In March the river ran red

Mercury in the water and the fish were all dead

A young miner boy

Callused hands and a military cap he wore tilted

Hummed and he hawed about going to prison

I hugged him most nights in his hammock for one

Strung up in my branches

His heart was undone

There was a girl in the village that sat down stream

Merely fifteen and cute as could be

But the mercury had given her poor brother colic

The fish were all dead

And the water was toxic

She did not know that he did it for her

‘The water’

He told me

‘Has kilos of gold’

I can not reply that they did this to her father

Eight boys just like him but their calluses were harder

They rode through the rainforest with vials of toxin

Tying their horses to my torso as the moon was just waxing

They set up camp in the forest for four or five weeks

They taught me chemistry

Extraction

Bonds

Amalgamation

And just when the moon began to wane

In my limbs I noticed a pain

Three days later the boys departed

I was only a trunk and my root line had parted

And so my heart breaks for me

And for the wildcat miner

The family down the stream

And the fish in the water

If only,

I dream,

We cared for the people

Kids with broken shoes

And the nun in the steeple

Then we wouldn’t all hurt anymore

I think as I hug the dear miner boy

His military cap had fallen over his eyes

And as he falls asleep he cries

I’m fearful

And I’m weary

And I’m