With a Star in My Hand Page 4

  TORMENT

  Unreasonable, that’s what I am,

  just a teenage poet boy,

  unrealistic, greedy, maybe even

  truly mean.

  No one could be more cruel to me

  than I am being to myself.

  Where are all those bossy grown-ups now

  when I suddenly need

  their wisdom?

  NATURE

  I stand at the edge of a blue lake

  alone.

  Above me

  white clouds and herons soar

  toward some great unknown

  heaven . . .

  while down here, doves flutter,

  wings swiftly entering my thoughts, filling me

  with a restlessness

  that somehow

  eventually

  floats

  toward

  peace.

  A DECLARATION OF LOVE

  When I announce my intentions,

  all my older friends laugh, slap me on the back,

  and shake their heads with disbelief.

  Poets, editors, librarians, even senators,

  all share the same disturbing idea that marriage

  is hard work, and must be reserved for mature,

  educated, responsible adults.

  Maybe they’re right, but I won’t soon find out

  because they take up a collection, everyone

  donating coins to buy me a ticket that they say

  will carry me away to another country

  where I’ll have to stay until I’m older

  and calm.

  MISUNDERSTOOD

  Adults think they understand everything,

  while I don’t know if I’ll ever comprehend

  anything.

  If marriage is only meant for grown-ups,

  why do teenagers always feel

  so lovesick?

  Shouldn’t there be some easy way

  to make passion

  patient?

  There is one approach, I suppose,

  by pouring

  all my stormy

  thoughts and feelings

  into poetry. . . .

  A MOB OF GROWN-UPS

  Friends

  pack my bag

  drag me to the port

  push me onto a ship

  and send me away

  from the daydream

  called love.

  EXILE

  From the deck of the ship

  I see a port—La Libertad, El Salvador.

  Now that I’m in a foreign country

  where I know no one, what should I do,

  try to make my way back across the border

  toward memories of childhood,

  or stay here and beg strangers

  for help?

  I DARE MYSELF

  Courage

  is a challenge.

  So I’ll meet it.

  I must—I will!

  Believing that I was an orphan

  for so many years before learning the truth

  about my devious parents

  has made me accustomed

  to expecting rejection,

  but now—instead of

  allowing myself

  to feel only fear,

  I claim a blaze

  of confidence

  as strong as one

  of El Bocón’s

  bold stories.

  Yes, I seize the bravest action I can think of,

  relying on my imagination for guidance.

  Courageously, I step off the ship

  and find an office where I can send

  a courteous telegram

  to the powerful president

  of El Salvador.

  I call myself the Poet Boy

  of Central America,

  using fame as a bridge

  between nations.

  UNEXPECTED SUCCESS

  The answer comes quickly.

  A hearty welcome, and an invitation.

  A driver.

  A coach.

  Horses.

  Soon I’m on my way

  to the capital city’s

  best hotel, with fine meals,

  dazzling opera singers,

  and a chance to visit

  the presidential palace.

  Apparently my reputation as el niño poeta

  extends far beyond the borders of Nicaragua.

  MEETING ANOTHER POWERFUL MAN

  Surrounded by guards,

  I can’t admit that I’m heartsick,

  love-torn, homesick, lonely . . .

  so we speak of verses, the president expressing

  his admiration for my poetry.

  Then he asks: ¿Qué deseas?

  What do you wish?

  This surprising question makes me hesitant.

  I long to tell the truth about the green-eyed girl

  and my dream of immediate marriage,

  but I fear the same reaction I encountered before

  among poets and senators—insulting laughter.

  So what should a poet boy request?

  Una buena posición social, I venture timidly,

  imagining that “a good social position” will change

  adult minds about everything else, because wealth

  is so often mistaken for wisdom.

  A GIFT OF RICHES

  Long-haired and skinny,

  I return to the fancy hotel

  with five hundred silver coins,

  a present from the president.

  I feel as fortunate and overwhelmed

  as a poor shepherd boy in a fairy tale,

  but in those stories there is always a set

  of three impossible tasks.

