Forest World

by Margarita Engle

The distorted man’s bulging bug eyes

  seem to be admiring the camera,

  instead of his beautiful novia.

  But she’s gazing at him.

  Why?

  Nothing

  EDVER

  During the minute we waste staring

  at Mom’s boyfriend,

  NEW PAPILIO

  has already been shared

  by scientists on three continents.

  So I quickly click delete.

  Gone.

  Extinct.

  No more fake species

  of beautiful rare butterfly.

  My sister’s message hurtles back in time

  to that moment a few minutes ago,

  before our tricky words existed.

  But not really, because they’ve already

  been shared, and probably printed,

  spreading across the world

  like polluted air.

  Forget it, I tell Luza,

  this was a waste,

  she’s not coming, Mom doesn’t care,

  we’re on our own,

  there’s no way to distract

  a brilliant person from her own stupidity

  once she gets her imagination filled up

  with nonsense.

  Mom and I must be the reason

  people invented

  the phrase

  one-track mind.

  Each of us can be narrow enough

  to follow a railway, trail, or road

  straight into a crash

  without noticing

  danger.

  Everything

  LUZA

  As soon as the words I typed are gone,

  my brother and I return to the way we felt

  about each other right after meeting.

  Neither enemies nor friends, just two lives

  that can never be truly close, because of the sea

  in between.

  We’re like insects, bats, and birds,

  all just as thoroughly winged,

  even though they evolved separately.

  Edver could have given my trick a chance,

  but he’s selfish, so what else can I send

  to tempt Mamá?

  Photos of sculptures—but no, I don’t have

  a camera, and anyway, I can imagine

  that my mother might be horrified if she saw

  all my muddy self-portraits decorated with trash,

  a throwaway girl, her creation,

  not mine.

  Blame

  EDVER

  Luza storms outdoors to play fútbol

  with her friends, the soccer ball hurtling

  away from her forehead

  like a bullet.

  No te preocupes,

  Yavi’s great-grandma says,

  creaking up out of her rocking chair

  to follow me outdoors,

  where she drapes

  a strand of beads

  around my neck.

  The beads are seeds.

  She names them:

  Fortuna. Luck.

  Flor de amor. Flower of love.

  Mal de ojo. Evil eye.

  I thank her and touch each bead,

  noticing that luck is big and glossy,

  while the flower of love is small and light

  with bracts that open like petals,

  but evil eye is dark and shiny,

  a night creature

  creeping.

  I don’t want to keep

  this eerie necklace,

  but if I throw seeds away,

  won’t they sprout and grow

  into blessings

  or curses,

  rooted?

  Separate

  LUZA

  I let my brother find his own way home

  while I play fútbol until I’m exhausted,

  all the rage burned away and charred

  into ashes of sadness.

  Walking home alone feels right,

  until the chuckle of a tocororo bird

  helps me laugh at myself, his array

  of red, white, blue, and green feathers

  so cheerful that it’s easy to forget

  how impossible

  it is for his species

  to survive in captivity.

  If you try to cage un tocororo

  all you’ll end up with is a memory

  of lost wings.

  Later

  EDVER

  Stuck in the same house as my angry sister,

  I avoid her by helping Abuelo identify bugs,

  beetles, glittering as brightly as jewels.

  Some are striped purple and green, others

  pale yellow and deep red, but my favorite

  is a species that is almost always silver,

  until an occasional gold one is found.

  Maybe gold is a mutation,

  or just an oddity

  created by climate change.

  Imagine what a terrific

  evolutionary advantage

  that one gold beetle would have,

  camouflaged in a thicket

  of yellow flowering shrubs,

  protected from predators

  by pretending to be

  invisible.

  Mom always talks about biodiversity,

  but I hardly ever listen carefully enough

  to think about what she really means.

  Now, my mind scrambles all over

  the possibilities, picturing variety,

  flora and fauna, humans, too,

  so many variations,

  a world of amazement

  that shrinks each time a forest

  vanishes, each tree such a wealth

  of species that live on branches,

  inside wood, down in leaf litter,

  scurrying through shade,

  gobbling fruit, swallowing seeds,

  growing. . . .

  Abuelo’s room starts to feel like a museum.

  There are stuffed birds here too, not just

  pinned beetles.

  There’s an ivory-billed woodpecker

  that has only been extinct in Cuba

  for thirty years.

