The Firefly Letters (7 page)

Ships of stone in a Viking graveyard,

eerie Northern Lights

and golden cloudberries

gathered by little gray men

who guard the barns and cows—

the mysteries of the world are endless.

Once, when I was little,

I wandered away and got lost

in a wooded park

where I saw a forest spirit

playing music on his flute,

and later, after I had been rescued,

I told my father that I had met

the piping god Pan.

That is when my father decided

that I was meant

to be a writer.

He was not pleased.

When I asked my mother

to give me a room of my own

where I could be alone

to read and write poems,

she refused.

Writing was not considered ladylike

in a castle with plenty of room

for pianos and ballet.

The castle where Fredrika

spent her childhood

was haunted.

In the attic, there was a sword

that had beheaded a nobleman

during a war.

There were bloodstained clothes

beside the sword.

None of the servants would climb

up to the attic to fetch boxes or trunks

that had been stored

next to ghosts.

This house where I live

is haunted too.

It was built by slaves

who rebelled, and buried an overseer

inside the walls.

Papá has never been able to find

the skeleton,

but sometimes at night

I hear pitiful moans

and rattling chains.

It is either the ghost

or some poor child

from the slave ships

being driven

to market.

On one of our walks

we stop to rest on a hill

with a view of palm trees

waving in the distance.

Fredrika says she feels

like we have wings, and we are both flying

over the brilliant green earth.

Later, when we walk downhill

into a forest, we find ourselves surrounded

by trees that are slowly being choked

by strangler figs.

The strangler trees have branches

that wrap themselves like long skinny arms

around other trees.

Fredrika sketches sadly

while I wonder

what has happened

to our wings.

Cecilia coughs and gasps,

and I wonder if she needs fresh air,

so I ask Elena's parents to help me find

a simple home out in the countryside

where Cecilia can breathe clean sky

untainted by the smokestacks

of sugar mills.

Beni drives us in a carriage

that scurries over the hills

like a swift insect, or a spider.

Finally, we reach a thatched farmhouse

with a clean-swept earthen floor

and an outdoor kitchen

and the tranquil coziness

of a country home

where the people are poor

but hardworking

and filled with love

for one another.

Our hosts are peasants

from the Canary Islands,

a remote outpost

of volcanic, stony fields and vineyards

off the southern coast of Spain,

not far

from Morocco.

Our beds are hammocks.

The woman is up early

blowing a conch-shell trumpet

to call her husband and sons

in from the fields

for a simple breakfast

of fish, corn, and yams.

All the bowls, spoons, and cups

are made from gourds, the hard, dry fruit

of a calabash tree that grows near the house

along with every other variety of fruit tree

known in the tropics:

mango, sapote, mamey, tamarind,

and half a dozen different types of bananas,

some tiny, and others huge. . . .

It is a garden

of delightful scents

and enchanted flavors . . .

a garden that somehow

helps me revive

the old hope of rediscovering

lost fragments

of Eden.

My sore lungs find no relief

out in this wilderness

of dusty trails,

but I am happy to stay here

so far from the beaches

where ships deliver slaves

and so far from the mills

where vats of sugar

are stirred

like the brew of witches

in stories.

Fredrika plays with the children

who follow us constantly,

pretending that bunches of bananas

are clusters of little yellow chickens

peeking out from beneath

the leafy green wings

of their mother,

the banana tree.

I try to sketch

in Fredrika's notebook,

but my fingers are not accustomed

to copying the loveliness of brilliant flowers

and darting hummingbirds.

When the pencil breaks

I use a splinter of charcoal

from the cooking fire.

I do not care if my sketches

are rough and messy—

drawing pictures on wings of paper

makes me feel like an angel of God

sketching plans for the creation

of an entirely new world,

one without sorrow or pain.

Fredrika tells me that my eyes

are suddenly sparkling with hope.

She gives me a sketchbook

and a pencil of my own.

Suddenly, I feel like an artist

or a magician.