The Red Pencil Read online

  “Amira Bright,” he begins,

  “you came ahead of the dawn,

  before sunlight cracked open the dark.

  Before it could spread thick

  above the tomato garden.”

  Each year, in the days following my birthday,

  my father shares this tale.

  He tells it

  with so much joy.

  “Your mother, she had risen early, Amira,

  to pick the okra. To save it from the day’s heat.”

  Muma says, “The sun, she has a blistering palm.

  If I wake before she does,

  my gathering is easier.”

  I nod. I know.

  Muma keeps the story’s thread strong,

  pulling it

  with hands that dance,

  as she tells more.

  “You came so fast,

  before the day was to break.

  Hurling ahead, quick as the winds.”

  HEARTBEAT

  My birth story:

  Close, close.

  Beating-heart close.

  A story so much a part of me.

  Like my fence-post legs,

  a part of me.

  Like my braids,

  knitted and twisty,

  a part of me.

  Close as my skin, this story is.

  I know every inch,

  from its ear tips to its tail.

  I know its in-between places, too.

  Close as my breathing, this story is.

  Close, close.

  Beating-heart close.

  My birth story.

  OKRA

  My birth story has funny pieces.

  Dando takes pride in telling them.

  Muma adds the silliest bit—the okra.

  “I was gathering

  from the far-off fields

  when you began to press from my insides,

  pushing to be born, Amira.”

  Dando is quick to speak.

  “Your mother,

  arms filled

  with okra shoots, started to run

  toward our hut.”

  Muma always is laughing at this part of the story.

  “I was balancing okra in the folds of my toob,

  and, you, Amira,

  in my belly.

  “But that okra, and you,

  came tumbling from me!”

  Dando says,

  “Muma was a stuffed barrel,

  bobbling across the land,

  okra dropping.”

  Dando wipes the wet from his eyes,

  tears brought on by hard laughing.

  “I called, ‘Stop running, wife!’ ”

  “Did she stop?” I ask,

  already knowing what comes next.

  “Your mother, she never stops her running.”

  Muma says, “I did slow down.”

  Dando and I say,

  “To pick up the okra!”

  Muma huffs.

  All of us, together sing:

  “Not good to waste okra!”

  TWIG

  Dando slips it out from behind him.

  It’s something he knows I will truly love.

  My father has brought me a sturdy twig.

  A new one, sharp at its tip.

  More pointy than the twig I have now.

  He says,

  “For making your sand pictures, Amira Bright.”

  I touch my finger to my gift’s angled end.

  I say,

  “This will be my turning-twelve twig.”

  DITTY

  Leila pouts.

  My little sister

  wants it to be her birthday.

  She wants to trade her tarha

  for my toob.

  “In time,” Muma says.

  “You have only seen four years.

  When you are Amira’s age,

  we will dress you in bright cottons.”

  Leila is disappointed,

  yet she has her own gift for me.

  She sings me a ditty:

  “Your turning-twelve twig—big!

  Your turning-twelve twig—long!

  Your turning-twelve twig—thick!

  Your turning-twelve twig—strong!”

  WAKING THE MOON

  When the moon winks,

  then waves good-bye,

  it is a bad sign.

  A hiding moon is a curse.

  It means

  the worst

  luck is sure to fall.

  If a curtain of clouds

  closes

  on a swelling moon’s smile,

  we have reason to frown.

  That is why we wake the moon.

  Tradition tells us

  to make the waking loud.

  To rouse that moon.

  To scare it out,

  to full sight.

  I grab a pan.

  I beat,

  beat,

  beeeeeat.

  Dando rolls two drums

  to right outside our house.

  To where he thinks

  the moon might appear.

  He smacks at his drum’s taut skin,

  slow at first.

  Then slams!

  Pumps his drums

  in mad-wild pounding.

  Bam-bam!

  Bam-bam!

  Muma has made

  an ox-bell belt for calling the moon.

  She doesn’t wear the belt.

  She waves it.

  Shakes it.

  Rattles its rhythms.

