I’ve been hearing Save the Rainforest
since I was small enough to sleep
in the safety of my parent’s bed
or snuggled with stuffed animals—
pandas, giraffes, monkeys, frogs;
A rock skips across the sky,
leaves concentric circles of cloud
to wonder at.
A relentless South Texas wind poses impossible questions,
flaps the smirking flags until they are upturned,
mists the mown grass with evil’s sputum,…
They’ve separated 5,500 children.
No, they’ve discarded them
like cans of Coca-Cola,
5,500 children who reached our shore
like sea foam, salty, crying salt…
Why can I not forget when forgetting is the cure?
The warm, wet beach hisses and coos, but her allure
Belongs to those who want to rest. I do not want to rest.
“Listen to your doctor,” they say.
“You are but human! You can’t go on like this!”
I’m insane, or at least not well, my brain
A flooded grave, the coffin cracked by roots
From a forest overgrown…she has slain
The dead once again, and from me no fruits
When children by gunfire die,
when the dreamer and the warden clash,
when statues betray the sculptor, we proclaim
This is not who we are.
“Would you break the law then pay a fine
If it helped the bottom line?”
“Yes,” says the CEO, “this job is mine
So long as I grow the bottom line.”
“The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack.” – Shakespeare
The power of fire is not that it burns
but that it distracts:
We save what burns because it burns.
The flags are at full-staff
Though Jackeline is dead
Of dehydration
And the Guatemalan boy whose name
Has not been released
Is dead
Of the flu—