But Mateo’s arrest is absurd.
He’s accused of being a kicker journalist,
one of the rebellious writers of articles
about the canal’s engineering troubles
and labor troubles, landslides, fevers,
failures, protests.
I know for a fact that Mateo did not write
those pamphlets.
I saw the words in Gallego, Catalán.
Languages from Spain.
Regional dialects that no islander knows.
So I take all my money
to the police, and I pay a hefty bribe,
adding a few threats just to terrify
the officers, who fear the secret magic
of women with poisonous
native herbs.
MATEO
RELEASED
I don’t know why the police let me go,
but once I’m back in the boxcar,
I see that three men
are still missing,
while the others fume with rage,
whispering about the real reason
for our arrest
and interrogation—
from the president
of the United States.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
from the United States of America
President and Commander in Chief
MAKING DIRT FLY
No president has ever left American soil
while in office, but Chief Engineer Stevens
complains that the morale of laborers
is at an all-time low, so I’ve decided
to visit the Serpent Cut.
This trip will make history.
Tourists from all over the world
are already perched on the rim
of the pit, peering down
with opera glasses, as I pose
at the controls of a ninety-five-ton
Bucyrus steam shovel, a machine
so massive that newspaper photos
will inspire confidence in America’s
power.
All around me, workers with shovels
are making the mud fly, the white
Americans supervising while black
islanders dig, on hillsides
so steep
and unstable
that it would be a real
waste to risk wrecking
valuable
machines.
HENRY
THE VIEW FROM BELOW
All those fancy fancy tourists
way up there on the rim of the pit
must be staring down at us
and thinking
that we look
as tiny
as rows
and rows
of scurrying
ants.
The American president
on his smoky steam shovel
must look like a knight
riding a dragon.
ANITA
UNNATURAL
Roosevelt’s visit brings tourists rushing
into my forest, searching for adventure,
but they don’t buy herbs; all they want
is hats—white hats like the American president’s,
hats woven in Ecuador, hats that tourists
insist on calling Panamá hats. Don’t they
understand that Latin America
has many countries?
Tourist ladies want dead birds fastened
to their hats—whole birds, not just a few
stray feathers dropped by living birds,
like the ones I wear on my necklace.
Tourist ladies walk around with orioles
on their hats, hummingbirds, egrets,
even owls. Can’t they feel the ghostly
bird eyes staring down
from the tops of their heads?
The tourists ask for whole collections
of rare butterflies for their children—
wild butterflies, caught and pinned,
not just a few drifting wings,
like the ones I find after migrations.
And they want skins. Jaguar. Puma. Snake.
And crocodile teeth, peccary tusks,
fossil shark teeth from the Serpent Cut.
Anything sharp, so they can pretend
they know danger.
Monkey hands are the most popular
souvenir. All over Silver Town, vendors
get rich by hunting, then chopping off,
the hairy fingers.
When I gaze up at the trees, I see
the frightened howlers and I hear
the fading songs of doomed birds.
THE HOWLER MONKEYS
HUNTERS
WE DREAD
STENCH
NOISE
SMOKE
GUNS
WE HURL OUR WASTE
DOWN
BUT HUNTERS
DON’T FLEE
SO WE LEAP
TO A NEW TREE
WE GO
GO
GO
GO
THE GIANT HISSING COCKROACHES
SURPRISE
we dart
hiss
fly
we startle
any snake
that tries
to eat
our giant
wings
THE CROCODILES
PATIENCE
We wait
All day
All night
Resting
Between
Mossy
Logs
Always
Ready
For
Any
Passing
Canoe
Or
Thirsty
Tourist.
A JAGUAR
A TRUE HUNTER’S SILENCE
THE TREES
SHATTERED
When a steam shovel rolls
over
our roots
we sigh
but only the wind
and rain
seem to hear
as we slow
our growth
of twigs
and leaves
while we struggle to repair
our roots
our roots.
MATEO
DRY SEASON
Heat rages and dust slides,
leaving spidery cracks
in the hard
red soil.
Towering trees are chopped down
to build more and more railroad tracks,
more gold houses, silver barracks,
and fancy hotels, so that tourists
can stare down in elegant safety
from the high, sturdy rim
of our danger. As they watch
our dusty muscles, can they see
our weary dreams?
Impossible. Impossible. Impossible.
How can such a monstrous ditch
ever be finished?
HENRY
TRANSLATION
We give up the payday fights. We feel
like brothers.
Mateo teaches me Spanish,
and I guide him through English,
and together, we start to feel
as if we just don’t know anything.
Each palabra of español is so flowery
and roundabout. Why can’t words
simply sound like their meanings, like
“blunt blunt” and “clear clear”?
A few weeks ago, I never would have
imagined that Mateo and I could share
any hopes or wishes,
but landslides
and languages
change everything.
Now all we crave
is victory
in our shared
struggle
to understand
anything.
MATEO
WORDLESS
One vowel can turn into a thousand and one
different sounds.
On workdays, Henry and I have to talk
with our hands, waving signals across
the dry-season dust.
He is always far below, digging dirt
to load the spoil trains that can only haul
their ponderous burden uphill
after we’ve finished our slow task
of moving these railroad tracks
down,
down,
down toward the Jamaican crew’s
eerie zone
of unimaginable
danger.
