POEM

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

This poem emerged from a quick writing sesion in the first Pakistani Night the Plymouth Writing Project had during the Invitational Summer Writing Institute in Plymouth, New Hampshire in 2009.  After the session, I did not know what to write as an assignment that had been given in my writing group. My partner, Nelsy Aldebot suggested me to change my paragraph about The Amazon into a poem due to she had seen a lot of poetry in it.  I started shapping my poem that night.  Later on, I posted in the National Writing Project e-Anthology and received feedback from participants in other summer writing institutes in the United States.  I hope you read it and I will really appreciate your feedback. 

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

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela....

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!

Santo Domingo 2011