Conflagration

In response to the Amazonian Deforestation, 2019.

 

'From afar, it resembles a tornado: an immense grey column shooting thousands of feet upwards from the forest canopy into the Amazonian skies.

Up close it is an inferno: a raging conflagration obliterating yet another stretch of the world’s greatest rainforest as a herd of Nelore cattle looks on in bewilderment.' - Tom Phillips writing for The Guardian. Published May 9th 2019.

 

Everything you can imagine

is real.

 

You want to carve

your name into a

tree that hasn't

been planted and

walk on a land

that doesn't know

your footsteps

this Earth is haunting your skin

and all you do

is suggest something

otherwise it hits you in the heart

like the many you speak with

as though they meditate on your

words that strike the Sun out of

its own hands.

 

Truth bites the teeth out

of your own mouth as tribes die

in your own bleeding gums

have you ever seen the air bend

when death approaches it?

 

Your mouth opens 

and all that you spread is desolation 

who is this God you pray towards?

Have you ever sunk your knees into the compost

and watch the Earth you hold turn to dust?

Two bullets struck the skull 

of Maxciel Pereira dos Santos

executed in front of the gates 

he was only simply protecting

tell me 

did he die an honourable death?

São Paulo was plunged into darkness 

when waking up bathing in light

smoke is the killer who strikes first 

but fire is the act who completes the murder.

 

Your name sits like blades in our mouths

our throats spit out your venom

the trees are screaming for their ghosts

to sleep a bit more softer 

the tribes are pleading for their skies

to pour a fortune of hope

 

Everything you can imagine is real

I am scared I cannot protect those I love.

 

This prayer in my mouth

cannot remain silent.

 

Have you ever seen the air bend

when death approaches it?