{"id":55,"date":"2020-05-18T00:42:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T00:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/?page_id=55"},"modified":"2022-09-24T18:09:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T18:09:43","slug":"poem","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/poem\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Cover illustration: Paula Bossio<\/strong><\/p>

The lion<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

I thought I was the king of the jungle,<\/span>
until\u00a0a\u00a0true tyrant\u00a0arrived<\/span>
and took over my domains.<\/span>
He\u00a0has cornered me, with all my\u00a0subjects,<\/span>
into reserves of fragile borders that shrink day by day.<\/span>
Like in the courts of\u00a0medieval castles,<\/span>
whose walls are often decorated <\/span>
with portraits of\u00a0former\u00a0monarchs,<\/span>
the\u00a0hairy\u00a0heads of\u00a0my ancestors<\/span>
adorn as trophies, as a tribute to ignominy,<\/span>
the walls of mansions of hunters of prey.<\/span>
That\u2019s why I now say that I\u2019m the king\u00a0of nothing.<\/span><\/p>

The orangutan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

Sitting at the top of this still intact tree,<\/span>
from the distance I hear the noise of chainsaws,<\/span>
of\u00a0heavy machinery,<\/span>
and\u00a0how the trunks rumble when falling,<\/span>
with\u00a0a\u00a0tremor\u00a0of\u00a0aggrieved, badly hurt jungle.<\/span>
The last time I confronted a bulldozer<\/span>
I got\u00a0seriously injured.<\/span>
At first my younger, almond\u2013eyed \u201cbrothers\u201d just\u00a0laughed,<\/span>
as if\u00a0I were\u00a0an\u00a0anecdotal curiosity.<\/span>
But when they realized I was really upset,<\/span>
they threw stones and sticks to shoo me away.<\/span>
To foolish words, deaf ears, so I preferred to leave<\/span>
and take refuge\u00a0with my people, or what is left of them.<\/span>
I ended up with a black eye and two\u00a0broken\u00a0ribs<\/span>
that now make it difficult\u00a0for\u00a0me to\u00a0sigh.<\/span>
My old\u00a0curtain fur\u00a0has not really worked<\/span>
to keep me hidden and safe from infamous destruction.<\/span>
That’s why I say my fur is more like a weeping willow.<\/span><\/p>

The rhinoceros<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

I looked like a living tank\u00a0\u2013 an\u00a0impenetrable fortress\u00a0\u2013<\/span>
equipped not only with an armor,<\/span>
but\u00a0with\u00a0a\u00a0horn-shaped\u00a0head,<\/span>
a wonder of self-defense.<\/span>
But,\u00a0like Achilles, we all have our heel.<\/span>
And mine was,\u00a0precisely,\u00a0that portentous shaft<\/span>
that became the\u00a0target\u00a0of greed,<\/span>
of\u00a0absurd\u00a0superstition.<\/span>
Despite my tremendous muscles,<\/span>
in many pictures\u00a0I show myself\u00a0crying<\/span>
because since then\u00a0I\u00a0already knew<\/span>
I would be\u00a0one of the first\u00a0species to go\u00a0extinct.<\/span>
They say the best defense is a good offense,<\/span>
but\u00a0in my serenity of peaceful monk I never believed it.<\/span>
Now it’s too late to regret it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The whale<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

It is of little\u00a0use\u00a0to be the largest of all the species<\/span>
that have lived on Earth.<\/span>
The bigger you come, the harder you fall,<\/span>
and\u00a0my\u00a0size made me the most vulnerable.<\/span>
During the first journeys at sea,<\/span>
the mere sighting of my mass used to frighten seamen, <\/span>keeping them at bay.
<\/span>And when they were back at their ports,<\/span>
they used to exaggerate my size, <\/span>
describing me as a monster,<\/span>
as the\u00a0guardian of unknown waters.<\/span>
But very soon the planet\u2019s worst predator<\/span>
overcame the distances of this big water sphere<\/span>
and, also, their own fears to then see me<\/span>
as an endless source of meat, fat, and bones<\/span>
and put me on\u00a0the verge of extinction.\u00a0<\/span>
Fortunately,\u00a0a\u00a0sensible\u00a0ban helped\u00a0us\u00a0recover in number.<\/span>
However, just as David defeated Goliath, <\/span>
my worst enemy<\/span>
is now entering me\u00a0as poison\u00a0in the stomach.<\/span>
And these beards\u00a0that had allowed me to\u00a0eat well\u00a0for generations<\/span>
and been so effective in filtering krill\u00a0from water<\/span>
are now unable to distinguish those little crustaceans<\/span>
from\u00a0the plastics\u00a0that flood the oceans.<\/span><\/p>

