by Joanne DeSimone Reynolds
The Man of the Hole was the last of an indigenous group living in the Tanaru indigenous area in the state of Rondônia, Brazil, which borders Bolivia. The majority of his tribe are believed to have been killed as early as the 1970s by ranchers wanting to expand their land. In 1995, six of the remaining members of his tribe were killed in an attack by illegal miners, making him the sole survivor. Brazil's Indigenous Affairs Agency (Funai) only became aware of his survival in 1996, and had been monitoring the area ever since for his own safety. It was during a routine patrol that Funai agent Altair José Algayer found the man's body covered in macaw feathers in a hammock outside one of his straw huts. Indigenous expert Marcelo dos Santos told local media that he thought the man had placed the feathers on himself, knowing that he was about to die. —BBC News, August 30, 2022
O! Sole man –
60ish 50ish
Thatched huts
Holed – 3ish by
10ish foot deep –
4 (or 2?) footed traps
Spiked Did you
Hide? Hold up?
Did you know? O!
Macawed Carnival
Romancer –
Web-womber –
Eons lost You –
One with the Whole
Joanne DeSimone Reynolds has published poems in The New Verse News, Salamander, The Ekphrastic Review, Sanctuary Magazine, Ibbetson Street, Wilderness House Literary Review, Lyrical Somerville, and other journals. She has also written reviews for Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. During the first spring of the pandemic she wrote a collection of ekphrastic poems for 2020 Art Ramble in Concord, Massachusetts.