Somehow, confusion often leads
toward clarity.
GROWTH
Dr. H. stands in front of the botany lab
as we dissect potatoes.
Each “eye” is the bud of a stem
that can grow into an entirely new
separate plant.
You poor city kids,
Dr. H. says with a sigh,
you think strawberries sprout
from those little green boxes
at the supermarket.
Don’t you?
She’s right.
I’ve been away from Cuba’s farms for so long
that I’ve forgotten about soil, roots, shoots,
flowers, fruit, and seeds.
Now I need to start over,
learning all that I knew so well
when I was little.
EVERY BREATH COMES FROM SOMETHING GREEN
The poetry of botanical language
helps me feel hopeful.
Without plants, human life
is impossible—oxygen, not just food,
photosynthesis seems miraculous,
a magical transformation of sunlight,
the chemistry of molecules altered
by radiant rays.
In lab, we slice through plant organs,
then examine tissues under the lens
of a dissecting microscope
so that we can grasp
a clear view of membranes
and cell walls, all the places
where amazing reactions occur.
It’s like peering into the not-so-distant past,
seeing a time when no human tribe survived
without understanding useful plants.
THE KINSHIP OF TREES
On walks around campus
there’s taxonomy,
the relationships between species
found along pathways, all the trees,
shrubs, weeds, and flowering vines
equally fascinating—so many ways
to belong
on earth.
INSPIRATION
Dr. H. is Chinese American, her Japanese surname
the result of a marriage that enrages both their families.
She’s a specialist in the tropical ferns of Costa Rica,
while he’s a researcher studying magnetic fields
in Antarctica.
How easily my botany professor
defies
expectations!
She teaches me tidbits
of commonsense wisdom
that help me feel
prepared for life
on this planet,
as if I’m a creature
that has just arrived
from outer space.
Mangoes are related to poison oak,
so that’s why the delicious fruit’s peel
leaves a rash on my lips.
The sticky pollen of colorful blossoms
rarely causes hay fever, because those flowers
are pollinated by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees. . . .
Windborne pollen grains
are the real culprits,
rising from blooms
we barely notice,
the greenish flowers
of grasses and ragweed.
But the most important fact I absorb
during a thrilling series of botany lectures
is the history of agriculture, a skill invented
by women, while men were roaming
far and wide, hunting
or waging war.
Women and girls
were the creative gatherers
who harvested seeds,
then experimented
by planting.
Trying something new
came so naturally
to nomads who were always
hungry.
AN URGENT CAUSE
A green world.
Healthy seeds
in fertile soil.
Food for billions
of hungry strangers.
More and more billions
every few decades.
Desertification.
Trees are disappearing
dry regions spreading
geography changing
and once the trees
vanish
rainfall
decreases
the climate
is altered.
No way
to turn back.
I FIND MY FUTURE AT THE LIBRARY
Leafing through thick college catalogs
I choose a polytechnic university
and a major:
Agronomy.
Crop production.
This time, I won’t give up.
I need to learn how to help feed the hungry
with roots, shoots, seeds, fruit,
and perseverance.
TRANSFER
The names of the classes
sound like a poem of plant growth—
vegetable production, irrigated pastures,
range management, weed identification,
cereal production, and just for fun—equitation,
riding horses!
But it won’t be easy.
I’m one of the first two female
agronomy students
on this campus
and the only Latina.
I need student loans
and help from my parents,
as well as a job on the college farm crew,
hoeing weeds because the professors think
women shouldn’t operate heavy equipment.
I can put up with their old-fashioned ideas
if it means having a chance to break
this glass ceiling.
POETRY REDISCOVERS ME
Once I know what I want to do with my life,
words, verses, and rhythms
return!
I start scribbling poems, and soon
I’m reading a slim bilingual volume
by Tomás Rivera—Y no se lo tragó
la tierra/And the Earth
Did Not Swallow Him.
I love the way verse and prose
Spanish and English
childhood
and growing
are all interwoven
Rivera’s book is unique and familiar
at the same time, like an ocean wave
approaching from a distant island
where I existed long before I became
an adult.
Enchanted Earth
1973
PERSISTENCE
So much has changed.
Poetry miraculously returned
to my lonely soul, and sometimes
I’m almost
actually brave.
I’ve volunteered with a Quaker project
in an earthquake-ravaged village
on the high plateau of central Mexico.
I’ve wandered through Guatemala alone,
and joined a Sierra Club expedition
to study a wild mountain
in Montana.
I’ve spoken about farmworker rights
to a room full of the hostile sons
of farm owners.
Most of all, I’ve studied
and learned
without dropping out
when college life
grows confusing. . . .
And along the way
two separated halves
of my mind have floated
a little bit closer together
now that Abuelita, my grandma,
is a refugee in the US,
merciful asylum granted,
her Freedom Flight to Spain
just a detour on her way
to making our divided family
whole
again.
