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Manman
My birth brought your death

your blood a lavalas in rainy season.

Papa buried the placenta with orange seeds and watered them with tears.

Papa told me you were a Mother Tree and your great-grandmother was a princess,
from the first people who named us
Ayiti,
the Land of Mountains.
She fell in love with a mawon,
a runaway who hid in caves and climbed mountains to freedom,
then returned with his princess to fight the French.

Papa does his best
      to hide the ashes in his heart.
 

He makes tables, chairs,
cedar coffins to sell in his shop.

Your older sister, Tante Lila,
never married.

She moved in with us.

When she braids my hair it’s always too tight.
The dresses she sews hang loose on my body,
as thin as a gazelle.

Whatever she cooks always needs salt.
Not like Cousin Phebus,
whose food makes our tongues dance.

Tante Lila prays the rosary every day,
scolds me when I climb my favorite mapou,
the sacred tree.
      So I keep
      our secret.

      How in the forest
      when I touch the trees—
      barks grainy, knotted,
      or peeled slick smooth—
    
      I see shapes in the wood
      calling me to carve them.
      I feel the heartbeat of their roots
      pulse through my bare feet.

      The trees sing to me.

      Inside each one
      of them

      a tiny spark

      of

      you.
 
PART ONE
LAKAY
 
Friendliness and Understanding
August 15, 1934
Hinche, Haiti

Statement from the Secretary of State:
In the nearly twenty years during which our marine and naval forces have been stationed in Haiti they have rendered invaluable, disinterested service to the Haitian Government and the people. At this present moment they are withdrawing from the island in an atmosphere of great friendliness and the best of understanding. We wish for the Government and people of Haiti stability, progress and all success.

When the section chief finishes reading to us,
gathered in the muggy heat,
no one says a word.

Was he expecting applause?

They say the section chief—
at first respected,
now detested—
helped sòlda Ameriken yo kill Caco resisters steal our land and force us like slaves to build roads.

“Friendliness and understanding? Hmph.”
The air is thick with resentment and relief.
Surely things will be better now.
 
For the first time in my fourteen years,
I see the Haitian flag raised from its lower position at half-mast,
and the drapo Ameriken an,
always higher till now,
lowered, folded,
and taken away.

My Friend Fifina
I’ll never forget the first time I saw her when the school year started.
In the courtyard        of the Mission School
I sat                               apart from the others drawing a bird in red earth with a twig from Mapou.

“That’s beautiful.”

Her voice arrived first,
warm honey and butter.

I looked up and saw skin the color of glowing dark walnut her soft cheve swa a silky braid down her back.

A marabou,
those we consider the most beautiful.

“I’m Fifina.”
 
I stood up, wiped my hands on my skirt.

“I’m Lucille.”

We walked back to the classroom

inside me

a sunrise.

Trust
At the Bassin Zim waterfall,
where Papa taught me to swim in the rivière Samana

and dive in underwater caves,
the light-jeweled water caresses the cliff.

I teach Fifina to swim,
first holding her as she floats on her back her black hair fanning out like angel wings.

When I sense her body relax,
trust the water,
I let go.
 
Listen
Fifina and I perch high like birds on Mapou’s branches for hours.

I press my ear against the side stripes of Mapou’s bark,
Fifina next to me.

“Don’t you hear anything?”

Her mouth rises in a smile,
but she never laughs at me

never makes me feel my head’s not on straight

never says that I look like a boy.

“I don’t hear anything,”
says Fifina.

“If I told you
Mapou sings to me,
what would you think?”

“I’d think you’re lucky!
Tell me what you hear,”
she says.

“I hear a woman’s voice singing,
and when I close my eyes,


behind my eyelids
I see flashing lights,
like bird wings fluttering in the sun.

“It doesn’t make sense until I fall asleep.
Then they all come together in my dreams. I used to try and draw them,
but now I want to carve,
like Papa.”

Fifina holds my hand and squeezes it.

“You have a gift.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“I promise.”

That makes me smile,
our secret to keep.

Our feet swing free from Mapou’s branches.

We talk of what shape our lives will be when we start our own school where girls will learn more than we do at the Mission School.
 
We’ll make our own book,
with her mother’s leaf-medicine recipes and my drawings of the plants.

We’ll teach girls how to carve, sew, draw, climb trees.
We’ll teach girls the songs of trees, flowers, birds, butterflies,
the sun, moon, mountains, clouds.

Mapou listens to our dreams falling like gentle rain on her leaves.

When it’s time to go home we climb down           carefully
Mapou’s branch in my hand to chase away snakes.

Mine
Each mapou is special,
a resting place reposwa

for the ones before us still with us,
ever since our land born from fire stood up high from the sea to make mountains behind mountains.
 
Those who serve the spirits say they know exactly what makes mapou trees sacred.

“Trees are God’s creation,
but He made them mute,”
says Sister Gilberte when I tell her about my Mapou.

“The Church or the spirits,
you can’t serve them both.”

To stay in school,
I keep my silence.

Still,
Mapou sings to me.