Things we have lost

The European explorer stumbled the strangling jungle
Lawless and violent the green steaming afternoons
Tore at his very soul. Brazil, Venezuela,
Bolivia, he did not know. One day appeared a river,
Wide and yellow with the thick hill side mud.
Along the banks of the river a small camp
Containing maybe twenty or so persons.

Out from packs was food and drink and the explorer
Penciled drawings of some of the children
And the children were afraid, and the explorer laughed,
For maybe the first time in weeks. There was a parrot,
Old he was, no one could truth say the age of the bird.
For it was found alone in a camp, alongside
Another riverbank, maybe even a tributary
Of this very river. All of the humans had died.
Only the bird remained. The bird amazed the explorer,
And the explorer made an entry in his journal.
"The parrot was the only speaker of a language
Once mouthed a murdered clan. All day long the bird
Would sing, thoughtless, the songs of the dead"
Songs no one was able to understand.