When I was a child,
mother read to me
of a creature
who slept in trees,
bound to jungles
and the rainlands of Peru.

Crystal,
incandescent,
Quazhe flew
high above the arrows
of the natives,
and the venom in their
    incantations,
    imprecations
for the devil that was she.

Forest torching,
    lace afire,
    skin aflame,
they blazed her to an ashen plain and
built a statue in her stead
with prayers and cries
to rigid clay on
frozen stone -- 
    know us,
    move us,
please again,
    Quazhe.