The elephant<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

All that one has learned in the past is useless<\/span>
when the present\u00a0is\u00a0so uncertain;<\/span>
and that\u00a0of my entire species\u00a0is\u00a0not promising.<\/span>
In my role of a matriarch,<\/span>
and thanks to\u00a0my prodigious memory,<\/span>
I have done\u00a0my best\u00a0to\u00a0lead\u00a0my herd<\/span>
to geographies of water\u00a0and\u00a0food,<\/span>
helping them avoid terrible beasts.<\/span>
But\u00a0the worst among them knows how to camouflage<\/span>
and attacks from a distance, from a very long distance,<\/span>
to\u00a0put a bullet in our head.<\/span>
We can do nothing.<\/span>
In\u00a0the face of treachery, the enormous force<\/span>
that allows us to uproot trees is ineffective,<\/span>
as well as\u00a0closing ranks to protect\u00a0ourselves as a group.<\/span>
And all because of these ivory tusks,<\/span>
which in theory are for our defense <\/span>
but now I curse, for they have\u00a0been\u00a0our ruin.<\/span>
If you want them so much to decorate your frivolous showcases<\/span>
or make chess games,<\/span>
I\u00a0give them to you, but please don\u2019t kill unnecessarily all of us.<\/span>
The memory of the world, of the most antique,<\/span>
that of mammoths and mastodons,<\/span>
also\u00a0lives on\u00a0in me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The pangolin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

With slight shape variations,<\/span>
I had managed to survive<\/span>
for millions of years.<\/span>
Animal artichoke, <\/span>
I\u2019m the last\u00a0living genus of the Manidae<\/em>.<\/span>
I have always felt close<\/span>
to armadillos, sloths, and anteaters,<\/span>
whose\u00a0ancestors date back to armored glyptodonts<\/span>
or\u00a0the giant sloth,\u00a0also called the Megatherium<\/em>,<\/span>
but taxonomists\u00a0say<\/span>
I followed a different evolutionary branch.<\/span>
To defend myself, I roll into a\u00a0ball, like a woodlouse:<\/span>
in wise Nature, everything is interconnected,<\/span>
no matter if you are a mammal or an insect.<\/span>
Whatever my origin, my future is quite precarious,<\/span>
and like for many other species<\/span>
my ruin has been<\/span>
the ignorance and superstition of mankind,<\/span>
which has\u00a0given my scales as\u00a0frivolous\u00a0uses <\/span>
as making\u00a0cowboy\u00a0boots<\/span>
or ascribing medicinal benefits to them,<\/span>
when they actually are made of simple keratin<\/span>
just like human nails and hair.<\/span><\/p>

The polar bear<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

I’m dying from heat<\/span>
in this oven that the Arctic Circle has become,<\/span>
but unlike you<\/span>
I can’t take my coat off<\/span>
or\u00a0turn the air conditioner on;<\/span>
at the most, I can take a dip\u00a0and\u00a0try to cool off<\/span>
in these warm waters that used to be freezing.<\/span>
The many species \u2013 once abundant \u2013<\/span>
I used to\u00a0feed on are also gone,<\/span>
and I\u2019ve had to swallow my dignity<\/span>
as sovereign of\u00a0this\u00a0food chain<\/span>
to end up sniffing around and begging <\/span>
for something to eat in your trash,<\/span>
well away from\u00a0my\u00a0natural\u00a0habitat.<\/span>
Turn off the switch of your mistaken \u00abdevelopment\u00bb!<\/span>
Or at least slow it down<\/span>
to something more rational,\u00a0more sensible,<\/span>
because it\u2019s ruining all of us the way it is.<\/span>
Don\u2019t sit back and do nothing,<\/span>
seeing,\u00a0unmoved,\u00a0how this\u00a0beautiful\u00a0blue planet,\u00a0<\/span>
still\u00a0somewhat\u00a0cool\u00a0in winter,<\/span>
melts\u00a0down because of heat<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cover illustration: Paula Bossio The lion I thought I was the king of the jungle,until\u00a0a\u00a0true tyrant\u00a0arrivedand took over my domains.He\u00a0has cornered me, with all my\u00a0subjects,into reserves of fragile borders that shrink day by day.Like in the courts of\u00a0medieval castles,whose walls are often decorated with portraits of\u00a0former\u00a0monarchs,the\u00a0hairy\u00a0heads of\u00a0my ancestorsadorn as trophies, as a tribute to ignominy,the …<\/p>\n

Poem<\/span> Leer m\u00e1s »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326,"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55\/revisions\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/octaviopineda.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}