  Leila, she just shouts.

  “Come, moon—out!”

  GLOWING SAYIDDA

  There are nights when the moon

  wastes no time.

  She surrenders to our call.

  Shows her waxing white.

  Stays.

  But sometimes, Sayidda Moon,

  a glowing lady,

  will not cooperate.

  That milk-bellied lady

  refuses to reveal herself.

  When she gets willful,

  I wonder:

  Is she up there laughing

  at our ways?

  Then there are nights like this one

  when that moon is a trickster.

  She peeks,

  then hides,

  forcing us to guess

  if we need

  to keep up

  with the ox bell,

  the drumbeat,

  the shout-out-loud

  call

  that will bring her into view

  until sunrise announces

  night’s farewell.

  LEILA

  Little Leila fought her way into this world.

  She was born on a night

  when the moon had tucked itself

  into the sky’s deepest pockets.

  This was our first knowing

  that my sister would somehow be different.

  With Muma birthing Leila,

  our villagers called for the moon,

  louder than ever.

  They wanted to keep curses away from the baby.

  The thundering of their drums and pans

  pummeled the night’s thick blackness.

  But Sayidda Moon,

  she stayed hidden.

  She couldn’t be summoned,

  no matter how hard we tried.

  This was not good, and Dando knew it.

  So did I.

  Muma, too.

  Dando flung shouts

  and whoops

  toward the sky.

  I helped.

  I hollered.

  I beat Muma’s tin cooking kettle

  with every bit of strength in my small hands.

  Like me, Leila came quickly.

  Muma crouched, and there she was.

  “Birthing Leila was fast, but not easy.

  A beautiful baby, but scrawny,”

  Muma remembers.

  “Sharp elbows,

  pointed kne
es,

  bony heels,

  flat feet,

  and a hard head.”

  Dando always says,

  “Leila, a delicate jewel.”

  OUR BENT BABY

  My sister was born hardly breathing,

  nearly blue.

  Dando swabbed the insides

  of her mouth with two fingers.

  He sucked at her nose holes

  to release the mucous plugs

  that kept air out.

  When Leila took her first breath,

  it was a weak one,

  a soundless cry.

  The first thing I noticed

  were Leila’s bowed legs.

  One of them so misshapen,

  so sickled.

  Half a limb with a tiny foot at the end,

  toes sewn together.

  The other leg, and both Leila’s arms,

  were oddly shaped,

  like pods on a tamarind tree.

  My sister’s spine was bent.

  A crooked,

  hooked back

  on a baby.

  None of this ever mattered to any of us.

  When Leila was born,

  Muma held her gently.

  Dando embraced them both,

  his arms a cloak,

  protecting.

  He said, “This baby will keep us all strong.

  That is the way of a child who comes

  with so much specialness.

  We will stretch to meet her.”

  Little Leila,

  loved.

  DOUBLE JOY

  Nali was born on the same night as Leila.

  Farha, our sheep,

  moaned once,

  long,

  and Nali slid from her.

  On that night Dando said,

  “A girl and a lamb, born under the same sky.

  That is double joy.”

  Dando had come from Farha’s pen,

  rushing to tell me and Muma we’d been blessed with

  a lamb

  to go along with my baby sister.

  He said,

  “Leila and the lamb, each of them treasures.”

  That’s when Leila’s half cry

  turned to a sudden squeal.

  That’s when Leila named our

  just-birthed lamb.

  Oh, did she wail!

  “Naaaaalleee… Naaaaallleee… Naaaalllleee!”

  Muma lifted both palms facing heaven,

  rejoicing at the loud newborn’s sound.

  “Such beautiful, strong music,” she said.

  This is how Farha’s lamb got her name:

  Nali.

  It was like having two sisters at the same time.

  Two babies to love.

  Double joy.

  GAMAL

  From the beginning,

  Leila was a frail child.

  But as she grew,

  her stunted limbs

  and hunched backbone

  got strong.

  Walking was a struggle.

  My sister mostly hobbled.

