Silver People Read online

  or onto a university campus to visit

  his Time Lab, in the museum

  where he studied the skeletons

  of extinct giant lizards, woolly

  mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers

  that seemed so alive.

  There was a Spirit Lab too,

  with pickled creatures floating

  in green glass jars, like liquid

  ghosts,

  and a mysterious building

  that Papa called the Maze

  of Lost Scientists,

  where specialists peered

  into microscopes, each one working

  year after year until he knew more

  than anyone else on earth

  about a particular species

  of orchid, spider, centipede,

  or worm. The specialists

  were jokingly nicknamed

  Flower Man, Dr. Tarantula,

  Lord Centipede, or Mr. Maggot.

  By Mateo’s age, I was already known

  as Bird Boy, a student of feathers

  and topography—an odd mapmaking term

  adopted by naturalists to describe the study

  of bird anatomy, as if wings

  might turn out to be landscapes

  that invite

  exploration.

  Geological engineering was my grandpa’s

  idea, a practical course of study, leading

  to steady work. But now, each and every

  glorious, hot, sweaty Sunday afternoon,

  I am once again Bird Boy, a grown man

  kept young and hopeful

  by venturing far and wide

  to investigate

  the unknown.

  MATEO

  WINGED ART

  Augusto shows me how he paints

  swift portraits

  of wings

  in a bright sky,

  as flocks of brilliant birds soar

  past his window

  like dreams . . .

  If only I could be free to fly

  on paper

  all week,

  turning each day

  into an expedition

  of the curious mind

  and observant eye.

  But Mondays are workdays.

  Bend. Heave. Lift. Grunt. Ache.

  Sigh.

  ANITA

  ALMOST INVISIBLE

  When Mateo tells me about his Sunday job,

  I sneak into the gold zone, the best place

  for selling remedies that cure loneliness

  to the homesick wives

  of American engineers.

  I glance up at Augusto’s window

  and see Mateo painting on canvas,

  just like a real artist. Suddenly, life

  seems as changeable

  as a clearwing butterfly

  that appears green when it rests

  on a leaf, brown on a twig,

  or blue in a cloudless sky.

  I imagine I must be changing too,

  but when those clear wings are your own,

  it’s impossible to detect all the hidden

  mysterious details.

  MATEO

  COMPLETELY MAGNIFICENT

  Augusto gives me art supplies

  and lessons, so that I can paint

  every amazing creature I see:

  a slow-moving

  boa constrictor,

  two swiftly sprinting whiptail lizards,

  and all the gigantic rodents that graze

  on gold-zone lawns—cat-size agoutis

  and dog-size capybaras, none of them

  afraid to be captured

  by my paintbrush.

  Anita is thrilled to accompany us

  each time we pack up our supplies

  and go out exploring for iridescent

  hummingbirds and resplendent

  green quetzal birds with impossibly

  long, shimmering tails that make us

  wonder if we are dreaming.

  ANITA

  MY GARDEN OF CURES

  Climbing

  heals me.

  Treetops

  soothe me.

  Mysteries like army ants and bullet ants

  threaten me.

  High in the leafy layers

  of my forest mother’s canopy,

  my body seems as slow and awkward

  as a grinning sloth’s, but my mind

  feels

  winged

  as I dodge small dangers, listening

  to the trees and birds, while far below,

  Mateo paints.

  THE HOWLER MONKEYS

  FOOD

  WE LOVE LEAVES

  WE LIKE FRUIT

  WE EAT

  ALL DAY

  WE HOWL

  AT SUNSET

  WE DREAM

  ALL NIGHT

  NO MORE NOISE

  UNTIL DAWN

  THE RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD

  MIGRATION

  Returning from north to south

  I cross

  the wide sea

  alone

  never resting

  above waves waves waves

  and then this green land

  of winter warmth

  my exhaustion complete

  until I find

  the sweet flowers

  this nectar

  my life.

