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Luis and the Tourists |
We came bearing gifts,
Gunpowder, coca leaves,
Whisky cheap as water.
We would find you sunk,
Deep in your chilled stone-worm holes
Bored in the rust breast
Of Pachamama;
Chipping her, metal on stone
In kerosene light,
Shifting like larvae
In earthen burrows, red eyed
Drunk in the shadows.
Your flaccid cheeks bulged.
Mashed coca stemmed the same pain
You felt yesterday.
Yet somehow you smiled
At more tourists, whose soft eyes
Peeped in your black bowl.
He called you Luis.
At fifty-three the eldest
Still able to suck
The dead air inside
Bolivia’s rich mountain,
Where God never goes.
For forty two years,
Crouched deep in Pachamama,
You searched for her gifts,
Feeling only weight
And sharp jar of her hard bones,
Pressing you closer
To a pointless end,
Like your father, grandfather,
Drunk, poisoned before.
We were born the same,
Same year, you and I; our lives
Distant parallels.
You grew with dark stones.
I was born to those who would peep
In your black bowl.
copyright 2005
Graham
Burchell |
