This is a guy I saw and heard perform tonight.
—-
In a West Yorkshire pub,
Far away from the place he was born
He tells us the names of the trees
Cashapona
Caucho
Castanha-do-para
In the Amazon basin. We listen
And though we are laughing,
We try to repeat. We invoke.
Awarra
Ungurahui
Shapaja
As he sings and he’s playing music that grew
In the fields behind coffee plantations
The soundtrack to graceful resistance
Huicungo
Huasaí
Huacrapona
And far far away, I believe
There’s a poet from Leeds in Brazil.
Trying to look for his voice in the hills
Elm
Elder
Ash
But he watches the great giants fall
And he thinks of the trees that he knew
Growing up, in the parks and the fields
Beech,
Birch,
Blackthorn.
And the locals repeat the strange words
Though it seems like a joke
With the giants all falling around them:
Willow
Alder
Oak.
Tom Juniper Poetry 