The Lightning Dreamer (6 page)

 

So I learn to write quiet scenes
about ordinary places and real people.

 

Even without fantasy, my words
grow and change
into something
truly inventive
because here, all the actors
are lonely children
who know how to create
their own magic.

At home, I sing and hum,
preparing for the next day's
rehearsal.

 

In the kitchen, Caridad's cakes
bring memories of the way
I used to cook with her
when I was little.

 

Mamá expected a solemn kitchen,
but Caridad let me sing
while I stirred.

 

When the cakes were done,
we both ate our fill, but the cook
and I
had to sit at separate tables
in different rooms.

When I was young,
I ran away
over and over
but slave hunters
always caught me
and brought me back
to this house.

 

Now, when Tula asks why
I stayed here after her father
finally freed me,
I have no answer,
just the memory
of fear.

Poetry is all I have to give.
I don't know any other way
to help.

 

Even though Caridad
is busy in the kitchen,
I feel certain
that she listens
as she swirls
her copper spoon
through a bubbling stew.

 

Words find their own way
into the shared rhythms
of our separate lives.

I continue to dream up my own
set of rules—for life, for poetry,
for the orphan theater.

 

In my plays, all are equal.
Each orphan receives
a speaking role,
because every child
has a voice that must be heard,
even if adults only listen
while children are perched
on a stiff wooden stage,
chirping like new-hatched birds
that have not yet learned
how to sing.

Tula's theater is merciful.
It helps us forget who we are.

 

We stitch costumes of scraps,
decorated with beads
of laughter.

 

We paint wooden sunsets
and the false fronts
of imaginary houses.

 

Each swoop of a paintbrush
turns into our own magical
dance
of celebration.

The orphans speak
in unique ways,
no two alike.

 

Some use silence,
the visible language
of brooding eyes.

 

Others dream up new words
born of boredom or humor.

 

The shy ones offer nothing
but shrugs and gestures,
a ballet
of graceful hands.

 

My own voice bursts like an ember,
releasing wild sparks
of surprise.

At home in the shadowy garden,
my sister performs a secret play—
a dangerous one—
El campesino
espantado (The frightened
country boy)
, written by Heredia
when he was only fifteen.

 

It's a funny play, yet serious too,
the tale of a farm boy who visits
a crowded city. When a coachman
wants payment for a carriage ride,
the country boy is shocked,
because he is accustomed to
wagon rides that are freely given
by lonely farmers, who are eager
to chat on and on about cows,
chickens, weather, and the phases
of the mysterious moon.

 

In the city, the country boy
tries to help a runaway slave,
but his efforts fail, and both he
and the slave are hunted
and punished.

 

Later, the country boy is robbed
and falsely accused of murder.

 

In the end, he returns to his farm,
where all the snorting, clucking,
bleating animals
make so much more sense
than people.

 

The play is clearly a tale
of injustice. I fear for my sister
and for our whole family. If Tula
is caught reciting the rebel-poems
of Heredia, will we all
be arrested
and tortured?

After the final meal of the day,
I sit on a bench in the garden,
where my thoughts
are my own
until Tula's young voice
invades them.

 

While I listen to her play-acted
tales of injustice, I begin to feel
that maybe I should run free
just one more time
before this entire household
is punished.

I'm tired of being told
that my feelings are too wild.
I argue with Manuel when he says
I'm too bold. Why shouldn't
hilarious scenes make me dizzy
with laughter, unfair ones hurl me
into a rage, and sad ones fill me
with grief for the imagined
suffering
of fictional characters?