Silver People Page 6

  Mateo languishes in a gloomy room

  that faces a swamp,

  while gold men in their clean ward

  receive a sea breeze so refreshing

  that nurses call it The Doctor.

  I stay in the despicable hospital

  until I’m certain that Mateo

  is regaining his strength

  and his clarity

  of mind,

  even though it means convincing

  tough American nurses

  to let me break a few silly

  gold-silver rules.

  MATEO

  GOLD NURSES

  The white-winged hats of these women

  comfort me, and so do their stubborn,

  helpful minds. Most of them were hired

  on my home island, where they gained

  their healing experience

  during the war they call Spanish-American,

  even though it was really our war

  for independence from Spain, a Cuban war

  that was seized by the United States

  for its own purposes.

  Now, with the battles long forgotten,

  I listen as gold nurses tell Anita

  their bold opinions about voting rights

  for women—all women, not just gold ones.

  It’s the strangest idea I’ve ever heard,

  but after a wild fever, wild ideas

  seem to make sense.

  ANITA

  INDEPENDENCE

  Suddenly, I understand why Mateo

  was so eager to go off with Augusto,

  even when it meant spending less

  time with me.

  I need time of my own too. Time to listen

  to these nurses. Time to ride with them

  when they invite me to patrol a bridge

  on horseback—a bridge where gold men

  throw goats and chickens down

  into a river where crocodiles

  thrash and writhe, fighting

  for flesh, a cruel entertainment

  for bored men.

  The nurses explain that crocodiles

  soon learn to expect food when they see

  humans. The ugly sport sends reptiles

  swimming upriver, to villages

  where they hunt

  children.

  How often do bored people

  dream up strange games

  without thinking

  of the wild

  consequences?

  So I ride with the nurses,

  and I watch as they shoot rifles

  to scare the cruel gold men

  away.

  GERTRUDE BEEKS

  from the United States of America

  Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation

  REFORMS

  When I worked with Jane Addams at Hull-House,

  I knew we could improve living conditions

  for women, but now President Roosevelt

  has asked me to study the difficult daily lives

  of sixty-five thousand workers—male and female—

  from all over the world. I hardly know

  where to start.

  But I rally my courage, and with hordes

  of reporters in tow, I boldly visit everyone

  from stern Goethals

  and that horrible

  Square Foot Smith

  right down to the poorest,

  most miserable

  islanders.

  Wages. Hours. Sanitation. Recreation.

  Clothing. Food. Every detail

  matters.

  I recommend hot showers for American

  housing, and drying sheds for American

  laundry, and social clubs for American

  women, and good schools for American

  children. I recommend fumigation crews

  to spray mosquito-killing oil on puddles

  and ponds in American gardens.

  Without spray crews, there’s no hope

  of controlling deadly malaria

  and yellow fever.

  But hospitals are my greatest challenge.

  Men are separated, but the women’s area

  is an emotional disaster, with pale ladies

  from Boston and Iowa fuming

  about having to share a ward

  with dark-skinned washerwomen

  from the Bahamas

  and Martinique.

  As soon as Americans arrive in Panama,

  even northerners begin to act

  like southerners.

  But I am not expected to change

  this strange system of racial separation.

  All I can do for silver people is suggest

  to that odious Square Foot Smith

  that he give each laborer a blanket

  to prevent pneumonia and an extra

  shirt so that one can be washed

  and dried while the other

  is worn.

  Lives could be saved

  by something as simple

  as a few

  scraps

  of cloth.

  But I don’t imagine

  that Square Foot Smith

  will care.

  MATEO

  AFTER A FEVER

  Anita is still with me.

  I’m hardly ever alone.

  She brings food, she laughs

  and sings, but even when

  she’s silent,

  the rhythm of her breathing

  sounds musical,

  like a cool breeze of survival

  in this forest of butterflies

  and vultures.

  THE HOWLER MONKEYS

  GHOSTLY

  WE KNOW DEATH

  WE FEAR DEATH

  WE SMELL DEATH

  WE HATE DEATH

  OUR VOICES RISE

  FROM THE TREES

  ABOVE EVERY

  GRAVEYARD

  OF STRANGERS

  OUR VOICES

  CHASE DEATH

  AND STRANGERS

  AWAY

  GO

  GO

  GO

  THE MOSQUITOES

  THIRST

  We drink blood

  We need blood

  We pierce skin

  We swallow

  Blood.

  We fly to blood

  We crawl to blood

  We swim to blood

  We need

  Blood.

  THE VAMPIRE BATS

  HUNGER

  We sleep in caves all day

  leap into dark air at night

  run and bound on the ground

  follow the heat

  of blood

  in veins

  follow the rhythm

  of a sleeper’s

  breath

  our teeth

  shave fur

  clip feathers

  bite skin.

  Any sleeping bird

  beast

  human

  can fill

  our hunger

  as long as

  there is

  the heat

  of blood.

  THE VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS

  SWOOPING

  All evening in the sky

  up and down

  we dart

  to gobble

  mosquitoes

  we swoop to escape

  from the nets

  of human hunters

  who wear our glistening

  colorful feathers

  as decorations

  on their plain

  white hats.

  THE TREES

  IF ONLY

  If we could move swiftly

  we would run

  leap

  fly

  but our only movement

  is growth

  less

  and less

  growth

  after each sunrise

  of dynamite explosions

&nbs
p; and sharpened blades

  of the ruthless

  ax.

  MATEO

  LEARNING

  My thoughts are still scattered

  by weakness, but this recurring fever

  is teaching me to value every breath,

  and the luxury of surviving makes me long

  to ask questions about my silver life . . .

  Why do gold men who fall ill receive

  sick pay, while I get nothing?

  Will I ever be brave enough to run away

  from my contract and risk being arrested

  as a vagrant?