AUGUSTO
from the island of Puerto Rico
SCIENCE
Understanding tricky soil has turned me
into a desperate man,
constantly anxious,
eager to save lives
like the lives of those two funny boys
who wave strong arms
the way golden frogs wave tiny legs—
sending signals across all barriers
of distance, language,
and segregation.
One misplaced dynamite blast
and this whole dusty Cucaracha slide
will roll like new snow
off a slanted
upstate New York roof.
When I moved to the U.S. mainland,
it was meant to be for just a few years,
but I stayed on in New York to study
for a doctorate in geology, learning
fragments of other natural sciences
along the way. Those Panama Craze
recruiters really knew what they were doing
when they convinced me
that simply because my island homeland
is a possession of the United States,
I can be paid in gold, like a white
American,
instead of silver,
like other islanders
from independent nations.
Now I have plenty of money, but all I feel
is shame
for the segregation
and fear
for all the laborers
my maps
are expected to protect.
How can I predict landslides?
Mud and dust aren’t the same as rock,
with its solid crystals and rigid
behavior.
Mud and dust love to mix, churn, and roll,
like flooded rivers or human
thoughts.
Mud and dust almost have
personalities. They seem to be alive.
Like scoundrels. True villains.
Enemies.
MATEO
THE MAP MAN
At lunchtime, a puertorriqueño sketches
with his charcoal pencil while I peer
over his shoulder, wondering why
he chooses to sit on our
hard, hot train tracks
when he could be resting
in a shady dining tent,
enjoying gold food
and cool comfort.
When I ask, he admits that he misses
mixing languages. Then he rapidly
switches back and forth between
English y español as he shows me how
to sketch birds in flight—dazzling flocks
of green parrots, scarlet macaws,
rainbow toucans, yellow orioles,
and purple-throated fruitcrows,
all passing high above us, as if
culebras y cucarachas—serpents
and cockroaches—did not exist.
Augusto draws portraits of me up close
and of Henry off in the distance, waving,
and he sketches the coiled snakes,
giant roaches, and fluttering clouds
of colorful butterflies as they land
on dry dust, tasting the red earth
as they search
for nutritious salts.
Augusto writes an English name
on each butterfly portrait:
clearwing, swordtail, daggerwing,
swallowtail, owl.
He explains that this last kind
has huge owl-eye designs
on its wide brown wings,
fake eyes for tricking hungry jays
into thinking that they are the ones
in danger
of getting gobbled.
I am fascinated by the way
this map man
mixes two languages
and the way he mixes
science
and art.
When a coatimundi scurries
onto the train tracks, begging for crumbs
from our lunches, Augusto quickly sketches
the lively animal’s pointy face
and long, jaunty tail. Coatis are cute,
but I keep my distance. Sharp teeth
are perilous. Augusto calls them
ice picks. Since I’ve never touched ice,
I have to guess how the coldness
of frozen water might feel . . .
Henry should see this, I tell myself
as I study the clever map man’s expert
artwork.
But as usual, Henry is far below,
shoveling and suffering, ankle-deep
in red dust, then motionless as he gazes
up at us while he eats his angry,
no-place-to-sit, mushy lunch.
So, in order to tell him about it later,
I memorize these new English words
I’ve learned today: Daggerwing.
Ice pick. Artwork.
Artwork, because until I saw Augusto’s
confident way of sketching, I did not realize
that my uncertain, timid way
is not art. All I’ve ever accomplished
with my tensely held, self-conscious pencil
is a stiff imitation of rigid objects,
not this free-spirited, midair magic.
AUGUSTO
AN ASSISTANT
I’ve needed help for a long time,
someone to carry my art supplies
on Sunday expeditions, and dust off
all the books in my house, and organize
bones, feathers, statues, and seashells
in my curiosity cabinets.
But we’re allowed to hire
silver servants only if they have special
permission to work in the gold zone.
So I help Mateo obtain papers. He’s listed
as a Spaniard, even though his voice
sounds so Caribbean.
He seems eager to earn a bit of extra cash
on free Sundays, and I plan to help him
develop his natural skill. He sketches
like a child, but his talent
is enormous.
MATEO
BEYOND FENCES
Until now, I’ve seen gold houses only
from a distance, along the edges
of separate gold American towns
where policemen on horseback
chase silver men away
if we try to watch
gold ball games
or gather bananas
and mangoes
from gold gardens.
As Augusto’s new helper, I can walk
right into his fancy clubhouse, where
gold men sit reading under ceiling fans
that spin like enchanted dragonflies,
cooling the afternoon air.
The houses of married gold men
are huge, but even the small rooms
reserved for bachelors like Augusto
feel spacious and peaceful
compared to crowded boxcars.
Dusting all the strange marvels
in the map man’s curiosity cabinets
; helps me feel like an adventurer
instead of a servant. Horns. Tusks.
Sun-bleached bones. Stone figurines
of birds and frogs, carved by tribesmen
who lived on the Serpent Cut
just a few years ago,
when it was still a forested
mountain.
How swiftly things change—a few short
days ago, I could never have guessed
that I would ever be willing to give up
even one treasured minute with Anita,
but now, on Sundays when Augusto
takes me exploring
out in the wilderness,
I feel certain
that I was born to
learn.
Maybe the map man will let Anita
come with us. She could help him
find rare treasures
that only a local
would know.
AUGUSTO
THE MUSEUM OF MEMORY
Young Mateo’s fascination
with expeditions
and curiosity cabinets
reminds me how I marveled
when my father took me camping
Silver People Page 4