Grieving the Dying Amazon Rainforest

Reflections from Ecuador in 1992 on the Amazon Rainforest and the Capirona Indigenous Tribe 

Whose World has Ceased to Exist

***

It was a brand new day

Millions of years old

Creatures lurking in the rainforest

mother sunlight shines 

through the green canopy

Glistening water wind river time flows

Light sounds and mangroves

Siblings of the tallest trees

Life-giving medicinal plants

Mother sanctuary forms flow

Birds and butterflies 

Rainforest light rays

Love and destruction 

The life-giving rain

Earth rainbow colors

New sunrise breaks

Love lurking shadow spaces revealed

Dream path dark under clouds storms

Lost in the beauty of mother earth's trance

The boa vine sings visual language

sunlight filters through endless trees

History and time have no meaning

Plants strive to survive after millions of years 

Rainforest medicine cures all sickness

Ants roam on healing leaves

Living in this rainforest galaxy

Rainforest green beauty beyond seeing

The tallest tree that protects the tribe

Wildlife that hides underground 

Insects, bees, fish, jaguar, and birds

Sunset filters through trees

The forest mind says magical incantations

dry fish smell spit blood dead rainbow flesh

tears from the river and trees

pure and holy like the most splendid palace

python among the yuca and banana trees

Cycles of nature guide the days and seasons

Western time meaningless to nature

***

Dead eyes water reeds 

Scarred tell tales of history 

Sacred earth magic

Will genocide ever end?

Last untouched indigenous tribes dying 

The leopards, python, boa, monkey's

Many diverse creatures of beauty

How long until these creatures are extinct? 

Healing sacred plants are dying

How long until the Amazon is no more?  

How many more innocent children must die? 

The rainforest our mother protects our planet? 

Without rainforest life game is over

Fast track to the extinction of human species 

Why do so few see or care?

***

The mystical children

under the forest canopy

Laugh at me 

As I sweat like a pig

They are innocent

Beautiful children of the great mother

Playing naked in the river

Their siblings on their back

I look into their eyes and smile

They fish for carachama

For a moment, I was free from time

Dissolving into the cycles of nature

I still dream of these children 

Who lost their sacred world

Where are they now?

Why do so few care?

***

All is interconnected

All is sacred

Why do we not see? 

Fat on power and profit

buying indigenous children 

Who are forced into prostitution

Exotic commodities for sex trafficking 

Why do we turn our backs

To the endless suffering

Of the children of this illusory world?

***

Magical ancestor rituals

Ancient ones appear singing

Stories of the cycles of nature 

re-sung again continuously

Dancing around ancient fires

Why did we not listen 

to their sacred songs?

***

The Capirona tribe struggled to survive

Oil companies backed by soldiers arrived in 1989 they were blocked on the road

by mothers with children on their backs

The mothers were so brave

But it was only a matter of time

drunken oppressor seeks oil, 

not life, worships profit

Those who exploit the sacred

Could not hear the songs

And stories of the rainforest

Why did so few care?

***

I dream the great dream 

Kingdoms rise and fall

All is passing

So attached I am to this dream

I will never see the rainforest again

Sickened by Ayahuasca tourism

The exploitation of native people's 

Their voices and wisdom were unheard

The campfires are going out

The ancient ones fade

Sickened by samsara, I am attached

The same story repeated through time

Hegel's slaughterhouse of history

Please tell me who is primitive? 

Follow the money

Follow the power 

It tells the true story

This life and world may be a dream

But I cry with these innocent children 

Every day their world is closer to dying

Humans are Big brained mammals 

Worshipping materialism and death

We are killing our home and ourselves

Will we ever wake up?

***

By the time those drunk on wealth and power 

see the ecological holocaust 

At the front door of their estates

It will be too late

ecosystems collapsing 

Will not return gone

I see genocides corpses 

stacked up to the moon 

human species blinded by ignorance

We all have blood on our hands

Life is precious; why do so few see? 

***

Dreaming tonight of those innocent children 

Naked laughing at me

As they play in rainforest rivers 

I will go with them into the fading dream

As time ends and the lights go out

***

Written by a Westerner who knows he is part of the problem. The rainforest is like a flower. We must leave it be, not exploit it, let it grow, and blossom. We are fools to believe we possess nature. Nature is not a dead language. It speaks, but we do not listen. If we do not listen, our precious life is finished. The clock soon strikes midnight, and then it will be too late. 

***

Written by David Penn Trinley Arndt on August 14th, 2021, but then revised March 13, 2022, when I dreamed of the children playing in the rainforest laughing in a world that no longer exists.