Your Heart, My Sky

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Your Heart, My Sky Page 4

by Margarita Engle


  after a rainstorm, then stretch out and gaze up

  at heaven, intensely aware that heaven, el cielo,

  is also close, not just remote.

  Hope is here, all over this starving isle,

  mixed up with the tragic hunger that forces

  gentle people to slaughter pigeons

  in parks,

  plucking feathers,

  roasting, swallowing,

  then kissing

  between gulps

  of starlight.

  Success

  The singing dog

  Matchmaking is as mysterious as the sonar

  that emanates from bats in a seaside cave’s

  darkness.

  It’s enough to know that Liana and Amado

  belong

  together.

  Understanding is not needed,

  only closeness.

  Shape-Shifting

  Amado and Liana

  Slowly at first

  then swiftly

  we emerge

  from our childhood selves

  renewed as two nearly grown creatures

  who have learned to speak courageously,

  abandoning shy silence

  in order to accept

  wonder.

  Now we are almost as attracted

  to each other’s words and thoughts

  as to hands, bodies, eyes, smiles, lips,

  sight sound taste scent

  touch.

  Love in a Time of Wonder

  Liana and Amado and the singing dog

  Hunger

  or love?

  Hunger

  before

  love.

  Love beyond hunger

  hunger love hunger

  love hunger love love.

  Ode to Paz

  Amado and Liana

  Roaming

  nomad

  unpredictable

  visitor

  exhaling

  aromas

  of

  love’s

  hunger

  and

  hunger’s

  love.

  Garden Song

  Amado and Liana

  Once again we visit the old folks, who grant us a gift

  of pumpkin seeds, and the promise of avocados

  from a potted tree, the slender trunk wrapped

  in copper bracelets just in case old legends

  are true, about the magical properties of shiny

  red metal, said to combat plant diseases,

  or turn into a poison

  if too much is received.

  Paz is with us this time, Abuela and her pony

  both too happy to cling to childhood fears of feral dogs.

  The garden is lush and bountiful

  like a dream-forest, overflowing with marvels.

  Roots.

  Leaves.

  Fruit.

  Time seems to stop

  as soon as we see food growing.

  Now it’s our job to go home and plant, eat, share.

  Love

  Amado

  Plant, harvest,

  right away,

  no delay,

  it’s the only way

  to feel hopeful!

  Beyond Love

  Liana

  My parents worry—are we breaking rules?

  No one knows exactly how long it has been

  since anyone in this family grew

  our own food.

  Within Love

  Amado and Liana

  We convince our reluctant parents, then urge them

  to help us dig holes and bury seeds, as the reality

  of unimagined possibilities

  begins

  to take

  root!

  Our Parents Warn Us That We’re Taking Chances

  Liana and Amado

  Being independent.

  Making our own decisions.

  Risking trouble in exchange

  for producing anything that exceeds

  monthly rations.

  What if we’re suspected of planting crops

  in order to sell food on the black market?

  Our Answer

  Amado and Liana

  We’re hungry.

  Earth helps us.

  Let’s grow.

  The Names of Love 1

  Liana

  Cielo tierra hoja mar sol

  luna estrella esperanza.

  The Names of Love 2

  Amado

  She calls me

  sky earth leaf sea sun

  moon stars hope.

  I answer that wherever there is hope there is love

  and whenever there is peace we have hope

  and eating enough is part of feeling peaceful.

  The Names of Love 3

  Liana and Amado

  Vastness invisible past present future

  there’s no end to claiming and naming

  this limitless

  wilderness

  of mysteries.

  Our lives.

  Balseros

  Liana

  We still sneak out of our houses at night,

  despite our parents’ warnings, protests,

  and futile attempts at punishment.

  Nothing they take from us matters,

  because we have no luxuries, no privileges,

  just hunger

  and time.

  So we sneak out carrying fireflies in bottles

  whenever we can’t find batteries for flashlights.

  Needing a place to be alone, we’re led by Paz.

  The seaside cave is a plain one, simple.

  No stalactites or crystals, just smooth walls

  marked with red, blue, and yellow pictures

  of eyes, wings,

  hands, hearts.

  We’re not alone here.

  Inner tubes.

  Ropes.

  Rough brown gourds

  filled with fresh water.

