...The Christ that you speak of died,

        the Sun and Moon never die,

        besides, how do you know

        your god created the world?

 

                       —from Inca Atajuallpa's answer to Fray Vicente Valverde

 

 

Dinosaur bones, clefts of rocks

ordered in grids like honeycombs of stone

loom of gods,

weave your sanguine sorcerer's blanket

under arrows of silken stars.

Womb of stone

awaken

green sepulchres that chant

a dirge of tumbling boulders

down the cascades

of Urubamba.

 

Enchanted chasms grooved by centuries

rear your green terraced crowns

into sky toppling billows of blustery thunderheads.

Let the gentle rains uncover

centuries of silence.

Uncover the foot plow, Chakitaqlla.

Show me orchids and wayruru,

the fruit of good luck.

Let me chew the sacred coca leaf

that I may enter the mysteries of mother moon

Mamakilla

to commune with the high priest Willaq Uma.

and learn to revere godly Wiraqocha.

 

I COME TO BEG FORGIVENESS.

 

I COME TO FIND THE BLOOD OF SWEAT.

 

I COME TO KNOW YOU BEYOND UNDERSTANDING.

 

I COME TO ASK YOUR MERCY.

 

I WALK ON MY KNEES GASPING FOR BREATH.

 

I COME WITH WONDER.

 

I COME TO EMBRACE YOUR SACRED SKIN OF STONES.

 

I COME TO BATHE NAKED IN WILKAMAYU, SACRED RIVER.

 

I COME TO SWALLOW THE SUN GOD.

 

I COME AS THE CONDOR.

 

Walls that wallow in the wandering

gorges of ghostly rivers

send me knowledge of your

omens that thundered

under the masked dances of conquistadores,

cruelly mocking the Sun God.

 

Tomb of silence

send tiny tendrils of tittering

through grasses of centuries

to tantalize the temples of reason.

Beneath these brutal massifs

whose green wings and gorges enfold and embrace

Wilkamayu's rock quarries.

A gorgon's architecture sprawls,

insensate in the sun.

 

SHOW ME YOUR STONES OF SACRIFICE.

 

SHOW ME THE SPLENDOR OF GOLD AND TURQUOISE.

 

SHOW ME YOUR WAR AXES.

 

SHOW ME THE WAR TUMIS OF GOLD.

 

LEER AT ME THROUGH YOUR MASCARAS OF FUNERARIA.

 

UNFURL GOLD PUMA TOTES OF COCAINE.

 

SHOW ME IDOLO DE ORO WITH SHINY SILVER TEETH.

 

REVEAL TO ME THE MESMERZING MASK WITH SEVEN EMERALDS

GLITTERING FROM EACH EYE.

 

COVER MY HEAD WITH A FUNERAL CAP

OF FEATHERS AND SILVER.

 

CROWN ME WITH A GOLD PANACHE.

 

GIVE ME MANOS DE ORO.< /div>

 

 

 * * *

 

 

Itinpampa, Plain of the Sun,

twice you denied me.

Twice I circled over your flayed body.

Twice you hid your sacred face

under tempests of clouds.

I thought then how sweet to die

in the embrace of mountains.

 

This is the circle of splendor.

These are the mountains reverberant.

This is the unholy air

that rings over the high passes.

I drink the thin zephyrs.

Oh altitudo!

Oh mammoth breasts of the Andes.

Oh snake of the Urubamba.

Oh fortress of plunging Wilkamayu

your rollicking cataracts entomb the ancestors.

We sideslip sidewheeling

the terraced cudgels of carved earth.

We veer over avalanche chutes

careening passages thru fortresses of granite.

I am backhoed by brittle light

of high Andes.

 

The thunder of turbos

strangles the music of Andean pipes.

I will descend.

 

 

 * * *

 

I CANNOT WALK ON MY KNEES

TO YOUR HIGH TERRACED SUMMITS.

 

I CANNOT WITNESS YOUR TUMIS THAT ENTERED

THE SPLEENS OF YOUR VICTIMS.

 

I CANNOT SLEEP IN YOUR CLOUD GIRDLED VASTNESS.

 

I CANNOT PLUNDER YOUR ETERNITY.

 

I MUST NOT SEE YOUR ALTAR OF INNOCENT CHILDREN.

 

I AM WITNESS, SUPPLICANT, MENDICANT.

 

I WALK BREATHING HARD.

 

YOU ARE THE CHAOS INEXPLICABLE.

 

YOU ARE MY STONE SOUL.

 

GOLEM.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

I tumble through willowy skies above

resplendent ruins.

