they take wing,
travel on their way.
Such gladness they share.
I’ve known nothing like it
since Alawa
was beside me.
Alis
After breakfast,
Mother opens our shutters
to the morning.
Mrs. Dare sweeps dust
from her open door.
“Elyoner,” Mother calls.
Mrs. Dare stops her broom and steps outside,
shields her eyes from the brightness.
“I meant to tell you sooner.
My Alis is twelve, old enough
to mind your little one as well as mine.”
I thump the mixing bowl
firmly on the table,
scowl at her back,
but Mother doesn’t turn.
Our third day in Virginia,
and I’m already a nursemaid.
“I’ve told Mrs. Viccars and Mrs. Archard the same.
As they organize provisions
once they’re brought ashore,
Alis can watch the boys.
Practice for our babies,” she says.
I hear the smile she surely wears.
Those two creatures
I couldn’t escape on our voyage here?
All they do is tug at things they shouldn’t,
make messes where they don’t belong.
“It will be easier for us
to cook for all the men,”
she tells Mrs. Dare.
“We’ll be freer
to tend the laundry.”
“Mother,” I say,
“I need some air,”
and skip outside
before she can stop me.
If I’m to play nursemaid,
I won’t begin this morning.
Alis
Those weeks crossing,
belowdecks in the musty hold,
I learned
that of 117 journeying to Virginia
in three vessels,
I
was the
only
girl.
Twelve wives dared join their husbands;
many more stayed behind,
waiting for life to be easier in this new world.
Five brave women traveled alone.
Of the three ships,
the women and their families sailed together,
and I was stuck with young Tommy and Ambrose.
On another ship,
the seven older boys traveled freely with their fathers,
surely joking and frolicking all the day,
becoming fast friends,
while I had
no one.
With so many new faces,
I first kept track of noses—
pointed, bulbous, hooked, and pockmarked—
more so than names.
Before setting sail,
most of us were strangers,
but after months crammed together,
I knew who bickered with her husband,
which little one ignored his father’s warnings,
that old Mr. Bailie,
with the lumpy, bumpy nose,
broke wind after mealtimes.
Though Mother held me
when the waves thrashed the ship
and Father’s stories helped me to escape
the stink and dark and loneliness,
I still longed for Joan in London,
remembered her expression
when we last saw each other,
the tears on her cheeks.
I miss you, Joan.
I’m so lonely
for a friend.
Alis
It is good fortune to be part of a family here,
for those with children have settled in cottages.
The rest reside in barracks.
As one of the Governor’s assistants,
Father has secured
a home bordering the square.
Some say the village is a rude establishment:
There are no pipes and fountains
as there are in London,
just water from a stream.
No fish and vegetables appear in market stalls,
just those we trap in swirling waters,
those coaxed from the withered garden.
But I’ll take a bit of extra work
for the forest’s wild beauty,
the open skies as fair trade
for the luxuries we’ve left behind.
I walk as fast as is proper through the settlement,
careful not to draw attention.
Everyone is busy with his own tasks
except the boy who gathered vines.
Alis
Suddenly,
he is next to me,
briskly moving.
I will not address him,
unless he’s the first to speak.
“I saw her, too.”
His words are so surprising,
they mean nothing,
like those fluttering noises
Frenchmen make.
He stops.
His brown eyes pierce mine.
“The girl
in the forest
the day
we arrived.”
The shadow?
Was it the same
half-naked girl?
Did he also see me yesterday
as I picked flowers,
the girl nearby?
Her approach
was as silent as
the figure in the woods.
I never asked permission
to leave the settlement,
and if he was to tell
of my wandering—
“How do you know what I did and didn’t see?”
My voice pounds like Father’s hammer.
The shadow was the girl.
It had to be.
The boy says nothing.
I twist the edge of my apron
about my finger.
The girl,
and now this freckled boy.
Twice now
I’ve been caught
unaware.
My feet quicken;
he matches each step.
“I’m George,” he says.
I turn to him.
He is meddlesome,
impolite.
“How old are you, George?”
“Eleven,” he says.
His face is friendly.
So close to my own age.
Just as I’d longed for
all those months at sea.
But still I’m guarded.
“I know naught of a girl,” I say,
as I wonder where she might be.
George shrugs,
kicks at a shell
as he turns away.
I climb the embankment only
when I’m sure he’s gone.
Alis
It is magic
here,
the trees arched above,
the sun-dappled earth below.
I want to run my hands over roughened bark,
feel the crush of leaves underfoot,
breathe deep the rich fragrance of living things.
How Uncle must have loved this forest.
Alone,
I wander,
at home
with velvet mosses,
beetles scuttling over decayed logs,
the so
unds of a merry stream.
