moment of peace.
Rosa
In the month of October,
when hurricanes loom,
a few plantation owners
burn their fields, and free their slaves,
declaring independence
from Spanish rule.
Slavery all day,
and then, suddenly, by nightfall—freedom!
Can it be true,
as my former owner explains,
with apologies for all the bad years—
Can it be true that freedom only exists
when it is a treasure,
shared by all?
Rosa
Farms and mansions
are burning!
Flames turn to smoke—
the smoke leaps, then fades
and vanishes…
making the world
seem invisible.
I am one of the few
free women blessed
with healing skills.
Should I fight with weapons,
or flowers and leaves?
Each choice leads to another—
I stand at a crossroads in my mind,
deciding to serve as a nurse,
armed with fragrant herbs,
fighting a wilderness battle, my own private war
against death.
Rosa
Side by side, former owners and freed slaves
torch the elegant old city of Bayamo.
A song is written by a horseman,
a love song about fighting for freedom
from Spain.
The song is called “La Bayamesa,”
for a woman from the burning city of Bayamo,
a place so close to my birthplace, my home….
Soon I am called La Bayamesa too,
as if I have somehow been transformed
into music, a melody, the rhythm of words….
I watch the flames, feel the heat,
inhale the scent of torched sugar
and scorched coffee….
I listen to voices,
burning a song in the smoky sky.
The old life is gone, my days are new,
but time is still a mystery
of wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance.
Rosa
The Spanish Empire refuses to honor
liberty for any slave who was freed by a rebel,
so even though the planters
who used to own us
no longer want to own humans,
slavehunters still roam
the forest, searching, capturing, punishing…
so we flee
to the villages
where runaways hide…
just like before.
Rosa
In October,
people walk in long chains of strength,
arm in arm, to keep from blowing away.
The wildness of wind, forest, sea
brings storms that move
like serpents,
sweeping trees and cattle
up into the sky.
During hurricanes, even the wealthy
wander like beggars,
seeking shelter,
arm in arm with the poor.
Rosa
War and storms make me feel old,
even though I am still young enough
to fall in love.
I meet a man, José Francisco Varona,
a freed slave,
in the runaway slave village we call Manteca,
because we have plenty of lard to use as cooking oil,
the lard we get
by hunting wild pigs.
We travel through the forest together,
trading lard for the fruit, corn, and yams
grown by freed slaves and runaways,
who live together in other hidden towns
deep in the forest, and in dark caves.
José and I agree to marry.
Together, we will serve as nurses,
healing the wounds of slavery,
and the wounds of war.
Rosa
The forest is a land of natural music—
tree frogs, nightingales, wind,
and the winglets of hummingbirds
no bigger than my thumbnail—
hummingbirds the size of bees
in a forest the size of Eden.
José and I travel together,
walking through mud, thorns,
clouds of wasps, mosquitoes, gnats,
and the mist that hides
graceful palm trees,
and the smoke that hides burning huts,
flaming fields, orchards, villages, forts—
anything left standing by Spain
is soon torched by the rebels.
José carries weapons,
his horn-handled machete,
and an old gun of wood and metal,
moldy and rusted,
our only protection against an ambush.
The Spanish soldiers dress in bright uniforms,
like parakeets.
They march in columns, announcing
their movements
with trumpets and drums.
We move silently, secretly.
We are invisible.
Rosa
A Spanish guard calls, ¡Alto!Halt!
¿Quién vive? Who lives?
He wants us to stop, but we slip away.
He shouts: mambí savages,
and even though mambí is not a real word,
we imagine he chooses it
because he thinks it sounds Cuban, Taíno Indian,
or African, or mixed—a word from the language
of an enslaved tribe—
Congo, Arará,Carabalí,Bibí, or Gangá.
Mambí,
we catch the rhythmic word,
and make it our own,
a name for our newly invented warrior tribe
made up of freed slaves fighting side by side
with former owners,
all of us fighting together,
against ownership of Cuba
by the Empire of Spain,
a ruler who refuses
to admit that slaves
can ever be free.
José
Dark wings, a dim moonglow,
the darting of bats,
not the big ones that suck blood
and eat insects,
but tiny ones, butterfly-sized,
the kind of bat
that whisks out of caves to sip nectar
from night-blooming blossoms,
the fragrant white flowers my Rosa calls
Cinderella,
because they last only half a night.
Rosa leads the bats away from our hut.
They follow her light, as she holds up a gourd
filled with fireflies, blinking.
I laugh, because our lives, here in the forest,
feel reversed—
we build a palm-thatched house to use
as a hospital,
but everything wild that belongs outdoors
keeps moving inside,
and our patients, the wounded, feverish
mambí rebels,
who should stay in their hammocks resting—
they keep getting up,
to go outside,
to watch Rosa, with her hands of light,
leading the bats far away.
Lieutenant Death
They think they’re free.
I know they’re slaves.
I used to work for the Holy Brotherhood
of plantation owners, but now I work
for the Crown of Spain.
Swamps, mountains, jungle, caves…
I search without resting, I seek the reward
I will surely collect, just as soon as I kill
the healer they call Rosa la Bayamesa,
a witch who cures wild mambí rebels
so they can survive
to fight again.
Lieutenant-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,
Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain
When the witch is dead,
and the rebels are defeated,
I will rest my sore arms and tired legs
in the healing hot springs on this island of fever
and ghostly, bat-infested caves.
If the slavehunter fails,
I will catch her myself.
I will kill the witch, and keep her ear in a jar,
as proof that owners cannot free their slaves
without Spain’s approval
and as proof
that all rebels in Cuba
are doomed.
Rosa
Rumors make me short of breath,
anxious, fearful, desperate.
