Hello, everyone,
The devastating fires in the most important lung of our planet, make me remember the summer of 2009 and my participation as a fellow in the Plymouth Writing Project (PWP) at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, U.S.A. A poem entitled THE AMAZON resulted from one of the writing experiences. It started with the quick writing of a paragraph and my partner, who was another Dominican university professor, suggested me to change it into a poem. After reading the poem, do not hesitate and leave a comment. What connections can you make between the poem and the disaster?
THE AMAZON
Máximo Encarnación G.
Magic place
I haven’t
been there, but I have somehow.
I can feel
this vast piece of nature in my blood.
Oh, the river
with her name, The Amazon River.
Its waters
flow in my veins
like the
waters in Río Yaque del Sur
irrigating
dry forgotten lands in the Dominican
Republic
Letting life
flow is their sacred commitment.
There is an
eternal connection
between me
and The Amazon,
the extended
territory that
softly
touches
These places
help me breathe.
I feel you
beating
inside my lungs
I see your
rain falling in my tears.
I love you
for what you
are,
a precious
part of our green and brown
and black
and yellow and white planet.
You, The Amazon,
live in my
heart and in my tears.
I don’t know
why
they don’t
leave you alone.
Why
are they cutting
one of the
most important veins
of our
Mother Earth?
Don’t they
know
that with
your death
the whole
humankind vanishes, too?
One day,
every
breathing creature will wake up
and, with
happy-wet-wide-open eyes
see that
they will have stopped forever
that angry
rush against you,
against all
of us!
Plymouth 2009
