Vanessa Couto Johnson
Brasil & broil
August 2019
There is nothing like being a continent
away from my scorching motherland.
|
Almost a year ago flames took
Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro,
over two centuries of artifact
gathering gone. A firefighter’s hands
burned in want to save Luzia’s bones,
11,500 years beloved, skull with luck
to be found later in fragment. Oh ancestor—
if you could see how much human failure
hurts all these days.
|
Sou uma filha da Amazônia.
I am a daughter of the Amazon.
I’ve seen the Encontro das Águas,
grown on her fish and fruit for many
summers. And now a river with fire
among it more than ever. Season of the burning.
Century. Era. Of logger and farm
in nation named for a tree.
|
To tweak from Lorca: Amazônia que se quero verde.
The norm of the modern is somnambulism. Our curse
to know the problem and share and
nothing seem doable.
In this case, don’t light a candle.
There are few prayers I really believe in.
The swiftness of amphibians finding damp.
|
I want a prayer of fruits: uma Oração das Frutas
açaí mamão abacate
abacaxí cupuaçu goiaba
guaraná tucumã graviola
maracujá acerola maça de cajú
I want a prayer of fruits I may never eat again.
Vanessa Couto Johnson is the author of Pungent dins concentric, her first full-length book (Tolsun Books, 2018), and three chapbooks, most recently speech rinse (Slope Editions’ 2016 Chapbook Contest winner). Her sixteen-page sequence “Try the yen relish” is in Oxidant | Engine’s BoxSet vol. 1. A previous contributor to Thrush, she has also had poems appear in Foundry, Softblow, Field, Blackbird, and other journals and anthologies. A Brazilian born in Texas (dual citizen), she has taught at Texas State University since 2014.
Return to November 2019 Edition
August 2019
There is nothing like being a continent
away from my scorching motherland.
|
Almost a year ago flames took
Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro,
over two centuries of artifact
gathering gone. A firefighter’s hands
burned in want to save Luzia’s bones,
11,500 years beloved, skull with luck
to be found later in fragment. Oh ancestor—
if you could see how much human failure
hurts all these days.
|
Sou uma filha da Amazônia.
I am a daughter of the Amazon.
I’ve seen the Encontro das Águas,
grown on her fish and fruit for many
summers. And now a river with fire
among it more than ever. Season of the burning.
Century. Era. Of logger and farm
in nation named for a tree.
|
To tweak from Lorca: Amazônia que se quero verde.
The norm of the modern is somnambulism. Our curse
to know the problem and share and
nothing seem doable.
In this case, don’t light a candle.
There are few prayers I really believe in.
The swiftness of amphibians finding damp.
|
I want a prayer of fruits: uma Oração das Frutas
açaí mamão abacate
abacaxí cupuaçu goiaba
guaraná tucumã graviola
maracujá acerola maça de cajú
I want a prayer of fruits I may never eat again.
Vanessa Couto Johnson is the author of Pungent dins concentric, her first full-length book (Tolsun Books, 2018), and three chapbooks, most recently speech rinse (Slope Editions’ 2016 Chapbook Contest winner). Her sixteen-page sequence “Try the yen relish” is in Oxidant | Engine’s BoxSet vol. 1. A previous contributor to Thrush, she has also had poems appear in Foundry, Softblow, Field, Blackbird, and other journals and anthologies. A Brazilian born in Texas (dual citizen), she has taught at Texas State University since 2014.
Return to November 2019 Edition