  So what will the president demand

  in return—verses in his honor?

  What if I fail?

  This isn’t a magical world.

  The tests will be challenges

  to my character, not spells

  cast by witches.

  WASTED WEALTH

  I fail so swiftly!

  How easy it is to spend,

  when plenty of local poets flock to greet me,

  and I meet so many other friendly people,

  the hotel such an easy place to celebrate

  by ordering fancy food and drinks for all.

  Ever since I learned that Uncle Manuel

  is really my father, I’ve wondered whether I will

  turn out to be a drunkard too.

  Apparently I already am.

  Too much rum, all the money gone,

  raucous fights,

  wild behavior,

  until I find myself

  evicted,

  escorted

  out the door

  by a stern

  police chief.

  PUNISHMENT

  Instead of the good social position

  I wished for, suddenly I’m a prisoner.

  The angry police chief

  delivers me to a school

  where he informs me

  that by order

  of the president

  of El Salvador,

  I must stay off the streets

  and serve my sentence

  by teaching grammar.

  Estoy perdido.

  I’m lost.

  For how long will I have to recite

  memorized rules, instead of writing

  my own free truths?

  THE STUDENTS ARE MY OWN AGE

  What can I teach

  that won’t put them to sleep?

  We work on irregular verbs, conjugations,

  and punctuation, until finally I make up my mind

  to experiment.

  First, I try hypnosis,

  an entertainment I learned

  at the circus.

  Next comes love letters, because of course

  nothing else fascinates boys my age more

  than girls, and nothing pleases a young girl<
br />
  more than verses, especially

  when the poems

  are framed

  within formal

  gardens of prose.

  Learning grammar is easy for students

  who treasure an amorous goal.

  TRULY A PRISON

  Some schools only seem to have walls,

  but here

  the director never allows me to leave

  for nine

  entire months.

  IN PRAISE OF FREEDOM

  Time passes as slowly

  as all the centuries of history,

  but love letters are perfected,

  and students receive glowing grades.

  When the president hears reports

  of my success as a teacher, he invites me

  to write an elegant poem for a centennial celebration

  in honor of Simón Bolívar, courageous liberator

  of most of the Américas.

  Second chances are rare blessings,

  and I know that if I fail, I might end up

  teaching grammar forever, so I make

  an honest effort to praise liberty,

  wrapping my rhymes and rhythms

  in a veil of hope as peaceful

  as blue sky

  and blue sea.

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIBERTY

  The Bolívar centennial

  means temporary liberation

  from my prison, the school.

  A dramatic recitation, then a fiesta,

  such a wonderful party, where once again

  I fall in love with a girl

  my own age.

  I set a table with a dinner

  for invisible guests—Homer,

  Pindar, and Virgil

  from the ancient world,

  and Cervantes, the author

  of Don Quixote.

  Then I offer a toast to each,

  until I’m so drunk that I might as well be

  a knight on a horse, challenging a windmill

  to a duel, as if it were truly a giant with enormous

  spinning

  swords. . . .

  I AM MY OWN PRISONER

  Oh, why did I drink so much,

  wasting precious freedom

  and condemning myself

  to adult disapproval?

  Falling in love

  made me foolish.

  Toasting dead poets

  led to drunkenness.

  Now I’ll have to face

  the fury

  of a president,

  but first . . .

  SMALLPOX

  Oozing sores, pain, fear. . . .

  Horror of scars, probably blindness,

  the possibility of death. . . .

  Passionate letters are set aside

  half-finished.

  By the time this unforeseen ordeal is finally over,

  I find it impossible to believe that I ever craved

  wealth, praise, or fame, when clearly

  all that matters in life

  are love

  and health,

  two treasures worthy

  of celebration.

  THE MATHEMATICS OF ANGER

  Powerful men can do anything they want,

  even when it means listening to gossip.

  Rumors of wild celebrations are all it takes

  for el presidente to send me away, back

  to my own nation, the famous Poet Boy

  shamed,

  disgraced.

