Read Online The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Margarita Engle
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time they have their own pack of dogs,
huge ones,
taught to follow only the scent
of a barefoot track,
the scent of bare skin from a slave
who eats cornmeal and yams,
never the scent of a rich man on horseback,
after his huge meal of meat, fowl, fruit,
coffee, chocolate, and cream.
Lieutenant Death
We bring wanted posters from the cities,
with pictures drawn by artists,
pictures of men with filed teeth
and women with tribal scars,
new slaves
who somehow managed to run away
soon after escaping from ships
that landed secretly, at night,
on hidden beaches.
I look at the pictures
and wonder
how all these slaves
from faraway places
find their way
to this wilderness
of caves and cliffs,
wild mountains, green forest, little witches.
Rosa
After Christmas, on January 6,
the Festival of Three Kings Day,
we line up and walk, one by one,
to the thrones where our owner and his wife
are seated, like a king and queen
from a story.
They give us small gifts of food.
We bow down, and bless them,
our gift of words freely given
on this day of hope,
when we feel like we have
nothing to lose.
Rosa
The nicknames of runaways
keep us busy at night,
in the barracoons, where we whisper.
All the other young girls agree with me
that
Domingo
is a fine nickname,
because it means Sunday, our only half day of rest,
and
Dios Da
is even better,
because it means God Gives,
and
El Médico
is wonderfulâ
who would not be proud
to be known as The Doctor?
La Madre
is the nickname
that fascinates us mostâ
The Motherâa woman, and not just a runaway,
but the leader of her own secret village,
free, independent, uncapturedâ
for thirty-seven
magical years!
Lieutenant Death
My father captures some who pretend
they donât know their ownersâ names,
or the names of the plantations
where they belong.
They must want to be sold
to someone new.
They must hope that if they are sold here,
near the steamy, jungled wilderness,
they will be close to the caves,
and the waterfalls,
and witches.
My father brings the same runaways back,
over and over.
I donât understand why they never give up!
Why donât they lose hope?
Rosa
People imagine that all slaves are dark,
but the indentured Chinese slaves run away too,
into the mangrove swamps,
where they can fish, and spear frogs,
and hunt crocodiles by placing a hat on a stick
to make it look like a man.
The crocodile jumps straight up,
out of the gloomy water,
and snatches the hat,
while a noose of rope made from vines
tightens around the beastâs green, leathery neck.
I would be afraid to live in the swamps.
People say there are
güijes,
small, wrinkled, green mermaids
with long, red hair and golden combsâ¦
mermaids who would lure me
down into the swamp depthsâ¦
mermaids who would drag me into watery caves,
where they would turn me into a mermaid tooâ¦
frog-green, and tricky.
Rosa
The slavehunter comes
with an offer.
He wants to buy me
so I can travel
with his horsemen
and his huge dogs
and his strange son
into the wild places
where wounded captives
can be healed
so they wonât die.
The price
of a healed man
is much higher
than the price
of an ear.
Rosa
My owner refuses.
He needs me to cure
sick slaves
in the barracoons.
After each hurricane season
there are fevers, cholera, smallpox, plague.
Some of the sick can be saved.
Some are lost.
I picture their spirits
flying away.
I sigh, so relieved that I will not
have to travel with slavehunters
and the spies they keep to help them,
the captives who reveal the secret locations
of villages where runaways sneak back and forth,
trading wild guavas for wild yams,
or bananas for boar meat,
spears for vine rope,
or mangos for palm hearts, flower medicines,
herbsâ¦.
Lieutenant Death
The weapons of runaways are homemade,
just sharpened branches, not real spears,
and carved wooden
huge ones,
taught to follow only the scent
of a barefoot track,
the scent of bare skin from a slave
who eats cornmeal and yams,
never the scent of a rich man on horseback,
after his huge meal of meat, fowl, fruit,
coffee, chocolate, and cream.
Lieutenant Death
We bring wanted posters from the cities,
with pictures drawn by artists,
pictures of men with filed teeth
and women with tribal scars,
new slaves
who somehow managed to run away
soon after escaping from ships
that landed secretly, at night,
on hidden beaches.
I look at the pictures
and wonder
how all these slaves
from faraway places
find their way
to this wilderness
of caves and cliffs,
wild mountains, green forest, little witches.
Rosa
After Christmas, on January 6,
the Festival of Three Kings Day,
we line up and walk, one by one,
to the thrones where our owner and his wife
are seated, like a king and queen
from a story.
They give us small gifts of food.
We bow down, and bless them,
our gift of words freely given
on this day of hope,
when we feel like we have
nothing to lose.
Rosa
The nicknames of runaways
keep us busy at night,
in the barracoons, where we whisper.
All the other young girls agree with me
that
Domingo
is a fine nickname,
because it means Sunday, our only half day of rest,
and
Dios Da
is even better,
because it means God Gives,
and
El Médico
is wonderfulâ
who would not be proud
to be known as The Doctor?
La Madre
is the nickname
that fascinates us mostâ
The Motherâa woman, and not just a runaway,
but the leader of her own secret village,
free, independent, uncapturedâ
for thirty-seven
magical years!
Lieutenant Death
My father captures some who pretend
they donât know their ownersâ names,
or the names of the plantations
where they belong.
They must want to be sold
to someone new.
They must hope that if they are sold here,
near the steamy, jungled wilderness,
they will be close to the caves,
and the waterfalls,
and witches.
My father brings the same runaways back,
over and over.
I donât understand why they never give up!
Why donât they lose hope?
Rosa
People imagine that all slaves are dark,
but the indentured Chinese slaves run away too,
into the mangrove swamps,
where they can fish, and spear frogs,
and hunt crocodiles by placing a hat on a stick
to make it look like a man.
The crocodile jumps straight up,
out of the gloomy water,
and snatches the hat,
while a noose of rope made from vines
tightens around the beastâs green, leathery neck.
I would be afraid to live in the swamps.
People say there are
güijes,
small, wrinkled, green mermaids
with long, red hair and golden combsâ¦
mermaids who would lure me
down into the swamp depthsâ¦
mermaids who would drag me into watery caves,
where they would turn me into a mermaid tooâ¦
frog-green, and tricky.
Rosa
The slavehunter comes
with an offer.
He wants to buy me
so I can travel
with his horsemen
and his huge dogs
and his strange son
into the wild places
where wounded captives
can be healed
so they wonât die.
The price
of a healed man
is much higher
than the price
of an ear.
Rosa
My owner refuses.
He needs me to cure
sick slaves
in the barracoons.
After each hurricane season
there are fevers, cholera, smallpox, plague.
Some of the sick can be saved.
Some are lost.
I picture their spirits
flying away.
I sigh, so relieved that I will not
have to travel with slavehunters
and the spies they keep to help them,
the captives who reveal the secret locations
of villages where runaways sneak back and forth,
trading wild guavas for wild yams,
or bananas for boar meat,
spears for vine rope,
or mangos for palm hearts, flower medicines,
herbsâ¦.
Lieutenant Death
The weapons of runaways are homemade,
just sharpened branches, not real spears,
and carved wooden
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