Secrets

poem I am working on for children

I.
The land is the body of the Earth.
Trees are the arms she uses to embrace
the heavens.
Rivers are her veins flowing with nutrients
and energy to sustain her.
Birds are tiny poems of joy she scatters

like seeds for
all of her inhabitants to read and hear.

Like us, these things feel. Hope. Fear. Pain.
They get tired. Like you and I, they have secrets.
They cry in the shadows. They dream when the
moon is shining. They talk if you invite them
to do so. We all have stories to tell. I am a little

girl who talks to trees. 

II.
I ask the trees, what do they fear, in secret?
They say, we fear there will not be
any place left for their children. They tell me,
we fear the hearts of cold men who see us
as so much firewood but not as living things
with souls. We fear being your only memory
if the world continues forgetting how
to dream.

III.
I ask your rivers to share the secrets
of their heart. Why do you cry, I ask?
They tell me, they can remember being young,
like us. Fish delighted to live with them, and old
women could drink safely from their clear
waters. We cry, they say, because
there is so little time for dreaming.
Because if you do not love us here,
we have no choice but to dry our
beds and move them to another land.

IV.
I ask your birds, why are you tired?
We are weary, they say, because so few
remember how much good we bring
to the world. They cut down the trees
we rest in and destroy our food; then put us
in cages in we are pretty enough. Every season,
we travel further and further, like so many
of you- to find what we need. Our great secret
is that we, too are immigrants, trying to
live in a world that forgets our language.

V.
I ask them all to share their secret dream
with me. I listen to the tree tell me, "I dream
of living to old age, and that my grandchildren
will still have blue sky to hug each morning."

The river says, "I dream of sunlight reflecting
off my depths, of your children playing
in my waters and on my banks. I dream
of reaching my fingers into the sea at the close
of day."

The bird reflects, "I dream that your children
will learn my name along with the names
of Colgate, Nike, Tortrix, Claro, Gallo.
That a day comes when my brothers can rest
by your homes, without rocks being thrown
to kill them."

They all said, "we dream of a time

when everyone remembers

the importance of the wisdom

of the land and its sky. They dream

of a day when we all relearn

how to be children who talk

to trees.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Author's Note

this is a piece I will present in Spanish the first week of October for Guatemalan schoolchildren. It is not meant to be a great work of art.

photo is my own