  I’ve been abandoned by two parents,

  hated by two presidents, and banished twice

  just to keep me separated

  from girls

  who love

  verses.

  So my rage at authority doubles,

  and my devotion

  to rebellious poetry

  multiplies.

  WAITING TO GROW UP

  Apparently while I was gone,

  my death from smallpox was announced

  in the newspaper, so when I reappear,

  Bernarda and all my family and friends

  are so relieved that they forgive

  the rumors of my scandalous

  behavior.

  By now, Nicaragua has a new president

  who grants me a dull secretarial job

  that allows plenty of free time

  for writing poems and stories.

  What is there to say about feeling suspended

  between childhood and maturity?

  Each day is a road of dreams

  leading toward my future—adult liberty.

  LOVELESS IN MY OWN HOMELAND

  On warm nights, I lie down

  on a wooden dock beside the lake,

  free to stargaze while I listen

  to the music of rhythmic waves.

  Daydreams and wishes,

  hikes up steep volcanic slopes,

  afternoons bird-watching,

  evenings observing

  turtles, monkeys,

  fishermen, farmers,

  and crocodile hunters.

  What next?

  Will I always spend

  all my hours alone,

  collecting visions, words,

  rhythms, and melodies

  for my solitary

  whirlwind

  of verses?

  WRITING, WRITING, WRITING

  I’m lonely, so I pass the time by practicing

  imitations of French styles, Cuban ones,

  and those of ancient Greeks.

  In one poem, I mimic the verses

  of fifteen different classical Spanish poets,

  and I do it so expertly that every critic

  can identify the masters I’ve chosen

  as my long-dead guides.

  I memorize dictionaries, both Spanish and Galician.

  Then I translate French poems, and those written

  by Miskito people from the Caribbean coast,

  their native language a treasure to me,

  not an embarrassment, the way so many

  arrogant poets who only appreciate Europe

  might assume.

  BARS

  Drinking

  too much

  jumbles

  my verses.

  Will I ever learn

  to control

  this

  curse?

  The poems I scribble

  when I’m drunk

  just sound like foolish

  self-pity.

  WHEN I’M SOBER

  Terza rima, hendecasyllabic,

  a style of three-lined stanzas

  where each middle line rhymes

  with the first and third lines

  of the next tercet.

  No poetic form is too complex.

  I am determined to always claim

  freedom

  for experimentation . . .

  but I still love wildly shaped verses too,

  and imaginative stories told in prose,

  with hurricanes of words

  about the world,

  not just my own

  explosive

  emotions.

  WANDERLUST

  Months pass, then years.

  Life is restful, but soon enough

  I begin to imagine adventures.

  A new start, far away, perhaps even

  the United States . . .

  it’s the country that produced William Walker,

  a madman who tried to conquer Nicaragua,

  but it’s also the birthplace of so many poets:

  Emerson

  Whitman

  Poe. . . .

  Ever since my mother left me

  in that cattle pasture, I’ve felt like a wanderer,

  homeless.

  Now I dream of roaming in a new way,

  voluntarily, instead of by abandonment.

  FINALLY

  For a poet born in poverty,

  the most likely way to have a
book published

  is by order of the government.

  Now, it’s happened, the president of Nicaragua

  has decided to support me, so a volume

  of my verses

  will be printed,

  almost

  a miracle!

  THE SOUL OF A POEM

  All my older friends tell me

  that as soon as my book is printed,

  I must forget the distant United States

  and sail in the opposite direction, to Chile,

  the wealthiest nation of Latin America,

  where every poet is published in Spanish.

  The life of a verse, they insist, is found

  in its original language, no matter how universal

  the emotions.

  Only a truly brilliant translator

  can carry the glowing heart of a poem

  from one word to another.

  I am like a fish, my friends assure me

  that can never be safely moved

  from a freshwater tropical river

  to any salty northern sea.

  THE EDGE OF THE EARTH

  I’m practically an adult now,

  but when I think of distance

  I feel small.

  Chile lies at the southernmost tip

  of South America,

  thousands of miles away, reached only