Mahogany Sisters

By Ava Strancke
12th grade | Arrowhead Union High School | Wisconsin
Finalist, Climate and Environment category

With lines from "How Congo’s Trees Are Smuggled Through East Africa" by Musinguzi Blanshe, a Pulitzer Center reporting project

Mahogany sisters
Once splendid in green mantles
Once the pride of the Congo
Once guardians
Of the sweet, soaked soil
Of their rainy homes
Supposedly protected
By law
By government

Those sisters cry out
In an unheard plea
For their promised protection
As the corrupt
Butcher them for profit
Tote their corpses
Foregoing permits
To foreign lands

Disgraced
The products of an illicit trade
Worth a hundred million dollars
But not worth enough
To remain untouched

Disgraced
She is cleaved apart
Far from home
Her once-splendid sisters
lamenting her loss

Disgraced
She is now lumber
A table
A chair
A finely carved object
To be sold again

Her homeland is dying
Her surviving mahogany sisters
Falling in battle
Against loggers
Against smugglers
Against failed border control

Humans discard their legacy
And crush it underfoot
As they climb to fortune

Ava is a rising freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with plans to major in chemical engineering. She enjoys biking, running, gardening, and learning about the natural world. She hopes to help defend nature from the onslaught of climate change through her actions and future career path.

Read more winning entries from the 2024 Fighting Words Poetry Contest.