Rosa

Rosa
Some people call me a child-witch,
but I'm just a girl who likes to watch
the hands of the women
as they gather wild herbs and flowers
to heal the sick.

I am learning the names of the cures,
and how much to use,
and which part of the plant,
petal or stem, root, leaf, pollen, nectar.

Sometimes I feel like a bee making honey-
a bee, feared by all, even though the wild bees
of these mountains in Cuba
are stingless, harmless, the source
of nothing but sweet, golden food.

         -from The Surrender Tree, by Margarita Engle

Prompt: Take a poem and rewrite as a story.  Our twist: each of us will write a part of the story, writing for 10-15 minutes each.  Here is the beginning:

Rosa
     I fall behind the women, three old women with swishing behinds in worn out cotton dresses.  They cackle as they walk, swinging baskets gently against their generous hips.  I catch up when they stop.  At first I hid behind the tree, watching as they chose small plants to pluck.  Then I stepped near as they dug, the curiosity bringing me forward.  They turned, that first day I was noticed.  Almost as one, they turned, then looked at each other.
     The one that looked the oldest, with wrinkly skin and a shaky hand, spoke. "There, teach her when I am gone. That one has the look of a learner."
     Shaking their heads, the others spoke in turn.  "No, sister.  Now is the time.  We will teach her together."
     The smallest one nodded, "Yes.  It is not as when we were young, watching each other grow and change.  We are now so close we are the same."
     The older one did not answer.  She beckoned me over.
     My first lesson:  hold the basket and all the heaviest gatherings.
     This is why I sometimes fall behind.  I am sometimes running to catch up after resting with my heavy basket next to me.  I practice the names as I rest.  I don't hide anymore.  Now I am the one to snip or dig for the precious plants.  On rainy days, or days when the sisters cannot gather the strength to go outside, we dry and burn and smash the plants into the important powders and liquids that will one day help.
     I watch them move like three parts of one body when the door is opened to the sick.  Old and young come to the little wooden house.  The fire is lit, this is my job inside the house when we are tending.  They call it tending, healing, helping.  Others in the village, when they think I can't hear, call it witching, spells, casting.  I just listen and look.  I watch as the herbs and plants are rubbed on wounds.  I listen as the sisters give advice, "Drink this now, three times a day.  No more meat for three weeks."  My own parents are gone.  I think about the morning my mother died.  I wonder if she would have been here now if the sisters had helped her. We didn't live in this village then.  We came after.  I learned after.  The sadness of living after is also the importance of learning to help.