Each serene monolith

wears a white robe of glaciers.

The sheer valleys fall from their flanks,

burnt offerings

green with tillings of thick thighed toilers

who pronkingly clamber these vertiginous slopes

like mountain goats.

The sky breathes deeply.

Massifs disappear in the mists.

I reel above Machu Picchu like a ravening

raptor blinded

and fearful of falling

down to the chambered rocks

to stoop and gyre up into cloud constellations

that embrace granite spires.

And the lemon blossom scent of the Andes

is redolent with mist

that envelops the hanging gardens

on the precipices.

 

CHALICE OF CRYSTAL ROCKS.

 

ARCHITECTURE OF TEETERING TITANS.

 

WAYRONA, AIRY PLACE IN THE SUN, SACRED TO COCA.

 

INTIKANCHA, INVERTED BOWL OF THE SUN GOD.

 

INTIWATANA, STONE RING OF THE PUMA.

 

USNU, SANCTUARY OF THE SUN.

 

LATTICEWORK OF SWOLLEN WOOD SPLIT STONES.

 

CALCIFIED SKELETON OF ENTWINED HANDS.

 

SPINDRIFT OF ANCIENT OCEANS UPLIFTED IN TIME.

 

MAZE OF THE ANCESTORS.

 

STILLNESS OF STALLED GLACIERS.

 

IMMORTAL MOTHER OF INCAS.

 

DO NOT DENY ME.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

I will not plunge through the curtains

of smothering silkwork.

I will not enter cloud wombs spitting lightning.

I will not shatter my pinions of steel

on your jagged shield of peaks.

I will circle your ring of guardians

like the condor blinded.

I will come down to your ziggurats

of rough diamonds.

I will come down to your lizards.

I will descend

to your ponderous polyhedrons

to your stone condor

bloody with sacrifices.

to your mamacunas,

your virgins wedded to the sun,

to your eternal karma.

 

You are the keeper of centuries.

You are the sun's roc k circle unblemished.

You are the megaliths of dawn.

Your splendor reverberates from the rock

splitting aeons.

The harrowing heights embrace you

and bind you like a gold girdle of fire.

The constellations ring you

like bright spears.

Your night is a shadow of summer.

You float on the mantle

of earth like a raft for sainted sinners.

You are the nave

of the cloud burst cathedral.

I am your surplice.

 

Wail of stone speak to me.

Murmur your agape to me from your lofty choirs.

I am your familiar.

I drink your coca tea.

I await your mysteries.

I am your acolyte.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

And these trails troop through the turbulent

cloud clinging Andes

to mound-like Huayna Picchu

your thundering peak of long silent vigil

to Inti Punku, mist shrouded gateway

to the eye of the sun

to your bleak bone citadel.

Entice and enthrall me with wonder

and secret desires.

 

 

I FLOAT TRANSPARENT ON A WEB OF MYSTERY.

 

YOU HANG SUSPENDED OVER THE FOG SHROUDED ABYSS.

 

I AM IMPALED ON THE STONE OF THE CONDOR.

 

I HEAR YOUR VOICES MURMUR TO ME 'MONG THE TORRENTS

 

AND THE WHISPERING CASCADES OF URUBAMBA.

 

I HEAR THE LILT OF SUN WORSHIPPING LITURGY

 

OF THE VIRGINS MAMACUNA.

 

I AM YEARNING TO SHRED MY PALE SHROUD OF MORTALITY.

 

I AM BURNING TO WED DREAD SUN'S TABOO DAUGHTERS.

 

I HEARKEN TO HEAR DREAD SILENT STOMP OF DEAD INCAS

 

ON THE SKY SEEKING PATHS OF THE SHINING STONES.

 

I PINE FOR YOUR DRONING OF WHITE WINDY PRAYERS.

 

I LONG TO SOAR THROUGH YOUR MIST MANTLED PASSES.

 

I FLY.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

And the slim fingers of fog flog

my sun fevered face.

I pierce your pelisse of mist

with my naked body.

I am flayed by jeweled hail and lightning.

I resonate with pain like a tortured bow string.

The tender night embalms my soul.

I cry out to the crystal waters of Urubamba.

to drown my shrieking nerves.

I am bound to your cold coffins of stone.

The gold knife, the bright TUMI,

pierces my breast and I hear your grave ancestors.

I am tied to the hitching post of the sun.

Pain destroys my persona.

I chew the leaves of coca and tremble.

I am borne on the bare backs of the Indians

to the singing peak of Huayna Picchu.

I am left to dry in the eye of the sun.

I am planted in the cliff hanging terraces.

I am embalmed in your coffers of gold.