  THE ARMY ANTS

  TOGETHER

  we move in droves hordes masses

  we line up and march

  we eat every creature in our path

  living or dead

  we strip the meat off all the bones

  we eat muscle sinew fat

  we march until nothing is left

  but our movement

  we march march march

  falling into water

  making bridges

  of our bodies

  so the rest of us can march march march

  and eat eat eat

  THE BULLET ANT

  SOLITARY

  I move through leaves

  alone

  it takes only

  one sting

  to keep me safe

  from mouths

  that eat

  and feet

  that crush

  I live

  with fear

  and power—

  my sting

  THE TREES

  WILDERNESS

  We are fewer

  than before,

  but each of us

  is just as alive

  as ever,

  our leaves

  hungry for sunlight,

  our roots thirsty

  for rain,

  our fruit and seeds carried far

  by flying birds and roaming animals

  so that young trees can sprout and grow,

  our shared forest once again spreading

  like music.

  MATEO

  ANOTHER YEAR

  Seasons of rain, mud, dust,

  raging sun,

  furious fevers.

  This heat of burning muscles

  and blazing fears,

  the harsh heat

  of sheer weariness,

  as I slice my way deeper and deeper

  into the fiery loss

  of time.

  I am not old yet, but at fifteen,

  I no longer

  feel young.

  HENRY

  CRATE TOWN

  So much of the silver I earn

  goes right back to the Americans

  as payment for my cot in the barracks

  and payment for those shameful, no-taste,

  stand-up-in-mud,

  spiceless meals.

  Even though I always manage to send

  a bit of silver home to Momma, it’s never

  enough to feel as though I still belong

  to a real real family.

  All around me, hundr
eds of Jamaicans move

  out of the barracks, into the jungle,

  where they sleep in shacks made from empty

  dynamite crates, and buy rice and beans

  in Silver Town, and cook over campfires,

  just so they can eat sitting down,

  feeling human.

  MATEO

  PRECARIOUS

  Augusto calls Henry’s crate town

  un precario, because the shacks

  can be swept away by floods,

  or flared away

  by cooking flames,

  or smashed by policemen

  when they rampage, searching

  for runaways.

  I long to move too—

  out of the barracks

  and into the wild jungle—but it means

  hiking all the way to a labor train

  each morning and all the way back

  from the train each evening—

  hiking, hiking,

  no matter how weary

  the feet, no matter how weary

  the heart.

  So I try it, and soon I discover

  that I can never willingly return

  to the dangers of sharing

  a small, crowded barracks-car

  with anarchists.

  I prefer the dangers of wilderness.

  Crocodiles, serpents, and jaguars

  are not nearly as frightening

  as angry men.

  On Sundays, Henry and I buy food

  for the week, so that after work,

  we can cook out in the open, adding

  as many hot peppers as we want,

  along with a sample of Anita’s

  saffron, ginger, and cinnamon.

  Then we sit

  together,

  medium-dark

  and dark-dark,

  as if

  the bizarre

  Canal Zone rules

  did not

  matter.

  AUGUSTO

  OMINOUS NEWS

  Chief Engineer Stevens

  has abruptly resigned,

  discouraged by rain, mud, fever,

  and landslides, and by islanders

  who are moving out to the jungle

  by the thousands, so that they

  show up for work only

  half the time.

  President Roosevelt has already

  appointed a replacement.

  The new chief is an Army man

  who threatens to run the canal

  like a war against

  nature.

  GEORGE W. GOETHALS

  from the United States of America

  Chief Engineer, Panama Canal

  Chairman, Isthmian Canal Commission

  ONE-MAN RULE

  Roosevelt insisted that I take this crazy job,

  so I made him sign an executive order

  that I wrote myself, giving me full control

  of every aspect of Canal Zone life:

  Labor. Housing. Hospitals. All of it

  is mine. I’m the only judge and jury,

  and the only Constitution, and because

  we’re far beyond U.S. borders,

  there won’t be any need

  for a Bill of Rights.

