This came today from the Poem-a-Day blog and made me weep. The title translates from Portugese – The Amazon is Burning
A Amazônia está queimando
by Ana Castillo
I
We sing and dance in praise of the butterfly—
translucent blue,
gilded wings,
dances—
all its life
from orchid to cacao,
ceiba to banana and fig,
tying invisible strings
that hold our home in the sky.
It must,
lest we drop
into an abyss,
or drift
where the gods won’t find us.
This place
where butterflies work
for you and me,
keep rivers full and flowing—
Amapari, Canapantuba and Feliz,
the wide and deep goddess far beyond we call the Sea,
Rain—floods and drought,
a mist or fog,
the sun finds us each dawn
after a journey home,
when the moon comes to guide
both the weary and the ready
to pounce and hide—
our home is burning.
II
Menacing fires blaze.
Moneyed Whites rid the earth
of the people,
anacondas and spider monkeys,
hawks and toucans,
cicadas and cinnamon,
glass frogs and vines,
palm and rubber trees,
tapirs and manatees.
We hear their screams
And all that dies silently.
A Amazônia está queimando.
They want our abundant lands
and to annihilate our Mother’s opulence.
They will end the dance of the butterflies
and then what?
We, too, will die
like in a story told by the ancestors
that we only imagined.
They come for our copper, gold, ore
Ranchers and loggers raze the land.
At the United Nations Bolsonaro* announced,
Don’t listen to what you hear on the news. Lies.
Nothing is burning, nothing has been set ablaze.
III
We are Waiapi.
We keep the butterflies happy.
They stay working
to hold the planet in place.
We are the guardians
of our Mother.
Each day before I go to school,
I smear the sweet juice of urucum seeds
on my body and face.
They are protection
from insects and evil spirits.
I sit in a classroom with thatched roof
and other Waiapi women.
I am the only grandmother there.
I am Chief of my people.
I will learn to write and speak
for the butterfly
to those who set fires
and to the ones who may help
save our home.
*Current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.