rivers in our houses

Heidi Mendoza

horizons changed from blue skies
to cold gray waves of water
that we did not recognize anymore,

in one moment,
there was silence,

and with it came an unbearable 
rush of screams and cries,
it pierced my ears
and I could not unhear
the ways in which they called my name
but my lungs were drowning,
my legs were frozen
into a state of disbelief that the same water
that cradled me in the darkest of nights
turned into someone who was ready
to wipe our histories away

“I’ve heard there was an unexpected
drought and flood last year,
can you tell me about it?”

I saw hands raised,
houses torn into pieces
of unrecognizable pieces 
of wood

horizons changed from gray waves of water
to blue skies
that brought with it long, dry heat

in a moment,
there was silence,
in another moment,
there were people praying

the cassava fields were all dried up,
the cornfield withered,
the last small stream of water that
gave us our drinking water
disappeared together with the hope
that this place could still be our home,

but this will always be our home

I knew the drying and the rising of the river,
we used to dance together
in long trances of rhythms
until I understood 
how the river commanded me
to a turn, to a pause, to a stare,

but never to take away
the only light remaining in me

no one knows what a drought
nor a flood is 
all we know is that our river dries,
and it fills us up again

some days, it is enraged,
and it dries up longer than usual,
or fills up until some houses disappear,

but we think
that the river is only learning
a new dance 
to keep us on our toes

The Science

This poem narrates the complexity of living with the Amazon river, which has annual fluxes where the water level drastically rises or falls. These fluxes mean that the people in the area live with constant transition from dryness to wetness. We started our research work with these communities only asking about droughts and floods. But we soon learned that they have developed different terms to describe the annual dryness and wetness. The initial questions did not resonate with them, and we almost missed their stories of living with the river.

The Poet

Heidi Mendoza is a Filipina poet and a PhD researcher. She engages in poetry to unpack the invisibilized realities and lived experiences of being a social scientist researcher in an increasingly positivist community. She does her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her PhD focuses on how communities in the Peruvian Amazon live with constant dryness and wetness. She uses creative methods such as storytelling and drawing sessions to elicit lived experiences and reimagined futures.

Next poem: Scrimshaw by Alfie Watt