Singing with Elephants Read online

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2022

  Copyright © 2022 by Margarita Engle

  “Animals”/“Animales” in The Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, printed with permission granted by University of New Mexico Press.

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  Viking & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Ebook ISBN 9780593206713

  Cover art © 2022 by Oriol Vidal

  Cover design by Jessica Jenkins

  Edited by Liza Kaplan

  Design by Monique Sterling, adapted for ebook by Andrew Wheatley

  This is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Poetry Is a Dance

  Musical Elephants Are Like

  One Day

  I Don’t Belong Here

  If Only the Writer

  Perhaps She Can See

  Me Encantan Todas Las Bestiecitas

  Language Is a Mystery

  Child of the Ark

  My Wishing Window

  We Moved to California

  The Only Good Luck

  Confession

  Gratitude

  Choices

  The Daily Dictionary

  Today, La Poeta

  Poetry from Animals

  Memories Follow Me

  At Least It’s Summer Now

  Each Time I Visit the Poet

  Gifts

  Half a Gift

  Cruelty

  Kindness

  Some Days Feel Stormy

  Window Wishes

  Skills I Have Not Perfected Yet

  ¡A Bailar!/To Dance!

  Conversation with an Old Poet

  Conversation with Myself

  Some People Have Families Made of Companions

  Waves of Wishes

  Conversation with My Parents

  Conversation with My Teenage Sister

  Wondering

  Reassurance

  Impatience

  Between Sky and Earth

  Metaphors

  Similes Are Different

  Astonishing Words

  The Shade Beneath Trees

  My Island of Whistling Bird-Walkers

  When Wishes Grow

  Everything Begins to Make Sense

  La Poeta Famosa

  Excitement

  Not Completely Bilingual Yet

  The Library Is a Forest

  Conversation with a Librarian

  Invitation

  Instructions for Meeting a Pregnant Elephant

  Elephant Anatomy

  All Sorts of Poop

  When Elephants Sing

  Changes

  My Tiny Bilingual Poema for Gabriela Mistral

  Will My Verses Ever Be Powerful?

  Breath

  The Scent of a Captive Elephant

  The Elephant’s Eye

  Entranced

  The Future Is a Question Mark

  The Present Is Winged

  Elephants Hear with Their Feet

  Voices

  When I Set My Musical Memories Free

  The Poet’s Stories Are Riddles

  My Stories Are Never Finished . . .

  Elephant Serenade

  Singer

  Observer

  Listener

  Why?

  How to Raise an Elephant Baby

  Eager

  Wordless

  A Fable About an Elephant’s Secret

  Shadowy

  Treetops

  Ode to My Poetry Teacher

  Mystery

  Tragedy

  Xenophobia

  The Poet’s Suitcase

  Wave After Wave

  Angry

  Out Loud

  After a Tragedy

  Ronda

  An Elephant Baby Will Be Born Today!

  Spying

  An Elephant’s Ordeal

  Natural Wonders

  Suspicious

  Elephant Needs

  Shut Up, Creep

  Dreams of Humming

  Familia and Other Questions

  No One Is Home

  Twin Elephants

  Where to Next

  No

  The Names of Pairs

  Trouble

  Refuge

  Conversation with an Elephant Family

  Catastrophe

  Thief

  Guilt

  Singing Our Sorrows

  Grief

  Size

  Starlight

  Kindness to Animals

  Blaze

  Libraries Aren’t Always Perfectly Quiet

  Letters

  Not Enough Practice

  Comforting a Heartbroken Mother and Brother

  Movement

  A Dog’s Nose

  Everything Is Hidden

  Discovery

  Liar

  Conversation with Carlitos

  I’m Too Stunned to Speak

  Carlitos Explains

  Search and Rescue

  Isolation

  Imprisoned

  Friends?

  Laughter Is an Open Gate

  Singing Session with a Canine

  Planning Session with Humans

  Planning Session with Elephants

  How to Write a Petition for Justice

  Petition from a Family

  The First Signatures

  The Next Signatures

  What If?

  Slow Progress

  Neighborhoods

  Friendship

  Belonging

  At the End of Each Day

  Children and Animals Belong Together

  In Praise of Humming

  Elephant Intelligence

  Floating

  Back on Earth

  Resonance

  Answers Arrive

  An Entire Lifetime

  The House of Blaze

  Out Loud

  Next

  Together

  Protest March

  We Round a Corner

  Singing with Elephants

  When Elephants Dance

  Delivery

  My Voice

  Front P
age

  Perseverance

  The Poet Packs Her Suitcase

  My Future Is Blurry

  Reunited

  Audience

  Celebration

  New Beginnings

  Author’s Note

  Gabriela Mistral’s Poetry for Children

  Further Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For teachers

  and future teachers

  with gratitude, admiration, and hope

  POETRY IS A DANCE

  of words on the page.

  These poems are a story

  about the summer

  I learned

  how to twirl

  and leap

  on paper.

  It was the summer when I met a famous poet

  and a family of musical elephants.

  Until then, all I could do was wish

  like a caged songbird

  wordless

  wistful

  wishful . . .

  SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA

  — 1947 —

  MUSICAL ELEPHANTS ARE LIKE

  mountains with windy whispers,

  the sea when it roars or chants a lullaby,

  tree branches that clack like maracas,

  and every animal that opens its mouth

  to howl, bark, or chant

  about the freedom

  to walk, walk, walk,

  rejoicing in the sheer joy

  of touching

  green earth

  with rhythmic feet

  and dancing

  minds.

  ONE DAY

  I’m rhythmically walking, walking, walking,

  with various creatures on comically tangled

  leashes, when we reach the garden of a cozy-looking house

  right across from the high school, and there, kneeling

  as if in prayer

  is a stranger.

