone traps,
and wrapping the sea’s
great gold-belly fish
in nets that fly out
over the waves
like wings.
The storm-boy is young.
He has not yet learned
that hope is stronger
than fear.
Quebrado
I explore farther and farther inland,
away from Naridó’s futile efforts
to teach me
courage.
Alone at midnight, I hunt
on the slopes of a mountain.
Naridó has warned me
that the whispering forest
is forbidden to villagers,
but I climb uphill anyway,
grabbing the slender trunks
of trembling saplings,
and shaking them
to make iguanas fall.
Then I roast the giant lizards,
listening as branches
whisper and sing
in a gentle breeze.
Caucubú
Each time my father speaks
of sending me away to marry
the cacique of another village,
I flee to a small hidden cave
where I huddle alone
in darkness, feeling certain
that bat dung and pale,
skittering, eyeless spiders
are more beautiful
than a life without love.
Naridó is the only one
who knows about this tiny cave,
a secret we have shared
since we were little.
As soon as he arrives
and we huddle together,
the darkness begins to feel
like home.
Quebrado
Storms follow me
wherever I go.
Once again,
the sky looks so heavy
that I would not
be surprised
if black clouds
sank to earth
and grew roots
in moist soil,
creating a wispy forest
of drifting air.
Mysteries follow me
wherever I go.
Bernardino de Talavera
I wander like a beggar,
never finding any living soul
to mend my wounds
and heal my hunger.
When I finally see a natural,
she is just a young girl
on a stormy beach,
watching the crash of waves
from another tempest.
Hidden by beach shrubs,
I wait for a chance to capture
the unsuspecting girl.
I could trade her for medicine,
or a canoe rowed by slaves.…
Alonso de Ojeda
The sight of the lone girl
Hurricane Dancers Page 2
