Castañaya - Brazil nut,

Dies in isolation, forbidden to cut.  

Two fires behind the leafless tree,

Its solitude a slow death of separation,

As if a gradual living sacrifice 

From those cleared for the farm.

Like an avalanche of rocks, the fire rolls —

A roar without a pause, endlessly.

Boiling sap hisses, sizzles

Drips like lava,

Releasing bursts of loud snapping pops.

The whoosh of wind sucked for oxygen

Whistles like a burning winter night

Fueling the ignited land.

Crackles of snapping 

Hot branches, curling leaves.

Orange and red flames trace

Black silhouettes of standing trees. 

Rolling hot air sears

Escaping trapped breath in trees, 

Rumbling groans in the flames.

No communion with their kind,

The wind carries screeches,

Pain released into the sky.

Frantic howler monkeys roar 

Distress calls of piercing squeals 

And guttural grunts.

Shrill walls— 

Ear-splitting squawks 

From shrieking macaws and parrots, 

Carried by the swirls of hissing winds,

Interleaving with the roar of the avalanche

To release the forest’s cry.

Smoke stinging eyes

Heat searing skin.

Animals scatter, 

Their pain signaling to the sky

While the setting sun smears 

Red and orange hues 

On the smoke riding the wind.

Clouds whirl in high winds,

Trees release streaks of smoke—

Signaling beauty in desperation,

Their appeal streaked in the sky.

A paused silence — sharp crackles,

In the lull of a genocidal attack.

Yet the farmer does not cut this tree.

It remains, a lone witness,

Its long shadow stretching

Across the field —

That silences his family’s hunger.