Seed Vault

Deep in silt-choked vaults, 

built past the protests and empty marches,

in chambers cold and dark as regret’s core,

lies the quiet rebellion: seeds

We march for trees, 

already ghosts – Baru, Buriti –

their felled trunks echo the ochre grief

of wild stalks stripped bare.

Tight-fisted baru nuts, 

dream of Cerrado’s sun.

Buriti palms coil as roots in stone.

The Indigo Macaw’s lost feast, 

is packed hard and dry.

The oceans choke

on plastic spoon skeletons.

The fish, safe in her glass bowl, 

blinks at the drowning world.

Our God isn’t in the name. 

Just in the quiet eyes,

the downcast gloom 

when the rain refuses to cease.

Seeds like tiny arks, 

seal against the flood’s long hunger.

These fierce green syllables,  

of root and stem,

hold fast.

Waiting for the waters 

to remember the sky. Waiting 

for your small, 

salvaging hands.