  Then one day

  Leila met Gamal,

  a spirited village boy her same age.

  Gamal,

  sometimes filled with the wind’s mischief.

  Other times, wise for a child.

  GOAL

  Leila has always worked hard

  to keep up with Gamal.

  There are days when Gamal helps Leila.

  And there are days

  when he niggles with her.

  Gamal has shown Leila

  how to play soccer with a tin can

  that is more bent than she is.

  When they first started to play,

  Gamal taught Leila to use her stumpy feet

  to make their squashed-in can pop

  through tall grass,

  and bounce over dunes.

  Leila isn’t fast,

  but she’s determined.

  Old Anwar crafted crutches for Leila,

  two sturdy,

  sanded branches.

  My bent baby sister took the crutches,

  but refused to use them.

  Since then,

  there have been many days

  when Leila and Gamal are squabbling,

  racing,

  bumping

  to get their bent-up tin can

  past these two weighty branches,

  jammed in the sand,

  now standing proud,

  serving as goalposts.

  TRADITION HUT

  Muma and I talk easily about most things:

  How best to stack kindling.

  When sugarcane is ready to harvest.

  Ways to peel potatoes.

  But there is one thing Muma will not allow me

  to address with her—school.

  Since Halima left,

  I’ve brought it up quietly,

  but before I can get my words out,

  Muma slaps them away like flies.

  When I dare speak

  of my thirst

  for books

  and writing,

  and the discovery of numbers,

  Muma scolds me with her eyes.

  “Schooling costs money we do not have,” she says.

  “What they teach from those books is useless to you, Amira.

  We need you here, to milk our cows,

  to pick okra and melons,

  to rake.”

  I do not like hearing this.

  I do not like what I know Muma will say next.

  “Someday,

  when you marry,

  you will not need to read.

  A good wife lets her husband do the reading.”

  No!

  Not one bit do I like this.

  “What if I never marry?” I huff.

  Muma says, “Do not speak so foolishly.”

  Muma’s snarled thinking.

  It’s so backward!

  CHASING THE WIND

  Like Old Anwar’s donkey,

  I tug

  at why it would be good

  to attend classes at Gad Primary School.

  I persist,

  pulling hard on my desire.

  “Muma,” I say,

  “I can help make our farm better

  if I know how to read.

  Books can tell us good ways

  to grow more wheat and beans,

  and corn, and okra.”

  Muma’s face is tight.

  Can she tell I’m being dishonest?

  The truth of it is simple:

  I want to go to school to learn about things

  other than beans and okra and animal plop.

  Muma is stern when she says,

  “Your desire to read is a waste of time, Amira.

  It serves no purpose.”

  A mother can challenge her child’s words,

  but the reverse isn’t allowed.

  I can’t help it, though.

  I ask,

  “What about Halima and her family?

  They are discovering new things.”

  Muma says,

  “Those people are chasing the wind.”

  GOZ

  Sprinkled by Allah

  from fingertips

  quick to spread sand

  as far as we can see.

  There it is.

  And there it is.

  And there, too.

  And here.

  And everywhere.

  Soft sand.

  Oh, this goz.

  So much of it!

  Between our toes.

  In our clothes.

  Through our hair.

  Up our noses.

  Draping its gritty mix

  over our land.

  Goz.

  Darfur’s great soil blanket.

  Much good comes from goz.

  From goz, Dando’s tomatoes grow.

  Through goz, melon heads poke.

  Nali sle
eps

  on soft sheets

  of newly blown goz.

  In goz,

  goats,

  donkeys,

  cows,

  they rest.

  In goz,

  I belong.

  Goz is my place to be.

  I’m at home in so much sand.

  Ya, goz.

  Where my new twig

  and I

  wander, wander, wander.

  Fly.

  Dream.

  Shape.

  Swirl.

  Make.

  Me.

  Free.

  DRAWING

  Sand folds in on itself when it’s been poked.

  That’s why I sharpen my twig’s end

  before I begin—

  to pierce the sand.

  To strike my lines.