  Mom was one of the last people to see it alive,

  pecking at the bark of a palm tree above her head,

  when she was little.

  This bird might turn out to be a Lazarus species!

  Someone—maybe me—could rediscover it,

  and become famous as a wildlife conservation

  superhero!

  But there’s a brilliant Cuban macaw, too,

  extinct since the 1850s, and Abuelo says

  I’m more likely to discover a living dragon

  than a bird that hungry people ate

  because it was big, and women plucked

  because bright feathers looked pretty

  when used as fluttering decorations

  for fancy hats, a bird that lost its habitat

  when forests were chopped down

  to plant sugarcane.

  That’s all it takes to wipe out a species.

  Just a few ordinary people making a string

  of greedy

  decisions.

  Silenced

  LUZA

  The extinct Cuban macaw was mostly

  a red bird, with a sun-hued splash of gold

  on the back of its neck, green-blue wings,

  and a purple fringe on the rump. . . .

  Yes, that intelligent species, Ara tricolor,

  just might have been the most beautiful bird,

  and now it’s gone.

  Forever.

  Abuelo’s tears look like stars

  in a moonless sky, the brightness

  an unimaginable number of light-years

  away.

  On Patrol

  EDVER

  I’ll never go back to that museum room.

  From now on, I want to be out in the forest


  with Dad, riding little Platero

  beside tall Rocinante.

  Even on a small pony, I feel

  big, grande,

  strong,

  a wildlife

  conservation

  superhero

  in training!

  When I go back to Miami in September,

  I’ll start studying hard, learning everything

  I can manage, just to make sure I get into college

  and become a specialist. One of the ologies

  would probably be best: ornithology for birds,

  entomology for insects, herpetology—reptiles,

  mammalogy—mammals, ichthyology—fish . . .

  there’s no end to the variety of animals

  I could rescue from poachers, hunters,

  and other creepy losers.

  In the meantime, if any of those sorts

  of selfish people show up here

  in my family’s forest, I’ll make sure

  I’m ready and waiting, just like Dad

  with his fake gun, only I’ll think up new ways

  to scare bad guys away—I’ll turn it into

  a clever game, roar like a dragon,

  spit out a waterfall

  of flames!

  It’s never too early to start working

  toward a goal, so I throw myself into the effort

  to learn from Dad, following him around

  with lots of questions, writing down

  the answers, and studying everything

  he says, just to prove

  my enthusiasm.

  It works!

  Dad tells me he thinks I’ll be heroic

  someday.

  Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

  LUZA

  Papi seems to prefer Edver,

  but I know it’s just because they’ve never

  had a chance to work together

  like a team.

  With the words NEW PAPILIO deleted,

  I have no way to lure Mamá here,

  so there’s nothing to do but resolver,

  solve problems,

  inventar, invent.

  Otherwise, she and I will never

  know mother-daughter tears, laughter,

  or any more ordinary form

  of teamwork.

  So where do I start?

  What should I make?

  I remember how hard Abuelo worked

  to teach me English, even though he only

  knew what he’d learned in college

  a long time ago, and I was so bored

  that I barely paid attention.

  Now, his patience is exactly

  the kind of perseverance I need,

  but in the meantime, all we do is watch

  our blurry TV, all the telenovelas that bring

  waves of joy and tears.

  Then, during an interruption for news,

  we see a Miami poet reading miraculous verses

  as the US Embassy finally reopens

  right across from our seawall!

  More than half a century of anger

  between enemy countries

  has suddenly been replaced

  by the flow of rhythmic words.

  Will Mamá and I ever

  have our own chance

  to talk to each other

  and make peace?

  Thrills

  EDVER

  Patrolling with Dad, and the renewal

  of diplomatic relations

  are both exciting,

  and so is a baby jutía

  that I find in the forest,

  my chance to rescue one

  little individual

  if not a whole species.

  Suddenly, my entire life is a rush of duties—

  feeding, brushing, cleaning, until after

  a few hardworking weeks,

  the funny creature is able

  to sit on my lap

  and eat from a spoon,

  looking as silly

  as a cross between a beaver

  and a cartoon.

  So I name him Snoopy.

  If Abuelo can have a wiener dog

  called Jutía, then I can name my real jutía

  after a beagle!

  He’s as mischievous as a monkey,

  climbing up to open cupboards

  and empty bags of precious rationed rice,

  sacks of coffee, and tins of homegrown spices—

  saffron, nutmeg, coriander, so that the kitchen

  smells like a mixture of pumpkin pie

  and curry.