People call me brave, but the truth is:
Rumors of slavehunters terrify me!
Who could have guessed that after all these years,
the boy I called Lieutenant Death
when we were both children
would still be out here, in the forest,
chasing me, now,
hunting me, haunting me….
Who would have imagined
such stubborn dedication?…
If only he would change sides
and become one of us, a stubborn,
determined, weary nurse,
fighting this daily war
against death!
José
Rosa’s fame as a healer brings danger.
She cannot leave our hut,
where the patients need her,
so I travel alone to a field of pineapples
where a young Spanish soldier lies wounded
in his bright uniform,
his head resting between mounds
of freshly harvested fruit.
The leaves of the pineapple plants
are gray and sharp, like machetes
the tips of the leaves cut my arms,
but I do my best to treat the boy’s wounds.
I do this for Rosa, who wants to heal all.
I do it for Rosa, but the boy-soldier thanks me,
and after I feed him and give him water,
he tells me he wants to change sides.
He says he will be Cuban now, a mambí rebel.
He tells me he was just a young boy
who was taken
from his family in Spain,
a child who was put on a ship,
forced to sail to this island, forced to fight.
He tells me he loves Cuba’s green hills,
and hopes to stay, survive, be a farmer,
find a place to plant crops….
Together, we agree to try
to heal the wounds between our countries.
I help him take off his uniform.
I give him mine.
Rosa
We experiment
like scientists.
One flower cures
only certain fevers.
We try another.
We fail, then try a root, leaf,
moss, or fern….
One petal fails.
Another succeeds.
José and I are both learning
how to learn.
Lieutenant Death
The witch
can be heard
singing in treetops.
The witch
can be seen—
a shadow
in caves.
I search,
and I search.
She vanishes,
just like the maddening
morning mists
and the wild
mambí rebels.
They attack.
We retreat.
They hide.
We seek.
Rosa
Itchy guao leaves,
biting mosquitoes,
and invisible, no-see-um chinches,
burrowing ticks, worms, and fungus,
growing in the flesh of the feet.
Gangrene, leprosy, amputations,
I never give myself permission
to look or sound horrified…
until I’m alone
at the end of the day,
alone, with the music
of nightingales.
José
We have seventeen patients
in our thatched hut
hidden by forest
and protected by guards,
dogs, traps, and tales of ghosts.
Seventeen feverish, bleeding, burning,
broken men, with bayonet wounds,
and women in childbirth,
and newborn babies…
seventeen helpless people,
all depending on us,
seventeen lives, blessings, burdens.
How can we heal them?
We are so weary!
Who will heal us?
Rosa
Grateful families give us chickens,
guinea hens and coconuts,
sweet potatoes,
cornmeal,
a hat, a knife,
a kettle,
a kerchief.
New mothers name their sons José
and their daughters Rosa.
Orphans stay with us,
working alongside the young Spaniard,
who chose to change sides,
and become Cuban.
The magic hidden inside flowers and trees
is created by the fragrant breath of God—
who are we to claim payment
for miracles?
Who are we to imagine
that the forest belongs to us?
Now, if only God who made the petals
and roots
will grant me one more gift—
a peaceful mind,
escape from the rumors that haunt me,
tales of prowling slavehunters,
warnings about Lieutenant Death.
We move all our patients into a cave,
a cathedral of stone,
where Rosa hopes to feel safe.
Crystals glow in the light
of palm-leaf torches
and living fireflies.
The stones seem to move like clouds,
forming bridges, pillars, fountains….
Rosa tells me she feels like one of those statues
that hold up the roofs of old buildings.
I picture the two of us, carved and polished,
motionless, yet alive,
holding up our roof of hope.
Rosa
Hiding in this cave makes me remember
the secret village where runaway slaves
and freed slaves all hid together
during the early months
of this endless war.
The houses were made of reeds and palms,
green houses that looked just like forest.
We built them in a circle,
and at the center, hidden,
we built a church of reeds,
where we would have loved to sing
if we did not always have to be hiding
and silent.
Now, in the cave, I hum quietly.
My voice echoes, and grows.
I sound so much braver and stronger
than I feel.
José
I dream of a farm
with one cow, one horse,
oxen for plowing,
chickens and guinea hens
for Holy Day meals,
and a small grove of trees,
coffee and cacao
shaded by mangos.
I dream of cornfields,
sweet potatoes, bananas,
and a palm-bark house
with a palm-thatch roof,
and a floor of earth,
a porch,
two rocking chairs,
and a view of green wilderness
stretching, like time….
Rosa
Cave of Nightmares,
Cave of Pirates, Cave of Neptune,
Cave of the Generals,
Lagoon of Fish,
Rosa’s Cave.
How many names
can one place have?
How many tales
of frightened people hiding,
and blind creatures thriving,
tales of mermaids, sea serpents,
giants, and ghosts….
I leave my handprint on glittering crystal
beside cave paintings made in ancient times—
circles, moons, suns, stars;
my palm, the fingers,
star-shaped too….
Ten years of war.
How many battles
can one island lose?
Lieutenant-General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau,
Marquis of Tenerife, Empire of Spain
We call Cuba our Ever-Faithful Isle,
yet these wild mambí rebels are loyal
only to the jungle, and their illusions
of freedom.
We leave the land smoking—
each farm and town turns to ash.
The barracoons where slaves
should be sleeping are empty.
The flames look like scars
on the red, sticky clay
of this maddening island
ruled by mud and mosquitoes.
Rosa
In order to talk to my patients I learn
a few words from each of many languages,
the words of African and native
Cuban Indian tribes,
and all the dialects of the provinces of Spain.
I even invent my own secret codes,
but the ones taught by birds are the best,
especially when mixed