Raquel Versieux

Overview

fierce. the woman screaming. that’s how I gave birth. my mother bore her children in silence. I needed to scream. armed with its spathe, the palm tree protects its offspring. sitting in its own shade, the plant draws itself. “my land has palm trees where the thrush sings.” there are many songs of exile. how does one give birth in another language if not in one’s mother tongue? spun some years earlier and by many hands, a cotton thread crosses the ocean. a necklace of coconuts adorns the building. quenga crazy coconut. every forest is an archive. like beads crossing a thread, a cluster of hanging fruits. the mother’s voice resounds from the child’s belly button up to my throat. a necklace is also an umbilical cord and connects us to the magical entities of whom we are daughters. we are all daughters. learning to play the guitar with buriti strings. mediating the melody between body and forest. all vocal cords stored in my neck. in them, all of my power, control, silence, frogs and the ineffable dance. there is little difference between one who cuts off a head and one who cuts down a trunk. we are all limbs. warming up the voice. working the land through the use of its tools. letting colors seep into paper. polishing memories — silver and photographic. the oldest necklace made by humans dates back 77 thousand years. shreds of chita fabric sway. moving canoes to give and take necklaces and marriages. singing. at the margin, the palm tree sets the scale of the landscape. only the coconut trees survived in the deforested pasture. voracious. nourishing the strands of hair. hair loss. cooking food. healing. making remedies and tinctures. we are all fibers. making the shade in my home’s backyard. building a house. being the house that is built. it is night. forest awake. inside, people tickling and the forest laughs. sounds of petals, leaves and fruit falling. gestation is heavy and liquid. mother of waters. how many trees must we plant before this world collapses? babaçu of the babaçu groves. blue. capable. within the order of the possible. a colossus of carbon is yet to come. every day distributing seeds. it is women who sow. mere unavoidable existence. listening. shimmering. that was when I felt like a tree for the first time. choleric. is it possible to regret: not living in the forest. not having more daughters. the son. plant life vegetates. we are the greatest biomass. in chorus. an octave with me. native to the land, native tongue. there is a great pain. there is a greater pain. all very magnetic. dawn, eyelids flutter. it rains, sounds of birds, leaves landing on branches. upstream she glides, shining. we are all frutífera vocifera (frutiferous vociferous).