  Snoopy helps me laugh out loud

  at least fifty times each day, but he also

  makes me work so hard that I feel

  like a full-time zookeeper,

  superskilled

  and useful!

  When I hoe weeds in the garden,

  Snoopy rides on my shoulder,

  and every time I ride down to the village,

  he’s right there with me, like a little brother.

  Is this the way Mom felt when she took me away?

  Responsible, constantly ready to help?

  Was Luza left behind only because she

  was one year older, able to run around

  instead of clinging?

  That would make sense.

  I could understand anyone’s

  lack of confidence

  in a small

  boat

  on a huge

  ocean.

  I’m glad I don’t remember

  the size

  of those

  waves. . . .

  My Shrinking World

  LUZA

  I used to think life was enormous,

  but now

  it seems tiny and dull.

  My heart is like a frozen zoo,

  the last cells of a vanishing species

  preserved with ice, just in case someday

  there’s a way to bring lost treasures

  back to life.

  Feeling vicious, I show my brother

  a photo album with pictures of Abuela,

  the mother our mamá lost only last year,

  without ever coming back to visit

  even once

  to say good-bye.

  Edver could have met her, if our two countries

  and our divided family had been normal.

  Red, blue, green, yellow, purple,

  all the shimmering colors

  of an extinct Cuban macaw,

  that’s how complicated

  my thoughts seem now,

  inside this private freezer,

  my secret mind.

  Communication

  EDVER

  When two snail mail letters from Mom

  arrive with colorful Fijian stamps, I feel wide,

  then narrow, and in the end, I go back

  to feeling mixed up.

  Nothing but questions.

  How are you and Abuelo,

  your sister, Yoel, the forest?

  Not a single answer.

  No explanations,

  Just an ordinary hurricane

  of Mom-powered

  confusion.

  No return address, no way to respond.

  If I could send my complicated mother

  a simple letter right now,

  what would I say?

  Maybe the first thing I should be asking is

  if that injured bicyclist is completely okay,

  but all I actually want to know is why

  can’t Mom and I both go back and forth

  between two homes,

  our city world

  and this forest?

  What’s the use though—my mother never

  really answers my questions about Cuba.

  She still calls Dad Yoel, as if she wants me

  to think of him as a stranger, not family,

  just a name,

  not a relationship.

  When I
was little,

  the first ten thousand times

  I asked if I had a father,

  she just shrugged.

  Then, when I was big enough to know better,

  she admitted, se quedó, he stayed.

  It’s a phrase every Cuban in Miami

  understands.

  Now, all she ever says is how complicated

  everything is, and how someday

  I’ll understand, when I’m older

  and wiser.

  But she doesn’t seem all that wise either.

  First she abandons Luza,

  then she leaves me

  with babysitters while she travels,

  and now she can’t even offer

  a sensible explanation

  of anything

  that matters.

  So when Snoopy starts chewing up

  that airmail envelope from Fiji, I let him

  just go ahead and destroy it completely.

  Later, while Luza silently reads her letter,

  I pretend I don’t know what she’s doing.

  That way, we can both act like we’re

  still alone in our shared confusion.

  Trying to understand grown-ups

  is one of life’s greatest scientific

  puzzles.

  First Contact

  LUZA

  Descriptions.

  The people, houses, flora, fauna,

  and beaches of Fiji.

  Endemics.

  All the rare Lazarus species of islands.

  Isolation.

  Separation.

  Lo siento, I’m sorry.

  Perdóname, forgive me.

  Por favor, please.

  I feel like a shoreline absorbing

  the first view of an approaching

  tsunami.

  With no return address, I can’t answer,

  but if I could, maybe I’d just send

  an empty envelope.

  It wouldn’t be the first time

  I sought papery vengeance.

  Over the years, I’ve imagined

  mailing nothingness

  to Miami

  over

  and over

  like a migration

  of resentments.

  Now, when my brother asks, I say that Papi

  stayed here to guard our forest, keeping

  evil poachers away.

  But Edver assures me that our mother left

  to do the same thing, except that she tries

  to protect the whole world’s wildlife, not just

  one small jungle refuge.

  Separate, our parents are like two planets

  orbiting the sun, their paths never meeting.

  Together, they could have been

  a heroic team.

  This Brother-Sister Mess