POETRY IS A DANCE of words on the page. These poems are a story about the summer I learned how to twirl and leap on paper. It was the summer when I met a famous poet and a family of musical elephants. Until then, all I could do was wish like a caged songbird wordless wistful wishful . . . SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA ~ 1947 ~ MUSICAL ELEPHANTS ARE LIKE mountains with windy whispers, the sea when it roars or chants a lullaby, tree branches that clack like maracas, and every animal that opens its mouth to howl, bark, or chant about the freedom to walk, walk, walk, rejoicing in the sheer joy of touching green earth with rhythmic feet and dancing minds. ONE DAY I'm rhythmically walking, walking, walking, with various creatures on comically tangled leashes, when we reach the garden of a cozy-looking house right across from the high school, and there, kneeling as if in prayer is a stranger. She's old, but her face looks strong. I wonder if my own dark eyebrows are as winged as hers ready to rise and fly like feathers. Pleased to meet you, I say in English. She glances up. This is my giant wolfhound Flora and my miniature goat Fauna, but the piglets and ducklings are just temporary patients from our veterinary clinic where my parents are the doctors and I'm almost a sort of eleven-year-old nurse because I feed, clean, pet, cuddle, walk, walk, walk, and sometimes I even help with unusual animal sat a wildlife zoo-ranch where adventurous movies are often filmed. I'm going to be a healer one day . . . My voice trails away when I see her frown and glance down at her notebook and realize-- I have disturbed her. I DON'T BELONG HERE The stranger studies me. What is she thinking? Is she wise? Could we be friends? I wonder whether I've said too much, made too many mistakes in inglés. I wonder . . . Would this woman care if I told her about the girls at school who make fun of me for being small brownish chubby with curly black hair barely tamed by a long braid? Would she care that the girls at school call me zoo beast when my clean clothes smell a bit like animals? Would she care that the boys call me ugly stupid tongue-tied because my accent gets stronger when I'm nervous, like when the teacher forces me to read out loud? I wonder. IF ONLY THE WRITER could speak my true language. She does! Te gusta la poesía, she says, telling me that I like poetry Her español is rhythmic like a song, slower than mine, and fancier, with words that sound like they belong in a book, which is what she says she's writing-- a volume of verses. Voy a adivinar, she says--I'm going to guess. Vienes para aprender a escribir la poesía. You've come to learn how to write poetry. Should I answer honestly? I simply shrug, embarrassed to admit that I came for many reasons, to see who she is and what she's doing, and because I'm lonely. PERHAPS SHE CAN SEE inside my heart. Because she doesn't tell me to leave, just says I will teach you like I haven't bothered her at all, like it's no big deal I'm here. I tell her my classmates say I ask too many questions. Ay, no, she insists--no importa, she will teach me a bit about writing. Poetry is like a planet, she says, each word spins orbits twirls and radiates reflected starlight. If you want to write, you have to observe movements, and absorb stillness. She smiles, and reaches to pat Flora's huge head, which only encourages my sloppy dog to lick her hand, while Fauna just does what goats always do, nibbles on the edges of the notebook, and the hem of la poeta's dress, and a button on her blouse. I pull all the animals away before they can start eating her hair. ME ENCANTAN TODAS LAS BESTIECITAS I love all animals, the poetry teacher says. I smile, because animals are my family's whole life, now that my grandma is gone. I wonder if the poetry teacher would like to see my parents' clinic after my poetry lesson. Do you write in English or in Spanish? I ask. I tell her I've been trying to practice English for school, but Spanish feels like home. Una mezcla, la poeta suggests, let us mix our languages together like emotions that swirl and blend in a pot of paint, azul y rojo becoming purple, amarillo y azul turning to green. LANGUAGE IS A MYSTERY After a whole year in California, español is still the only way of speaking that feels completely natural to me, letters like ñ and rr hidden inside my island-mind where words are so much more alive than in my incomplete immigration-mouth. The poet switches to inglés just to help me--but animals don't recognize my effort to make senseof letters like a y that sounds like my ll and an h that is not silent and a k that does not even exist in Spanish--sotodas las bestiecitas begin to bark, bleat, quack, and grunt a humorous animal opera so ridiculous and endearing that for the first time since Abuelita's funeral, I actually chuckle and laugh out loud--a genuine carcajada, a guffaw! How wondrous it feels to remember that laughter has no language, and can cross any boundary line, even the wavy ones between species. Excerpted from Singing with Elephants by Margarita Engle All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