  I’ve already outlawed labor unions

  for American steam-shovel drivers,

  and if the gold men don’t like it,

  they can bring their complaints

  directly to me. Face to face.

  Man to man. No go-betweens.

  No negotiations.

  I’ve set a digging quota too.

  Three million cubic yards of dirt

  each month. Under Stevens, the workers

  dug only a fraction of that

  in two years.

  I’m a military man, so this will be

  my personal war against mud.

  I expect a complete and absolute

  victory.

  JACKSON SMITH

  from the United States of America

  Manager, Department of Labor, Quarters,

  and Subsistence

  HOUSING

  Goethals runs the war against mud,

  but I control houses and barracks.

  That’s why all the workers call me

  Square Foot Smith, because I give

  every white American gold man

  one square foot of housing

  for every dollar he’s earned

  per month on the job.

  When reporters ask me

  about conditions for silver men,

  I explain that the dark races

  are ignorant—they prefer to live

  in boxcars or out in the jungle, so

  there’s no point giving them

  extra clothes

  or dry blankets.

  They would just get

  everything

  dirty.

  MATEO

  THE BRAIN WAGON

  Nights in the makeshift crate town

  feel like a crazy escape.

  Along with my treasured Sundays,

  freedom-crazed living helps me feel

  stronger. I love exploring the forest

  with Augusto, who teaches me to sketch

  birds, frogs, butterflies,

  and Anita, smiling

  beneath her basket

  of magic.

  Mondays always feel unreal,

  with Goethals patrolling the pit

  in a yellow electric train car

  that he calls his Brain Wagon.

  From its safety, he studies our danger,

  then makes his warlike decisions

  about mud.

  HENRY

  MONKEY HILL

  The war against mud

  belongs to Goethals,

  but the wounds

  and the losses

  are ours.

  Layers of rock tumble,

  sheets of sludge slide,

  and the mule-drawn

  death wagon

  rolls back and forth,

  delivering islanders

  to a hilltop graveyard,

  where howlers, way up

  in the green green trees,

  shriek and moan

  like lonely

  phantoms.

  MATEO

  THE HOSPITAL

  Malaria strikes me

  like a fist of flame.

  Heat, chills, shivers,

  and half-awake

  fever dreams.

  When I slump down at work,

  I’m carried away from the mud

  in a mule-drawn ambulance

  and then lifted onto a train

  that whisks me away

  to a sweaty cot

  in the silver ward,

  where I gulp foul-tasting medicine:

  bitter quinine, my only

  hope.

  ANITA

  HEALING

  I hover close to Mateo’s cot.

  Finding him here, so sick and so weak,

  is a shock, even though I sell herbs

  in this dismally dreary hospital

  often enough to see much worse.

  The hospital is divided into sections.

  Silver men. Gold men. Women.

  There is a ward for uncurables too,

  desolate yellow-fever patients who are

  quarantined behind screens, so that if

  a stray mosquito bites one, it can’t

  get out and bite a healthy

  doctor or nurse to pass on

  the dreaded disease.

  I make sure Mateo doesn’t swallow

  too much quinine, the brewed bark

  of a cinchona tree, the only cure

  for malaria. Without the bitter remedy,

  his liver and kidneys would fail.

  He would die . . .

  But too much quinine

  can leave a malaria patient

  blind, or deaf, or both,

&nb
sp; like the helpless beggars

  who haunt Bottle Alley.

  Mateo doesn’t

  recognize me.

  His fever-melted mind

  seems as lost as the heart

  of a traveler

  who strays

  too far

  from any

  known trail.

  MATEO

  REALITY?

  A nurse with the smile

  of the herb girl, but wiser,

  a grownup . . .

  or is she just one more illusion,

  a feverish

  wish dream?

  If only I could tell

  the difference between daylight

  and night dreams.

  ANITA

  PATIENCE

  The silver ward is hideous.