IN THE CLOUD FOREST

In the cloud forest
where the golden pumas leap,
flicking their rainbow tails
among emerald frogs
and verdant parrots with red combs,
the spirits of the Incas sleep
waiting to be born again.

 

They will appear in a world
without Spaniards, empty of conquistadors,
weaving their many-colored Quechua odes,
calling on mother earth and father sun,
to ripen their fat maize,
trickling clear water from the Andes
into a sacred music
unheard by European ears.

 

Without the wheel, without gunpowder,
innocent of smallpox, measles, plague,
what further wonders will they conjure?

 

. . .

 

Machu Picchu hovers between earth and sky
balanced on a ledge of cloud,
making tapestries of sunlight and solstice
in the pure, blue Andean air.

 

Who owns the future of the Incas?
Not Pizarro with his saddlebags of gold,
not Pachacuti the earth-mover,
not the military juntas of Peru.

 

The virgins of the moon
are waiting patiently to calibrate
the Inca future
on the high, green ledge
of their astronomical observatory.
They are waiting for the planets to align.
I am waiting, too.