  Dried guavas, stale bread,

  and peeled spears of sugar cane.

  Two people, a young man

  and his heavily pregnant wife

  are clearly terrified by our presence

  as they try to hide in a dark corner,

  unable to evade our captive insects’

  pulsing light.

  Leaving the island is forbidden by law

  and it’s equally illegal

  to know that someone is planning to flee.

  We’re required

  to report escapees

  to the authorities

  but how can we

  betray strangers

  who are simply

  hoping

  to avoid

  the same

  plague of hunger

  that has tormented us

  for so long?

  Anyone who takes the time to paint

  murals of primary colors on cave walls

  deserves a chance to float freely

  los balseros

  the rafters

  fleeing refugees

  buoyed by hope.

  Throwing Oneself Into the Sea

  Amado

  Before he chose prison, my brother considered

  the possibility of building a raft and soaring away

  on a flimsy contraption made from inner tubes

  and rope…

  but the chances of surviving are unknown, perhaps

  fifty-fifty

  or less.

  No one can count the tens of thousands of bodies

  already lost halfway between here and the other side

  of the Florida Straits—Key West, Miami,

  the United States of Plenty.

  If I had enough hoarded food to make it safely across

  days or weeks on waves, surrounded by sharks,

  would I nibble slowly, or swallow it all

  right now

  here in this cavern,

  like
a prehistoric beast?

  Compass

  Liana

  We leave the cave quickly,

  reassuring the frightened couple

  that their secret is safe.

  The next morning at home

  I search my imagination for any gift

  that might help them, something I can find

  or make, before it’s too late.

  Of all the supplies a balsero would need,

  una brújula seems the most basic,

  an old-fashioned compass, magical like witchery,

  yet scientific too,

  one of the projects small children learn

  by reading old adventure books.

  Take a needle from your mother’s sewing kit

  and an iron nail from your father’s toolbox,

  rub the needle against the nail fifty times,

  every stroke in the same direction, never

  back and forth, then: metal on metal,

  a magnetic charge is created.

  If you can’t find a nail, use your own hair,

  or even mouse fur.

  Pierce a cork or a juicy green leaf

  from a sea grape tree, and let the magnetized gadget

  twirl in a shallow bowl of water, watch it spin

  and settle,

  selecting

  north.

  How long will this fragment of ancient technology

  last?

  We take it back to the cave.

  We don’t ask for any form of payment.

  Instead, we help fill two slick black inner tubes

  with breath, then tie them together—coiled hope

  goodbye

  please

  float…

  Departure

  The singing dog

  Human desperation smells like a marsh, sour

  and fermented, but the dog knows how

  to cheer people by keeping them moving

  toward a goal, the next scent

  a promising one—home, kitchen, nutrition,

  the imagination’s ability to conjure a fragrance

  of daydreamed

  arrival.

  Cause and Effect

  Liana

  Loving each other.

  Helping others.

  It’s a combination

  we never imagined

  when all we felt

  was physical

  attraction.

  Separate bellies.

  Wondering minds.

  Shared hearts.

  Black Market

  Amado

  We need more seeds for our gardens,

  a greater variety of edible promises.

  There’s only one way.

  We’ll have to plunge ourselves

  into la bolsa negra,

  the shadowy, nomadic network

  of illegal marketeers

  where secretive people

  sell, bargain, and trade

  as if profits were not forbidden.

  We discover places where we could ask

  for stolen government supplies:

  kernels of seed corn,

  malanga tubers, grapefruit seedlings, and peanuts

  that we desperately wish we could swallow

  instead of planting.

  We have nothing to trade, no antiques, jewelry

  or other treasures left over from long ago,

  so we’re limited to exchanging things we find

  on the beach.

  Plastic sandals.

  Broken toys.

  Empty soda cans.

  More and more often

  we find discarded possessions

  in the cave—boots, photo frames,

  a cradle, baseballs, two paintings,

  all sorts of objects heavy enough

  to make any overcrowded raft

  sink.

  So we carry these secrets

  in an old cloth sack

  as if they were smuggled

  from overseas.

  In black market alleys

  it will be easy—but dangerous—to trade them

  for garden dreams, our deeply rooted

  future.

