from Margarita Engle's YA book
titled: The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom
published 2008 by Henry Holt and Company, New York
in "Part FOUR: war for independence"
ROSA
The numbers are impossible.
I cannot heal so many.
Women come as volunteers.
I teach them simple cures.
Garlic for parasites, indigo
for lice, wild ginger to soothe
a cough, jasmine for calming
jittery nerves,
guava to settle the stomach,
aloe for burns.
Is there at least one wild,
fragrant remedy for
healing sorrow and curing fear?
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