This poem was written a few hours after I had left the rainforest. I did not know at the time but it would be the last time I saw my forest for years maybe forever.
Just reading it again brings tears to my eyes.
I spent many a night in the Amazon Rainforest alone. The mind can play tricks in the dark, particularly when you are alone, and the forest sounds only add to the sense of foreboding as well as curiosity.
Someone reached my site with the words ‘Poems about being stuck in the forest.’
I spent weeks alone in the Amazon rainforest……while I enjoyed it most of the time, I did occasionally feel lonely. So, here is one of the poems I wrote during my isolation.
The splash of water in the foreground was a deadly pyramid of red bellied piranhas, twisting and turning in the river, their red and silver scales shining in the sunlight. They had caught and finished off a hapless victim, maybe one of the yellow kiskadees that had lost its footing on the fallen branches.
Saffron Finch.
I spent many months in the Amazon Rainforest over a number of years. On occasion I spent weeks in my lodge completely alone. I befriended a couple of pairs of Saffron Finches, who kept me company like friendly neighbours.
The finches would visit every day, several times a day and call to me. If I was in a room out of sight the male would perch on a branch on the tree closest to the lodge and call until I came out. Then he would tweet, turning his head this way and that as I spoke to him. The male was yellow with a jaunty orange cap, his mate was a dull greenish brown.
One afternoon I heard the male calling and calling to me. When I came out, I was surprised to see the female beside him, as she usually preferred to peck on the ground while he tweeted with me. She had nesting material in her beak. I swear they brought it to show me.
I wrote a poem in their honour.
earth2mother 