Free The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle Page B

guns, which, I have to admit,
    from a distance look real!

    We catch
cimarrones
with stolen cane knives too,
    all three kinds,
    the tapered, silver-handled ones used by free men,
    with engraved scallop-shell designs,
    and the bone-handled, short, leaflike ones,
    given to children,
    and the fan-shaped, blunt ones,
    used by slaves
    for cutting sugarcane
    to sweeten the chocolate and coffee
    of rich men.
    Rosa

    Secretly, I hide and weep
    when I learn that my owner
    has agreed to loan me
    to the slavehunter,
    who brings his hunter-in-training,
    his son, the boy with dangerous eyes,
    Teniente Muerte,
    Lieutenant Death.
    Rosa

    Spears and stones rain down on us
    from high above
    as we climb rough stairs
    chopped into the wall of a cliff
    somewhere out in the wilderness,
    in a place I have never seen.

    Sharp rocks slice my face and hands.
    I will be useless—without healthy fingers,
    how can I heal wounds
    and fevers?

    When the raid is over, many
cimarrones
are dead.
    I try to escape, but Lieutenant Death forces me
    to watch as he helps his father
    collect the ears
    of runaways.

    Some of the ears come from people
    whose names and faces
    I know.
    Lieutenant Death

    I hate to think
    what my father would say

    if he knew that I am scared
    of dogs, both wild and tame,

    and ghost stories,
    real and imaginary,

    and witches,
    even the little ones,

    and the ears of captives,
    still warm….
    Rosa

    After the raid,
    I tend the wounds
    of slavehunters
    and captives.

    Some look at me with fear,
    others with hope.

    I tend the wounds of a wild dog,
    and the slavehunters’ huge dogs.
    All of them treat me like a nurse,
    not a witch.

    The grateful dogs make me smile,
    even the mean ones, trained to follow the tracks
    of barefoot men.

    They don’t seem to hate
    barefoot girls.

    Hatred must be
    a hard thing to learn.

 
    Â 

    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The Ten Years’ War
        1868–78
    Rosa

    Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves
    of sheltering herbs in a giant forest,

    I forget that I am grown now,
    with daydreams of my own,

    in this place where time
    does not seem to exist
    in the ordinary way,

    and every leaf is a heart-shaped
    moment of peace.
    Rosa

    In the month of October,
    when hurricanes loom,
    a few plantation owners
    burn their fields, and free their slaves,
    declaring independence
    from Spanish rule.

    Slavery all day,
    and then, suddenly, by nightfall—freedom!

    Can it be true,
    as my former owner explains,
    with apologies for all the bad years—

    Can it be true that freedom only exists
    when it is a treasure,
    shared by all?
    Rosa

    Farms and mansions
    are burning!

    Flames turn to smoke—
    the smoke leaps, then fades
    and vanishes…
    making the world
    seem invisible.

    I am one of the few
    free women blessed
    with healing skills.

    Should I fight with weapons,
    or flowers and leaves?

    Each choice leads to another—
    I stand at a crossroads in my mind,
    deciding to serve as a nurse,
    armed with fragrant herbs,
    fighting a wilderness battle, my own private war
    against death.
    Rosa

    Side by side, former owners and freed slaves
    torch the elegant old city of Bayamo.
    A song is written by a horseman,
    a love song about fighting for freedom
    from Spain.
    The song is called
“La Bayamesa,”
    for a woman from the burning city of Bayamo,
    a place so close to my birthplace, my home….

    Soon I am called
La Bayamesa
too,
    as if I have somehow been transformed
    into music, a melody, the rhythm of words….

    I watch the flames, feel the heat,
    inhale the scent of torched sugar
    and scorched coffee….
    I listen to voices,
    burning a song in the smoky sky.

    The old life is gone, my days are new,
    but time is still a mystery
    of wishes, and this sad, confusing fragrance.
    Rosa

    The Spanish Empire refuses to honor
    liberty for any slave who was freed by a rebel,
    so even though the planters
    who used to own us
    no longer want to