You may have heard about the fires in Galica last week that have ravaged the forest of Fragas do Eume. It is one of the oldest forests in Europe, and has lost perhaps a thousand hectares due to this tragedy. Here is my lament.
Laid on the Forest Pyre"We shall burn like the heathen kings of old."The lifegiver has no mercy for his eldest children;
With ruthless love he smothers them with hot air,
Shrivels their branches and scorches their leaves
In all the oven-fired shades of terracotta.
He paints the breaking ground in his own image,
Staining every blade yellow to become his mirror;
The reflection fracturing across the gasping hillside,
Roots of parched trees bursting the dusty horror.
With the heat of burning passion he embraces them,
His parchment-dry fingers scarring their bark
As they writhe to clamber free of his smother,
As his smouldering touch of love begins to spark.
Amour to ignite the withered shell of ancient armour,
Sweltering before the ardent tongues of flame
Leaping from the brush to whisper across the bark,
Then like violent whipcracks shrieking father's name.
Merciless love piercing through the hardened scales,
To kindle the heartwood where deep hides the soul.
Spirits fly up screaming from the stricken brands,
Choking their last breaths with bitter stench of coal.
A broken scowl of agony spreads through druids' groves,
Beacons of pain tearing all across a glowing ridge,
Torches that emblazon a blaze over the bloody moon,
As the crazed father hurls himself from the sky's edge.
And in lifeless darkness the forest's pyre is raised,
Raging its way through the sacred paths of centuries.
Roars of pain blaze the trail of soulless demons,
Laying waste the ancient ghosts of history.
