Kapok
It’s only when the queen of the forest
has fallen that we see how many crutches
she needed to keep upright –
her mesh of roots pulled up
the topsoil and it’s shallow as felt.
Where was she going in her walking frame?
These buttresses and vines she leant against
didn’t help her move forward
and why should she? Here
she had her portion of sun; there
was the darkness of others. No,
she moved upwards, turning her stiff
body into a ladder to climb towards
the leaves of light in their spiral groves,
her face so furrowed no one noticed it.
What burdens she bore to keep her back
upright: the harpies in their heavy nest
pressed on her shoulder,
capuchins inside her armpits.
Tamanduas, toucans, trogons –
all clung to her. And her skin had growths –
a termite’s nest, a beehive.
Tree porcupines dozed in her clefts,
a jaguar slept on her lowest limb,
and lower still a bushmaster curled between her toes.
The treefrogs in their bromeliad ponds
multiplied every year, and always,
processions of army ants plagued her.
But it wasn’t these lodgers that felled her –
it was the hanging gardens of orchids draped
on her balconies, like worshippers in a cathedral
kneeling in pews, throngs of them
drinking the rain that filtered softly
through her storeys, like sacramental wine,
their faces lifted to divine moths.
Pascale Petit was born in Paris and lives in Cornwall, England. She has published nine poetry collections, four of which were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Read more.
“Kapok” reprinted from Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit (Bloodaxe, 2017).