Was it sunlight twinkling in the steaming emerald canopy that whet your curiosity before
the steady downpour that urged you to soar
high
above the fragrant jungle floor?

Or

Was it afterwards,
when you took flight and came to alight upon a bushy
frond laden branch
to plot your breakfast route

through the maze
of shallow puddles and swirled mud plateaus
spawned by the flood
that rushed down the well-trodden path?

Either way,
did it fall freely from your wing?

Perhaps it slipped from your tail as you soared and sailed ‘round stout,
towering thousand-year-old boughs?

Did it float to the ground unprovoked?
Swinging in the west-wind’s cradle,
swaying to Nature’s choir singing her day-time song—

thrumming, humming, burbling, buzzing,
chirping, cheeping, whistling, peeping,
twittering, chattering, trilling, shrieking,
pitter-pattering raindrops splashing, bouncing…scattering

Or

Was it later still,
in a colorful cloud of fury,
as you flapped, scratched, and screeched your dismay
while helplessly witnessing
your hatchlings trapped and transported
to lands faraway.

I like to think it was the former that placed your feather in my hands…

~~~~

I do, in fact, know it was the former. In 2009 I’d met shaman Univu Kuntanawa and his son Haru in Greenland (that’s a whole other story).

A few years later, a friend, after having lived in the Amazon jungle with them for a time, sold handicrafts from their village to support the Kuntanawa Nation’s call to action. My parrot feather, collected from the forest floor, was a gift from her in support of their projects, all of which center around sustainability, rainforest preservation, and the cultural reconstruction of the Kuntanawa tribe, as well as that of other indigenous communities in the Amazon.

Hardly a day goes by that I’m not reminded by that feather (now hanging from my office light fixture) of the impact my every-day choices have on our world…our earth…our awesome, majestic, yet fragile, planet.

In addition to this stunning example of the rainforest’s song

I learned two things today while researching jungle sounds.
You might find them interesting, too.
Maybe even inspiring, as another call to action?

“Every year between August and September, poachers in the Brazilian Cerrado steal turquoise-fronted parrot hatchlings from their nests to supply the exotic pet market…read more”     and      A Day in the Life of a Poached Parrot

Thank you, dear Reader, for taking the time to stop by.

❤ Be well ❤
and have a phenomenal day