At Machu Picchu by Alison Luterman

At Machu Picchu

Green fingers of the Andes point straight up.
Minty buzz of coca leaves chewed to a pulp
are supposed to help with altitude sickness.
They don’t. Far below, the brown river churns,
white with foam. We clamber over steep stones.
This is where Incan emperors came
for summer respite, high in cool clouds.
Here’s an outline of a granary.
And here’s where oracles
scried for omens. Did those wise ones foresee
the coming of Spaniards on horseback,
looking like great god-beasts
to ones who’d never seen riders before?
There’s a dizziness that comes
when worlds collide, like now,
when I’m in another country, half in another century,
imagining the sight of impossibly tall conquistadors
galloping up on a sleepy village.
I sink down on a warm boulder, easy mark
for an off-duty guard who tells me
he’s looking for an American wife
with lots of patience, because he wants to fly
“like a condor” to the U.S. But I’m already married,
and a sharp-tongued flatlander, alas.
He shrugs. Worth a try.
We watch a local woman, baby tied to her back
climb past, easy as water flowing uphill,
followed by a German with a selfie stick.
Since I landed in Cusco last week,
I’ve seen a bent-over old man
use a toilet plunger to haul himself along
steep streets, and a barefoot girl
in muddy rags, herding pigs in a ditch.
Mostly I’ve seen how mighty empires fall
and the descendants of kings are left
hustling tourists for tips.
The arc of history dissolves into mist.
“You can know every view by one view,”
my companion says, out of the blue.
He’s stuck in his life, as I am in mine,
and the terms are cosmically unjust.
High above us, condors circle the sacred mountain
cruising the updrafts like minor gods.

*

Alison Luterman’s five books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life, See How We Almost Fly, Desire Zoo, In the Time of Great Fires, and Hard Listening. She also writes plays, song lyrics, and personal essays. She has taught at New College, The Writing Salon, Catamaran, Esalen and Omega Institutes and writing workshops around the country, as well as working as a California poet in the schools for many years.