WHILE THE EARTH SPINS
Introduction
to Arthropods.
It’s a class about insects, spiders,
centipedes, millipedes, crustaceans,
and other invertebrates
with segmented bodies
and hard exoskeletons
outside their soft flesh
instead of within.
The eccentric professor
decides to experiment
by leaving the room
and instructing us
to figure things out
on our own.
Even though I’ve read the chapter
about insect mouth parts, I don’t know
what to say in a small discussion group,
so instead
I listen
to travel stories
told by a handsome veteran
who was lucky enough to be stationed
in Oklahoma, instead of Vietnam.
He recently returned from a whole year
of wandering
all over the world,
from Portugal, Spain, and Morocco
to Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India, Thailand, Singapore. . . .
A loyal dog named Flo
follows Curtis
from class to class.
I imagine that anyone
who is so patient and gentle
with a trusting animal
must be honest and kind
I’m right.
EACH YEAR IS ONE SWIFT JOURNEY ALL THE WAY AROUND THE DISTANT SUN
Over the next few years
while we finish college
and graduate school,
we become best friends,
then eventually more. . . .
Our lives turn into
a love story.
Hope follows
wherever
we go.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I never imagined there could be another time as turbulent as the 1960s. The Vietnam War, which seemed to last forever, should have served as a warning against the quagmires of twenty-first century, US-led conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. American high school students today have never known a single minute when their country was not at war. Peace, civil rights, freedom of expression, environmental causes, and all the other goals of my generation’s protests are once again under threat. Defending those rights and freedoms is necessary, but protests sometimes grow violent, and when they do, it’s confusing.
College is hard work, even in quieter times. Distractions and discouragement are common. Chaos and other challenges such as homesickness, hostile relationships, substance abuse, family pressures, or financial hardships can lead to dismay, even depression. More than half of all college students drop out.
Community college saved me. The classes were small enough for personal interaction with professors who loved to teach. Fees were low, giving me time to experiment by studying different subjects until I found one I truly loved. I wrote Soaring Earth because I hope that high school and middle school students who are already dreaming of college might realize that it’s fine to follow any one of a variety of pathways. Big, famous campuses aren’t the only ones that can offer an inspiring education. All that matters is choosing a place to start, and then persevering. I ended up working as an agronomist, botanist, and water conservation specialist, as well as a poet, novelist, and journalist. I have been married to the handsome guy with the dog for forty years, and I still feel like hope follows wherever love goes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank God for hope.
I’m grateful to Curtis, Flo, and the rest of our family for love.
For my thrilling role as the national 2017–2019 Young People’s Poet Laureate, profound thanks to the Poetry Foundation. For ongoing encouragement, I’m grateful to Jennifer Crow, Kristene Scolefield, and the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children’s Literature. For help with a phoenetic depiction of Hindi phrases, I am thankful to Gauri Manglik, Jaskaranjit Singh, and Kristi Miller. Thanks also to Mila Rianto, Sandra Ríos Balderrama, Angelica Carpenter, Joan Schoettler, and Ann Caruthers. As always, I’m deeply grateful to my agent, Michelle Humphrey, and to my editor, Reka Simonsen, and the entire publishing team at Atheneum.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margarita Engle is the national Young People’s Poet Laureate and the first Latino to receive that honor. She is a Cuban American author of many verse novels, including The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor book, and The Lightning Dreamer, a PEN Literary Award for Young Adult Literature winner. Her verse memoir Enchanted Air received the Pura Belpré Author Award and was a Walter Honor Book, Younger Readers Category, and 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.
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Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster, New York
ALSO BY MARGARITA ENGLE
Enchanted Air:
Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir
Aire encantado:
Dos culturas, dos alas: una memoria
Jazz Owls:
A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots
Forest World
Lion Island:
Cuba’s Warrior of Words
Silver People:
Voices from the Panama Canal
The Lightning Dreamer:
Cuba’s Greatest Abolitionist
The Wild Book
Hurricane Dancers:
The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck
The Firefly Letters:
A Suffragette’s Journey to Cuba
Tropical Secrets:
Holocaust Refugees in Cuba
The Surrender Tree:
Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom
The Poet Slave of Cuba:
A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This work is a memoir. It reflects the author’s present recollections of her experiences over a period of years. Certain names (or first initials) have been changed.
Text copyright © 2019 by Margarita Engle
Illustrations and hand-lettering copyright © 2019 by Edel Rodriguez
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Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover
Jacket illustration and hand-lettering copyright © 2019 by Edel Rodriguez
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Engle, Margarita, author.
Title: Soaring earth : a companion memoir to Enchanted Air / Margarita Engle.
Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018003603 | ISBN 9781534429536 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781534429550 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Engle, Margarita—Juvenile literature. | Cuban Americans—Biography—Juvenile literature. | Women authors, American—20th century—Biography—Juvenile literature.
Classification: LCC PS3555.N4254 Z46 2019 | DDC 811/
.54 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003603