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A Dusty Day in Cajas (Poetry of the Mantaro Vallley of Peru)
A Dusty Day in Cajas
(Part One: the poem) I couldn?t see clearly
down the old Inca Road?
in Cajas, (Huancayo) by the
old prison ruins?El Obraje,
(on Puna Mountain)
but I knew it was long?I
suppose.
Said I,
?There are perhaps old bones
or spirits at its end,?
the how or why of it all
who knows, the Spanish took
many prisoners back then.
Nonetheless,
I had to reach it (reach the end)
for the thrill of it, I
suppose:
?
and when I did
(did reach its end),
it was as I thought:
somber-grand
with so much unknown. The Prison Cell (Part Two) (The Crescendo) I stood in those ancient prison cells where the Spanish incarcerated the rebellious Wanka and Inca populace of the Mantaro Valley (in the 1500s), and here is what I felt: I was drifting into my own grave, descending, is more like it, into the upper bowels of the earth, into a past darkness that was so dense, it constricted my breathing. I stumbled a bit, from wall to wall; saw hard black eyes (they moaned)?. The decay that took place among the living of its day, were huddled in darkness: they were to die here, and they knew it. (11-30-06)) 1554 & 1557)) Dedicated to Mauro Rosales and Karina Rojas, who live in Cajas; for they took me on a Saturday morning and afternoon into its wondrous hillsides, in November of 2006; took me I say, trekking the mountain side (Puna Mountain, as they called it); we explored the Inca Road and old Wanka prison cells, along with the geological landscape.
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