  She’s old, but her face looks strong.

  I wonder if my own dark eyebrows

  are as winged as hers

  ready to rise

  and fly

  like feathers.

  Pleased to meet you, I say in English.

  She glances up.

  This is my giant wolfhound Flora

  and my miniature goat Fauna, but the piglets

  and ducklings are just temporary patients

  from our veterinary clinic

  where my parents are the doctors

  and I’m almost a sort of eleven-year-old nurse

  because I feed, clean, pet, cuddle, walk, walk, walk,

  and sometimes I even help with unusual animals

  at a wildlife zoo-ranch

  where adventurous movies

  are often filmed.

  I’m going to be a healer one day . . .

  My voice

  trails away

  when I see her frown

  and glance down at her notebook

  and realize—

  I have disturbed her.

  I DON’T BELONG HERE

  The stranger studies me.

  What is she thinking?

  Is she wise?

  Could we be friends?

  I wonder

  whether

  I’ve said

  too much,

  made

  too many

  mistakes

  in inglés.

  I wonder . . .

  Would this woman care

  if I told her

  about the girls at school

  who make fun

  of me for being

  small

  brownish

  chubby

  with curly black hair barely tamed

  by a long braid?

  Would she care that the girls at school

  call me

  zoo beast

  when my clean clothes

  smell a bit like animals?

  Would she care that the boys call me

  ugly

  stupid

  tongue-tied

  because my accent gets stronger

  when I’m nervous, like when

  the teacher forces me to read

  out loud?

  I wonder.

  IF ONLY THE WRITER

  could speak my true language.

  She does!

  Te gusta la poesía, she says,

  telling me that I like poetry

  Her español is rhythmic like a song,

  slower than mine, and fancier,

  with words that sound like they

  belong in a book, which is what

  she says she’s writing—

  a volume of verses.

  Voy a adivinar, she says—I’m going to guess.

  Vienes para aprender a escribir la poesía.

  You’ve come to learn how to write poetry.

  Should I answer honestly?

  I simply shrug, embarrassed to admit

  that I came for many reasons,

  to see who

  she is

  and what

  she’s doing,

  and because I’m

  lonely.

  PERHAPS SHE CAN SEE

  inside my heart.

  Because she doesn’t tell me to leave,

  just says

  I will teach you

  like I haven’t bothered her at all,

  like it’s no big deal I’m here.

  I tell her my classmates say

  I ask too many questions.

  Ay, no, she insists—no importa,

  she will teach me a bit about writing.

  Poetry is like a planet, she says,

  each word spins

  orbits

  twirls

  and radiates

  reflected

  starlight.

  If you want to write, you have to observe

  movements, and absorb

  stillness.

  She smiles, and reaches to pat Flora’s

  huge head, which only encourages my sloppy dog

  to lick her hand, while Fauna just does what goats

  always do, nibbles on the edges of the notebook,

  and the hem of la poeta’s dress, and a button

  on her blouse.

  I pull all the animals away

  before they can start eating her hair.

  ME ENCANTAN TODAS LAS BESTIECITAS

  I love all animals,

  the poetry teacher says.

  I smile, because animals

  are my family’s whole life,

  now that my grandma

  is gone.

  I wonder if the poetry teacher

  would like to see my parents’ clinic

  after my poetry lesson.

  Do you write in English or in Spanish?

  I ask.

  I tell her I’ve been trying to

  practice English for school,

  but Spanish feels like home.

  Una mezcla, la poeta suggests,

  let us mix our languages together

  like emotions that swirl and blend

  in a pot of paint, azul y rojo

  becoming purple, amarillo y azul

  turning to green.

  LANGUAGE IS A MYSTERY

  After a whole year in California,

  español is still the only way of speaking

  that feels completely natural to me,

  letters like ñ and rr

  hidden inside my island-mind

  where words are so much more alive

  than in my incomplete

  i
mmigration-mouth.

  The poet switches to inglés

  just to help me—but animals

  don’t recognize my effort

  to make sense

  of letters like a y

  that sounds like my ll

  and an h that is not silent

  and a k that does not even exist

  in Spanish—so todas las bestiecitas

  begin to bark, bleat, quack, and grunt

  a humorous animal opera

  so ridiculous and endearing that for the first time

  since Abuelita’s funeral, I actually chuckle

  and laugh out loud—a genuine

  carcajada, a guffaw!

  How wondrous it feels

  to remember that laughter

  has no language, and can cross

  any boundary line,

  even the wavy ones

  between species.

  CHILD OF THE ARK

  Each time I leave our clinic-house

  with assorted creatures on leashes,

  my big sister, Catalina, says I look

  like a refugee from Noah’s Ark.

  I call her Cat, and she calls me Olivia—

  a mythical saint who never

  actually existed; but Abuelita loved to imagine

  that she was a real woman who carried

  an olive branch for peace—

  but to everyone else, I’m Oriol.

  My bird name

  musical and sweet,

  is one I chose

  for myself, long ago in Cuba,

  when

  I knew who I was

  and how

  to speak.

  MY WISHING WINDOW

  Now, here in this foreign country

  with Abuelita above me in Heaven,

  all I have left that belonged to her

  is a little blue glass statuette

  a figurine

  an elephant

  that sparkles

  like starlight.

  When she gave me el elefante,

  she told me to put it on my windowsill

  where its curved trunk could reach up

  and catch good luck.

  Each morning and evening,

  I whisper my wish to move back

  to Cuba,

  and I wait . . .

  WE MOVED TO CALIFORNIA

  because Abuelita

  needed a specialized diabetes