Your Heart, My Sky

Home > Other > Your Heart, My Sky > Page 8
Your Heart, My Sky Page 8

by Margarita Engle


  Who would leave an infant

  so close to the voracious ocean?

  The dog sings to her, and she answers,

  whimpering, then howling with gratitude

  for canine sympathy,

  the first step

  toward human

  help.

  Abandoned?

  Amado and Liana

  The baby seems as isolated as an explorer

  of some remote galaxy where gravity

  does not tie

  human feet

  or minds

  to solid

  earth.

  How can a parent leave a child

  alone?

  Do Humans Always Assume the Worst?

  The singing dog

  The infant’s young mother emerges from the water,

  her hands cradling the day’s catch of shellfish

  and seaweed, her hair as tangled as a mermaid’s,

  her eyes fierce as she reclaims her child,

  clearly assuming that the odd-looking dog

  might be dangerous

  and the teenagers

  are strangers

  unworthy

  of trust.

  The dog licks the baby’s cheek,

  then the mother’s hand,

  in an effort to announce

  that he means no harm,

  and was only trying to guard the child

  from loneliness

  despair

  pecking seagulls

  hungry crabs.…

  Possibilities as Vast as the Sea

  Liana and Amado

  We sing to soothe each other’s fears.

  The lonely baby is safe now,

  the dog howls with joy, but how

  can we be sure that what we hear

  will not be transformed

  into sorrow?

  We Need to Live As If Time Does Not Exist

  Amado and Liana

  For one terrifying instant, the mother

  must have imagined that we would report her

  to dangerous authorities.

  She could have lost her baby, even though

  leaving him on the beach was her only way

  to gather food and stay alive so she could feed him.

  This entire island has been plunged into a dilemma

  beyond comprehension, each of us choosing how

  to divide up any scraps of edible treasures we find:

  gobble it all ourselves, or save some

  for our loved ones?

  Gardening helps.

  It’s all we can do.

  Share.

  We need to live as if tomorrow

  won’t starve us.

  Music of the Future

  The singing dog

  The dog senses he’s in a time-shifting story

  even before he hears a wistful melody

  that leads him far away

  from humans.

  Someone heard his howl and answered.

  He’s not the last of his kind after all.

  She’s there, in that green refuge beyond dark caverns,

  a mate, the one he’s rarely encountered,

  another remnant of the immense past, reclaimed, another

  survivor.

  His matchmaking work is finished for now.

  The two humans are together, and they will be

  the ones who decide how to live from now on,

  while he will once again create

  his own family, bringing hope all the way back

  from near extinction.

  Hope Is the Only Cure for Hunger

  Amado

  As soon as the baby is reunited with her mother,

  Paz races away to find the source of howling,

  while we stay on our new beach, determined

  to think of this night as the start of sunrise

  tomorrow.

  I will not climb onto a raft if it means

  taking a chance on being separated by death.

  Imagine how lonely it would feel to be the only

  survivor.

  Imagine how lonely Liana would be if I

  sink, and she soars.

  We’ll take our chances on hunger’s shore.

  We won’t let the ocean

  separate us.

  Our Gardens Await

  Liana

  One kiss and fear recedes

  like a tide, replaced by our love-driven

  struggle

  to learn

  about

  plants

  soil

  water

  growth

  nature.

  In our hearts, there are two ways to be:

  ser is forever,

  estar fleeting.

  When it comes to feeling free, we

  need both.

  Author’s Note

  Liana and Amado are fictional characters, but all the hardships they face in this story were real during the 1990s, when Cubans suffered near starvation. That decade of extreme hunger is known as el período especial en tiempos de paz (the special period in times of peace). Those who survived remember it with horror, afraid that hunger could return at any moment, depending on the whims of governments.

  During the summer of 1991, after an absence of three decades, I visited relatives in Cuba, knocking on their doors unannounced, because I knew that islanders had been ordered to avoid interacting with foreigners who attended the Pan Am Games. I continued to deliver suitcases filled with food and vitamins throughout the decade when most Cubans grew emaciated, many suffering from diseases related to malnutrition. Shortages of food resulted from a combination of the sudden loss of Soviet aid; inefficient collective farming; bizarre laws that prohibited individuals from growing, buying, and selling agricultural products; and a brutal US trade embargo.

