This World Rainforest Day I am celebrating novelist, poet, environmentalist, diplomat, and mother of five, Astrid Cabral, who sings the songs of her Amazon home in her exemplary poetry. Some of Cabral’s most well-known books include Through Water (2003), Anteroom (2007), and Cage (2008). In Cage, Cabral explores the real and symbolic animals of the Amazon. She says “The core of the book is the closeness I maintain with the animal world. I put myself on their level, seeing them within me, and when I do view them from the outside, I still am aware that there is something wild or savage in us humans, that we too are predators, and thus I restore our fellowship.”
Born in Manaus, Amazonas in 1936, she provides a distinct contemporary voice of the Amazon, and has deep ties to the city, as expressed in this NYT Opinion column featuring three poems of the Amazon, including “Manaus Once Again,” translated from Portuguese by Alexis Levitin. The column is part of the series “The Amazon Has Seen Our Future”.
Here is an excerpt from Astrid Cabral’s poem “Naked Jaguar” translated by Alexis Levitin from her book Cage.
Naked Jaguar
It’s not because of fear
that I won’t look that naked
jaguar head on.
Hidden inside me,
I cannot see his face.
Only in the mirror do I make out
the markings of his paws.
I have also chanced upon him
oblique and in disguise
in well-known faces
where laughter on loan
conjures forth prosthetic teeth
in grotesque mouths.