KIMI
I dance her wooden bird
across my fingertips,
perch it on the back of my hand.
The girl is not welcome here.
Her hair,
so colorless,
her eyes,
pale pools of water.
I imagine her
cowering in her village
without her power.
I want to see
her weakness.
She comes
from brutal people,
yet is as loving
with her mother as we are.
Can both things be true?
KIMI
The bird leads me
back to the forest,
where she picked the flowers,
dropped them,
and ran.
I move through the trees,
leaves soft against my feet,
near the place I saw her.
And stop.
For she is there.
Without her protection
she stands before me,
brave.
Alis
She comes,
as if she searches for me.
My thoughts jump
from tree to tree,
imagining all the spaces
an Indian might hide.
KIMI
Alis
Her hair falls to her shoulders,
like drifts of sand.
The hair at her forehead
is like a raven’s wing.
With so many coverings,
the heat must oppress.
There is no shame
in her nakedness.
Why is she unadorned?
Her jewelry is magnificent.
Though my heart quickens,
I step closer.
I’m drawn
toward her.
Closer.
Closer.
Nearer.
I could
touch her.
Face-to-face.
KIMI
Alis
She is no different
without her montoac,
the same faded creature
who this time doesn’t run.
Somehow she has
held on to her strength.
We are the same height,
the only trait we share.
Anger lunges in me like a snake:
Her people killed Wingina.
Her people put Alawa in the grave.
She stands with shoulders back.
She has come
where she’s not welcome.
So curious she is to me.
Her features like a stone.
Her people
have wounded mine.
I do not hide my rage.
“You have brought us sorrow.”
She uses a garbled language.
Her sounds gnash and bite.
What terror is she speaking?
How fearsome she’s become!
She doesn’t understand,
but her face says
I have frightened her,
made her feel my pain.
Like the planting time
follows
the hunting season,
balance
has been
restored.
Alis
Her angry sounds,
I cannot make sense of them.
Are they meant for those in hiding,
signaling when to strike?
I cannot move fast enough,
cannot escape the feeling
of a presence right behind me.
KIMI
How quickly her strength flees!
Did she think I would harm her,
a girl, alone?
I walk to the stream,
stoop to cleanse my feet,
wash off her strangeness
as an outsider does
before entering the village.
Yet I am not the stranger here.
How is it I’m behaving
as though I were the different one?
KIMI
Mother’s fingers
stop their weaving.
“You’ve left your work undone.”
She does not ask
where I have been.
Her silence
fills the space
between us.
Alis
I return to the village,
and in my haste,
slam into a figure,
land firmly on the ground.
A hand reaches for me.
I scramble back like a crab.
“Forgive me, Miss Harvie.
I did not see you.”
Like hers,
his words hold rolling sounds,
their pacing unfamiliar.
Manteo.
Since our arrival,
he’s kept his head uncovered,
his long hair like a horse’s mane.
Above each ear his head is bald,
and he means for it to be this way.
How odd it seems
with his fine clothing,
as peculiar as
the island’s wind-tossed reeds.
But not displeasing.
This time,
when he holds his hand to me,
I let him help me to my feet.
Alis
“There you are!”
Mother moves as fast as she is able,
a basket of laundry held at her side.
“I’ve been searching everywhere.”
She grabs my hand
and pulls me with her
before I can thank Manteo.
“Mrs. Archard will expect you
every morning after breakfast.
You’ll care for the children
only through mid-afternoon.”
I want to stomp my foot,
kick up dust
in an unbecoming way.
Much of my time
I’ll be forced to give away.
Mother stops outside the Archard door.
She tugs at my wrinkled skirt,
clicks her tongue over my dirtied apron.
“I don’t know where you’ve been—
collecting leaves,
chasing some small creature
near the armory—
but it cannot happen again.
Your help is needed here.
Do you understand?”
I nod begrudgingly.
“Good girl.”
She kisses my cheek.
“Now in you go
.”
I knock.
The door swings open.
Mrs. Archard’s words are clipped.
“You were to be here earlier.”
Perhaps she always wears a scowl,
for it’s the only way I’ve seen her.
“Keep them occupied,” she says,
and slams the door behind her.
Alis
Tommy and Ambrose squabble and push.
I am hopeless as a nursemaid.
Alis
I hold the boys’ hands,
lead them to the square
where they might run about,
dig with sticks,
gather shells.
As long as
Ambrose and Tommy stay occupied,
I may stretch my legs,
lean back,
lift my face to the sun.
Tommy scoops a handful of earth,
dumps it on Ambrose’s head.
Both squeal with delight.
It is no bother to me.
If they come to no harm,
they may do as they like.
Blue Birds Page 3