  Throughout the 1990s, desperate islanders had to decide whether to stay and starve, or flee as refugees. Tens of thousands se tiraron al mar (threw themselves into the sea) on makeshift rafts, hoping to gain asylum in Florida. Countless balseros drowned. The names of those who survived were read over the radio, on Miami stations that were prohibited in Cuba. During one of my visits, I shared the excruciating experience of secretly waiting to hear the names of cousins.

  Now, thirty years later, I choose to love the cousins who floated away from Cuba and became refugees, as well as those who stayed in their homeland, inventing solutions to daily problems.

  Until the devastating 2020 global pandemic, hunger on the island had gradually decreased due to an increase in tourism, but most food was food still imported. Much of the protein is destined for tourists rather than locals, and staples such as rice and beans are still rationed. Small vegetable plots, street vendors, and farmers’ markets have been legalized, along with paladares (home restaurants) and casas particulares (home bed-and-breakfast inns). The US trade economic embargo persists. In place since 1962, it can only be ended by an act of Congress. For readers who wonder about the blend of fact and fantasy in historical fiction, here are a few details that show how they can merge in a writer’s mind:

  —Cuba’s singing dogs were described by priests who accompanied Spanish conquistadors beginning in 1492. I choose to believe that some of these indigenous canines survive, and I enjoy wondering whether they can serve as guardians and matchmakers.

  —Cortés really did seize all the Spanish men of my mother’s hometown as soldiers, and the enslaved indigenous men as porters for the conquest of Mexico. One mestizo named Uría refused to fight and was imprisoned. I descend from his Ciboney Taíno nation.

  —I included a baby left alone on a beach because many years ago, I really did find one, wrapped in a thick blanket, beneath the blazing sun. I stayed with him until his young mother emerged from the sea with a meal fit for a mermaid. She told me she had no choice but to leave him while searching for food.

  —El Valle del Ruiseñor (The Valley of the Nightingale) is reached by hiking through caves in western Cuba
. For the purpose of this story, I moved it to the north coast near Playas del Este, from which most rafters depart.

  Acknowledgments

  I thank God for love and gardens. I’m grateful to my family in the United States and Cuba; to my dedicated agent, Michelle Humphrey; my wonderful editor Reka Simonsen; and the entire Atheneum publishing team.

  More from the Author

  With a Star in My Hand

  Soaring Earth

  Jazz Owls

  Enchanted Air

  Forest World

  Lion Island

  About the Author

  Margarita Engle is the Cuban American author of many verse novels, including With a Star in My Hand; The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor book; and The Lightning Dreamer, a PEN Literary Award for Young Adult Literature winner. She has also written two verse memoirs, Soaring Earth and Enchanted Air, the latter of which received the Pura Belpré Author Award; was a Walter Honor Book, Young Readers Category; and was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, among other accolades. Her picture book Drum Dream Girl received the Charlotte Zolotow Award. Margarita was born in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during childhood summers with relatives. She continues to visit Cuba as often as she can. Visit her at margaritaengle.com or follow her on Twitter @margaritapoet and on Instagram @engle.margarita.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Margarita-Engle

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Also by Margarita Engle

  * also available in Spanish

  Enchanted Air:

  Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir*

  The Firefly Letters:

  A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba

  Forest World*

  Hurricane Dancers:

  The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck

  Jazz Owls:

  A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

  The Lightning Dreamer:

  Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist

  Lion Island:

  Cuba’s Warrior of Words*

  The Poet Slave of Cuba:

  A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano

  Silver People:

  Voices from the Panama Canal

  Soaring Earth:

  A Companion Memoir to Enchanted Air*

  The Surrender Tree:

  Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom*

  Tropical Secrets:

  Holocaust Refugees in Cuba

  The Wild Book

  With a Star in My Hand:

  Rubén Darío, Poetry Hero *

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text © 2021 by Margarita Engle

  Jacket illustration © 2021 by Gaby D’Alessandro

  Book design by Rebecca Syracuse © 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Jacket design by Rebecca Syracuse

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Engle, Margarita, author.

  Title: Your heart, my sky : love in the time of hunger / Margarita Engle. Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2021] | Audience: Ages 12 up. | Audience: Grades 7–9. | Summary: In Cuba’s “special period in times of peace” of 1991, Liana and Amado find love after their severe hunger gives both courage to risk government retribution by skipping a summer of labor to seek food. Told in their two voices plus that of the stray dog that brought them together.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020012225 | ISBN 9781534464964 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534464988 (eBook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Starvation—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Family life—Cuba—Fiction. | Cuba—History—20th century—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.5.E54 You 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020012225

 

 

 


‹ Prev