My sundered soul beats in the heart of a condor.

I rise in the updraft of incense.

I whirl thrice round the sacred valley of Incas

rent and divided by the tumbling Wilkamayu.

Peaks heavy with glaciers groan under their burdens.

I gasp and retch for air.

Sepulchres of light glow like bright banners.

I descend and fall lightly on burnished stone pathways.

I am wrapped by the virgins in linen.

Gold is placed on my eyes.

The tender fingers of the virgins bind my wounds.

I rise again.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

I stand naked in the Temple of Three Windows.

I am the crucified condor.

I am guarded by seven Indians.

My beak is bound with a gold circlet.

My claws are sheathed in gold.

I hang in the sacred window Qhapaqt'ogo.

I am fed morsels of gold and silver.

My feathers are plated with leafs of gold.

I drink red blood mixed with mind bending coca

from a hammered gold goblet.

I gaze at the flayed body of rebel Ollantay.

Each virgin in turn cloaks me

in her graveclothes of wool.

I am hacked to pieces with a bright shining Tumi.

My still beating heart is fed to the virgins.

They sing and lament to the Machus,

the old ones.

Their threnody hangs in the cool evening air

and falls lightly on sleepers.

I am buried with the last Mamakuna

high priestess of sun.

I am fed a small dog.

Two vases wearing human faces contain

the mummified carrion.

The concave mirror is afixed to a window

to focus the sun on Mamakuna's

withered countenance.

An alpaca and a dove are buried

beside me.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

I RISE FROM THE TOMB OF MAMAKUNA.

 

I SEEK THE TRAIL OF CONQUISTADORES.

 

I SPREAD MY WINGS TO MAKE THE PRECIPICES THUNDER.

 

I SWOOP DOWN ON COLUMNS OF IRON MEN.

 

I RAKE THEM FROM THEIR HORSES WITH GOLD CLAWS.

 

I BITE THROUGH THE BONDS OF THEIR CAPTIVES

WITH MY GOLD BEAK.

 

AND THE INDIANS GO FREE.

 

AND THE SKELETONS OF THE CONQUISTADORES

LIE SPIKED ON GOLD PINIONS.

 

I soar into cloud splitting summits

towards the orb of fire, the senescent sun god.

I reel down the sacred valley of the Incas.

I gyre high over the Inca trail

that teeters on the spine of the Andes.

I fly over massifs of Waqaywillka, Salqantay

and Ausangati whose aquiline noses

invade the heavens.

I breathe the thin air that burns me.

I watch the cloud layers envelop Machu Picchu.

Night rustles soft wings of silence

to stop the mouths of wonder.

I enter the sleeping wraith of the last Inca.

 

 

Tupuc Amaru rises in splendor.

His gown is spun of gold and emeralds

glitter from his eye sockets.

 

"I am the proud emperor of Incas.

I build cities of stone on the ring of mountains.

I fled the Spaniards when they came

to garner the treasures.

I lay down the gauntlet of power.

I was the last Inca crucified."

 

And the emperor of Incas dances.

He flaunts and flails his withered arms

like a gaunt scarecrow of gold.

His gold glistening gown melts and swirls round

his bone broken legs.

His emerald eyes flash daggers of lightning.

He is haughty with dignified gestures.

Feathers float round his skull.

He is so young and tender.

The Mamakanu bind his wounds with their keening.

His crown of gold bloodies his brow.

The Mamakanu stuff his proud mouth with jewels.

His spirit soars to the sun god.

 

Machu Picchu rises

in the golden down dawn of the Andes.

Thunder tamps a tympany of tintinnabulation.

A shrill flute note

floats down the sacred valley

lightly caressing the careening peaks.

The condor flies.

 

 

 * * *

 

 

And the tiny red and yellow

train toils through the highland passe s

over switchbacks poised like jagged knives

to reach the cloud bearing summits

and winds hooting and puffing down

white whistling cascades of the wild Urubamba

to clamber up cloud piercing sward covered

mountains of splendor

to rickety rackety riotous buses

rattling and groaning up sheer dusty switchbacks

to mist hidden Huayna Picchu

to the gate to the sun

Machu Picchu.

 

 

 * * *

 

Notes on Inca words:

 

Pachamama (Mother Earth)

Wayrona (airy place)

Mamacuna (mother of virgins, teacher)

Aqllawasi (virgins of the sun, chosen women)

Wayanpicchu (young peak)

Mamakilla (Mother Moon)

Qhapaqt'ogo (sacred window in the Temple of Three Windows)

Intiwatana (acropolis with multifaceted stone and obelisk)