Machu Picchu

I watch the city of stone spread out again
across the peak of the mountain,
under the high shield of the other mountain
the dark one, younger and taller: my love.

I am sitting above the ruins, on the terraced hill.
We have walked through a place of fire.
Only last month this green hill burned,
and we can still see traces. And the sun
today has been fiery too; many tourist faces
have turned pink already. But I am at peace here.

There is a small hut close by. A decade later
my friend Helen will go and sit in its emptiness
and look out over the same view. She will adopt it
emotionally as ‘Helen’s house’. I in my time
do not enter the hut that will be her house,
but I like both its isolation and its implied shelter.

I almost dance down the steep rocks, fear of height
switched miraculously off, to wander through
solid buildings roofless to the sky. I hardly believe
I am here, touching. The altar to the sun is roped off.
No sacrifices today; the site is under repair. But we observe
the bowls and trenches that must have been for blood.

On a grassy space by a huge rock, under a frail tree,
we rest and contemplate. Later in meditation
I shall descend through hidden tunnels
over and over again, to meet my kin.


April PAD Challenge 12
Prompt: A city.


Also submitted 10 Dec. 2011 to Poets United's Thursday Think Tank #77 — The City