IN THE CLOUD FOREST
—for JOS
A través de la noche de piedra,
déjame hundir la mano
y deja que en mí palpite, como un
ave a mil años prisionera,
el viejo corazón del olvidado!
—Pablo
Neruda, IX, Alturas de Macchu Picchu
On
the trail to Machu Picchu,
fire
opened the door to memory.
Our
eyes mirrored the struggle
of
the selva’s final story in the
cordilleras.
Smoke
peddled light across the sky.
Speculatively
met us at the pass
of
the abandoned fortress, Huaylabamba,
with
tarnished masks and season tickets.
Gave
us ringside seats—our eyes fondled
the
cleavage of the Andean night chained
in
firecrested ruby and golden necklaces—
the
angry mantle of a campesino’s escaped milpa fire.
Cut
off from the wounded hems of snowfields,
and
chained to the heights, we dreamed of baptism by fire,
meteors
trapped within the smoking mirror of the sun,
and
of honor among thieves in this crucible of silence.
We
climbed the long ladder of the earth to balconies of the sky,
to
draw cool air through Neruda’s wet shrouds,
to
firewalk on the coinage of coals and seasoned stars,
and
to navigate the adamantine flame of the Urubamba river.
We
kissed the secret eyries of crowned solitudes,
we
gathered orchids, we entered the shining path to the heart
of
the city of stepped stone, we burned poems written in blood
on
the intihuacana. We emerged
unscathed only to lose faith,
we
scattered our ashes to the wind for seven years.
Waited
for something—anything—to happen;
perhaps
an irrefutable sign from the gods.
7/6/94
2 comments:
Beautiful, Maureen. But when I read Neruda's Machu Picchu and John's (and yours?) I was disturbed that the poems seemed oblivious to the fact that it was a sacred city of women. Maybe even the origin of the Amazona myth, as the head of the Amazon River is not far north. Neruda's entire poem is of men inhabitants entirely. My South of Mi Hija climaxes at Machu Picchu.
Thank you, Sharon. My poem was written in time present, not a historical reference, as we were stuck in the middle of raging wildfires, having backpacked in 42 kilometers. The only “we” that is present is John and I.
In 1911, Hiram Bingham speculated that Machu Picchu may have been a temple devoted to the Ñuestas, or Virgins of the Sun, dedicated to the sun god, Inti, which was partially corroborated by the fact that of the 107 excavated human remains, nearly 69% seemed to be women. That theory was debunked in 2000, when the skeletons were reexamined, and it was found that half were female, and half were male. And there were also skeletons of children as well. Apparently that theory was postulated that the skeletons were all female was because of their diminutive size. They were very different than European skeletons. The city was built by men. Whether or not it was a refuge of nuns is pure speculation. The stone walls don’t reveal gender. Bingham also speculated that it was the lost city of Vilcabamba la Vieja, the last refuge of the Incas. But it wasn’t the “last refuge,” Espiritu Pampa, aka Vilcabamba Grande, west of Cusco, was.
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