Enchanted Air: List 1

by Margarita Engle
In this memoir, poet Margarita Engle recounts her childhood in Cuba and the United States during the Cold War.

This list covers "Love at First Sight" and "Magical Travels."

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: List 1, List 2, List 3
30 words 212 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. terrace
    usually paved outdoor area adjoining a residence
    They were standing on the terrace of an art school in an elegant palace now known as the Museo Romántico, the Romantic Museum.
  2. lush
    produced or growing in extreme abundance
    My dazzled eyes absorb
    the lush beauty of a land so wild
    and green that the rippling river
    on my great-uncle’s farm
    shimmers like a hummingbird
  3. frond
    compound leaf of a fern or palm or cycad
    Fronds and petals wave
    in wild wind.
  4. delicate
    easily broken or damaged or destroyed
    The delicate leaflets
    of sensitive mimosa plants
    coil and curl, folding up
    like the pages
    of a wizard’s book
  5. boastful
    showing excessive self-importance
    At home in California, when I speak
    boastful English, I can say that I fly
  6. ominous
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    At home in Los Angeles, when my big sister
    is struck by polio, I am not yet old enough
    to understand ominous words like iron lung,
    quarantine, or eternal light
  7. wisp
    a thin tuft, piece, or amount of something
    Mami’s photos of her family in Cuba
    rise into the cold sky,
    stray
    wisps
    of
    dark
    smoke
    blending
    into gray fog.
  8. scorch
    become singed under intense heat or dry conditions
    Fear has suddenly entered our lives,
    left behind by airy wisps of smoke
    from those scorched
    storybook walls.
  9. rugged
    (of terrain) rough or very uneven
    Later, we move to a corner
    of northeast Los Angeles
    known as Skunk Hollow,
    because the rugged streets
    are not yet paved,
    so that small wild animals
    roam dusty backyards.
  10. smock
    a loose coverall that protects the clothes
    When Dad gives me my own art supplies,
    I clip a big sheet of paper onto a board,
    and drape a smock over my clothes,
    to keep all the colors of the world
    from ruining the dress Mami made.
  11. wistful
    showing pensive sadness
    When Dad paints my portrait,
    my eyes look like Don Quixote’s,
    neither happy nor completely sad,
    just daydreamy,
    and wistful.
  12. steed
    a spirited horse for state or war
    The next time I draw a picture,
    it’s the same gold-winged
    rumba dancer, but this time
    she’s on horseback, smiling,
    and somehow I know
    that I am both
    the flying rider
    and the swift
    steed.
  13. tend
    have care of or look after
    She would rather tend a whole garden
    than wear a single boastful blossom
    in her dark, wavy hair.
  14. smoggy
    clouded with a mixture of haze and polluted air
    Los Angeles is smoggy.
  15. kinship
    relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption
    KINSHIP

    Two sets
    of family stories,
    one long and detailed,
    about many centuries
    of island ancestors, all living
    on the same tropical farm.
  16. apparently
    seemingly; as far as one can tell
    Apparently, the length
    of a grown-up’s
    growing-up story
    is determined
    by the difference
    between immigration
    and escape.
  17. crave
    have an appetite or great desire for
    Spoken stories are no longer enough
    to fill my hunger.
    I crave a constant supply
    of written ones, too.
  18. entrance
    attract; cause to be enamored
    Each week, I check out
    as many library books as I can carry,
    so many that I feel like a juggler,
    balancing
    stacks
    of entrancing
    pages
    in midair.
  19. plead
    appeal or request earnestly
    I meet the pleading gazes of legless beggars
    who endlessly chant una caridad
    por el amor de Dios.
    Charity, for the love of God.
    Kindness.
  20. catacomb
    an underground tunnel with recesses where bodies were buried
    Underground, in the eerie catacombs
    of Guanajuato, I flee from las momias,
    the mummies that aren’t really mummies
    at all, just grinning skeletons,
    posed in agonized positions
    that come back
    in nightmares
    to haunt me.
  21. agonize
    suffer anguish
    Underground, in the eerie catacombs
    of Guanajuato, I flee from las momias,
    the mummies that aren’t really mummies
    at all, just grinning skeletons,
    posed in agonized positions
    that come back
    in nightmares
    to haunt me.
  22. steeple
    a tall tower that forms the superstructure of a building
    Soon, in a village on the rugged slopes
    of Volcán Paricutín, we rent horses,
    so we can ride up the volcano to see
    a church steeple
    that survived the flow
    of fiery lava.
  23. stark
    devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment
    The volcano is hard and dark,
    a stark landscape that makes my horse
    shudder, but the sunlit church steeple
    looks like something dreamed
    by Don Quixote.
  24. conscience
    a feeling of shame when you do something immoral
    Our old black-and-white TV flickers,
    as if it has a conscience
    and is reluctant
    to keep showing
    one horror after another.
  25. ignorant
    unaware because of a lack of relevant information
    Why should such an ignorant grown-up
    imagine
    that she knows me?
  26. grim
    harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance
    Luckily, Dad is home by the time Mami
    has to face two grim agents
    from the Federal Bureau
    of Investigation.
  27. correspondence
    communication by the exchange of letters
    The agents said they knew that Dad
    took an art-history correspondence class
    from a Communist UCLA professor
    during World War II.
  28. communist
    a socialist in favor of collectivism in a classless society
    What is a Communist?
    Who dreamed up blacklists?
    How can any art class ever be
    traitorous?
  29. riddle
    pierce with many holes
    Inside each box, there are surprises
    the size of baseball cards—bizarre,
    creepy, collectible scraps of stiff paper
    that show photos of tortured men,
    blood-streaked, bullet- riddled, bearded
    Cuban revolutionaries, just like Mami’s
    cousins.
  30. embroider
    decorate with needlework
    She teaches me how to embroider
    a colorful bouquet of cotton flowers
Created on Tue Jun 15 12:03:42 EDT 2021 (updated Wed Jun 16 15:36:49 EDT 2021)

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