The Lightning Dreamer (3 page)

 

For now, Tula seems content
to roam our peaceful library,
growing breathless
with the excitement
of a youthful mind's
natural curiosity.

In a dusty corner
of the convent library,
I discover the banned books
of José María Heredia, a rebel-poet—
an abolitionist and
independista
who was forced into exile.

 

His verses show that he believes
in Cuba's freedom from Spain,
as well as liberty for slaves.
When I take the verses home
to Caridad, she weeps.

 

I cannot tell if her tears pour
from a fountain of hope
for the unknowable future
or sorrows left over
from an unchangeable past.

Certain poems
help me feel young
instead of old.

 

Powerful
instead of weak.

 

Brave
instead of fearful.

 

Their words are like wings,
helping me fly away
from this kitchen,
this mop,
these filthy pots and pans,
my endless chores . . .

Heredia's verses are banned
by the Crown, not the Church,
so we feel free to read them.
We knew him well.

 

He was already a poet while he
was just a young boy. Some people
are born with words flowing
in their veins.

 

At fifteen, Heredia wrote a play.
At nineteen, he became a founder
of
los Soles y Rayos—
the Suns and Rays
of Bolívar, a secret society of poets
and artists who hoped to establish
a democratic nation of equals,
with no masters or slaves,
and one vote per man,
dark or light.

I will never grow tired
of exploring Heredia's poetry.

 

Here is a verse
about being at sea
alone
in a storm.

 

And here is one about hiking
beside an immense waterfall
called Niágara.

 

And listen to this poem
about refusing to accept
the existence of slavery
and refusing to see all of nature
as good and beautiful,
with the sole
exception
of human nature.

Heredia is pale
and has always been free,
just like Tula.

 

Somehow, with words
from wild poems
floating
all around me,
I feel certain that words
can be as human
as people,
alive
with the breath
of compassion.

Whispered words
about the Suns and Rays
continue to fascinate me.
The nuns tell me that Heredia's
secret society had even designed
a flag—deep blue, with a gold sun
at the center, and a human face
on the sun, to remind us that people
can glow.

 

Each ray of the round sun
is just a narrow sliver,
but together
all the tiny rays
join to release
a single
enormous
horizon of light.

Heredia's poems haunt me.
From my room, I watch the march
of chained slave children
as they pass beyond
the carved
wooden bars
of my window.

 

In the kitchen, I listen
to the knife-beat
spoon-beat
pounding
songs
of Caridad.

 

Then I eat my guilty dinner,
wondering how many slaves
Mamá will buy with the money
she gains by marrying me to
the highest bidder.

At night, the view
from my window changes.

 

Horses gallop
along the cobblestones.

 

There are gunshots
and screams.

 

Will there be another
rebellion
with heads
paraded on stakes
and hands
nailed to trees?

When no one is watching,
I carry a basket of fruit
on my head, just to find out
how it feels to need
balance.

 

I chop an onion.
Stir a soup.
Sweep a floor.
Frown.

 

Then I fill the air of the garden
with Heredia's floating rhymes,
and soon I'm reciting a few poems
of my own, while Caridad
listens
beneath the silent
moon and stars.