“Querida Amazonia” cries out
And echoes far beyond the forest thick,
Across the crests and troughs and clouds;
My ears resound: “Belov’d Wabanakik.”
The Dawnland, jutting, strutting out to sea,
Accepts the water rising high each tide:
The obverse of the river’s history
To swell and flood where countless lives abide.
Yet both are land, and both by some called home,
Mud flats and cliffs as much as kapok steep.
Each calls forth needs for all under the dome
And begs all hearers, peoples, earth to keep.
For ev’ry land has its own name and tears;
In ev’ry home, what is the cry they hear?