  Gardens of Dreaming

  Liana and Amado and the singing dog

  Every available

  centimeter of soil

  in both patios

  is soon covered

  with a dozen

  variations

  of green,

  the leafiness

  as hopeful

  as a steamy

  afternoon’s

  soothing

  breeze.

  Above the Soil

  Liana

  Our fingers touch as we work,

  lips meet, each quiet kiss

  a wishful

  forest

  of growth.

  Our parents decide to pretend

  they don’t see.

  If we succeed, they’ll have plenty

  to eat.

  If neighbors or secret policemen notice

  that we’ve been haunting the black market,

  we’ll bribe them with green leaves

  and crispness—cabbage in exchange

  for silence, cucumbers to ward off

  danger, red peppers to spice

  the risk.

  Readers and Singers

  Amado

  While we wait for food to spring upward

  from the hidden wizardry of buried earth,

  we scheme and wonder, trying to figure out

  what to eat in the meantime, and how to help

  more and more balseros

  obtain supplies they’ll need

  for survival

  at sea.

  Liana’s parents are lectores at a cigar factory,

  taking turns reading to workers who sit in rows,

  cutting and rolling pungent tobacco leaves.

  Each month, laborers vote, choosing books

  for the next few weeks of drudgery.

  Novels, poetry, plays, whatever they read,

  the voices of Liana’s mother and father

  entrance me each time we visit and listen,

  pretending we’re interested in obtaining jobs,

  although really all we’re doing is spying,

  hoping to discover a box or bin

  that might contain discarded cigars

  of an inferior quality, trash we could silently

  scoop up and trade on la bolsa negra

  without getting caught

  and arrested for theft.

  Stealing from a government building

  is not as easy as it seemed when we

  were just daydreaming.

  A soldier stands at the exit, humming along

  while Liana’s mother bursts into song,

  expanding her role from reader to singer,

  the lyrics a passionate ballad

  of love.

  Surrounded by Music

  Liana

  I grew up hearing Mami sing every day,

  so it never occurred to me that someone else

  might be surprised by the fountain of music

  that flows all around me

  like sun

  at the end of a storm,

  warmth and light interwoven

  to form melodies.

  We leave the cigar factory without any treasure

  to trade or sell, just a new, radiant memory

  that did not exist until now, my mother’s voice

  rising above silence, her personal protest

  against pessimism.

  No one who hears

  a beautiful love song

  can fail to imagine

  life beyond hunger.

  Harvest

  The singing dog

  The houses of both humans are now frames

  for hidden roots that lift hope toward sky.

  There is an aroma of movement

  as folded seed-leaves open

  a
nd the tips of stems

  reach like fingers.

  That first red radish makes the girl and boy

  celebrate by dancing along with their parents,

  but the dog waits for sweet potatoes and melons,

  plump foods that help the world smell sunlit.

  When he started this matchmaking project

  he had no idea that love between two teenagers

  would lead to so much shared

  human and canine

  rejoicing!

  A Vision of Independence

  Amado and Liana

  In the time of our grandparents’ youth,

  everyone knew how to care for oxen and horses,

  how to plow, plant, cultivate, and harvest,

  but my parents’ generation was forced to wait

  for beans and rice to reach the ration store,

  imported from Vietnam or China.

  Our mothers sifted small grains

  like rough jewels, picking through them

  to discard insects, weed seeds, and pebbles.

  It’s a ritual we’ve seen so often, without wondering

  why we don’t grow our own arroz y frijoles, but now

  everything has changed inside our minds

  so that we are intensely aware of our ability

  to seize control of hunger,

  transforming food

  into freedom.

  Creativity

  Liana

  At night

  in the cave

  we are witnesses

  to the hasty construction of rafts

  made from sugar carts, bus roofs,

  windshields, couch cushions, mattresses.…

  Almost any object will float

  when fastened to huge inner tubes

  from truck tires, as long as the tubes are filled

  with air, the sky’s breath

  generously shared.

  How easy it seems to grow

  beyond

  limits.

  Ignorance

  Amado

  We carve the stored sunlight

  of a stolen pineapple

  into brilliant puzzle pieces,

  trying to figure out

  which gold or green part

  to bury in soil.

  Is it like a potato that can sprout from

  fragments, or are we free to gobble

  all these juices, reserving only stiff leaves

 

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