  I don’t want to end up with an iron collar

  clamped around my neck, and an iron ball

  dragged by a chain attached to the collar,

  like those prisoners I sometimes see

  working on the road gang.

  HENRY

  SO LITTLE TO GIVE

  Each time the raging fever

  overcomes Mateo, Anita delivers

  quinine, and I share my food.

  I’d love to offer more, but here

  in this crate town, there’s not much

  to give.

  So I pound on a tree-trunk drum,

  and I sing silly songs to help

  my friend laugh, once he’s

  well enough

  to listen.

  ANITA

  VULNERABLE

  When Mateo

  is finally well enough

  to return to his horrible job,

  I’m alone,

  so I climb a hill that offers

  a spectacular view

  of both oceans.

  Mateo’s illness

  has left me frightened.

  How little it takes to destroy

  the life

  of a person

  or a mountain.

  AUGUSTO

  DEMOTED

  Goethals has just announced

  that he will purge all misfits

  from the gold payroll.

  By misfits he means dark men.

  Black Americans. Panamanians.

  Puerto Ricans. All of us hired

  as exceptions

  to the segregation

  rules.

  That era is over now.

  Suddenly, we are silver men.

  Silver housing.

  Silver food.

  A silver level

  of hope.

  MATEO

  MOVING DAY

  We help Augusto pack,

  borrow a mule, lift crates of books,

  tie bundles of paintings, and carry

  his fragile curiosities—each bone,

  feather, egg, statue, tusk, and horn

  a scientific treasure, yet so strange,

  as if we have filled whole boxes

  with eerie shadows.

  We help move him into a rustic room

  at La Cubana María, the clinic-inn

  where Anita grew up, and where she

  and old María tend their marvelous

  garden of cures.

  Augusto seems comforted as he strolls

  along the pathways, bending over one flower

  after another, to enjoy the variety

  of smells.

  AUGUSTO

  WHEN DOORS CLOSE

  My days of luxury are over,

  but I won’t give in without

  a protest.

  I plan to challenge Goethals face to face,

  man to man, just as the newspapers describe

  when reporters write about his famous

  “open hours,” a time especially designated

  for hearing the grievances

  of ordinary workers.

  So I climb the one thousand steep steps

  of Canal Commission headquarters

  that lead up to an imposing building,

  where I wait in a stuffy hallway,

  along with hundreds of other

  furious,

  grumbling,

  cursing,

  demoted men.

  When my turn to be heard

  finally comes, I’m sent to the office

  of a minor undersecretary

  who does not even pretend

  to listen.

  I should have known

  that Goethals’s “open hours”

  would be open only

  to gold men.

  MATEO

  UNREST

  Rage spreads from demoted men

  to anarchists, and then it spreads

  all the way to gold men. Walkouts.

  Sit-downs. Fistfights. Battles

  with Canal Zone police.

  When gold steam-shovel drivers

  go out on strike, open hours

  don’t do them any good.

  Goethals merely fires them and hires

  new men, strikebreakers shipped in

  from far away.

  Even the gold nurses are threatening

  to strike if Goethals persists in demanding

  that they pay for seamstresses

  to make their new uniforms.

  HENRY

  SKY PONDS

  When I’m suddenly transferred

  to a fumigation crew, I feel

  as though I’ve been delivered

  from misery.

  No more digging. No more mud.

  I receive a ladder and bucket,

  a spray hose, the oil . . .

  Climbing rung by rung, up, up, up,

  to the crowns of tall trees, I begin

  to see how impossible it will be

  to spray every single puddle

  in all of Panama.

  Tiny pools of rain are trapped

  at the bases of orchid leaves

  and other air plants—flowers

  that dangle from high branches,

  their naked roots drinking

  from drifting mist

  instead of soil . . .

  Sky ponds and air plants

  are things I learned about by listening

  to Augusto. Sometimes, science

  seems just as mysterious

  as church.

  There are tadpoles in the sky ponds,

  and mosquito larvae, and bright

  blue frogs. I spray the oil on all

  those creatures, watching them

  vanish beneath a haze

  of rainbow-glazed

  death.

  When lunchtime comes,

  I climb down the ladder

  rung by rung, and then

  I lean that ladder

  against a tree trunk,

  and when a foreman shows me

  where to line up for lunch,

  I see that there aren’t

  any chairs or benches,

  so I slip away

  into the forest,

  and I just keep

  walking

  and walking

  until I’m gone.

  MATEO

  ONE DARING ESCAPE LEADS TO ANOTHER

  After Henry disappears, I accept

  la vieja María’s invitation to move

  out of the crate town, where police

  are on the prowl, seeking

  fugitives.

  La Cubana María Inn is almost

  empty. Big new American hotels

  and hospitals are putting Anita’s

  adopted abuelita out of business,

  but the old woman does not seem

  too worried.

  Instead, she sits down and visits,

  telling tales and asking questions

  about our shared homeland.

  Remembering the island

  makes me wistful.

  I speak of places

  I barely remember.

  Places I visited with Mami,

  before I started hiding

  from Papi.

  A zoo.

  A park.

  A café.

  The beach.
/>
  Now I’m hiding again,

  hiding from the police,

  because I won’t go back

  to that track-moving,

  backbreaking,

  brain-shattering

  culebra, cucaracha,

  serpent, cockroach

  cut, slide

  hell.

  AUGUSTO

  NO ESCAPE

  Perhaps I’m not as brave

  as Henry and Mateo.

  Or maybe it’s just my foolish hope

  that continuing to study and map

  the ever-changing slopes

  of the Serpent Cut

  really might save

  a few lives . . .

  so I ride the labor train

  down into mud, and at the end

  of each workday, I ride it back,

  and on Sundays, at last,