Juanita

— People of the Inca believed the most perfect pattern to be the female/male relationship, that of nearly identical, but slightly differing synonomies.

1. - Birth

Imagine being chosen, imagine not being chosen.
Your birth was beautiful, like many,
but the dark blood those hands caught you from held your gods
as well, as well a noble nose by standards,
a fetus cord that fed you healing as you grew
and again, beauty, shining in the faces of those in the room.
Your exhausted mother, who, weeping, kissed your equal
and even eyelids shut, first your right, then your left.

2. - Leaving

The days continue, after each your mother thinks
she will choose the day of your going, then does not choose.
Her friends say the choice has good fortune, lessons
from high priests. Steps assured as ever finer for your kin.
To be received by the hands of the Inca. What greater
gift to the daughter of nobility? Your mother sees.
You take life or death as a ripe fruit, weighed only by its own weight.
She fears you loveliest; the unlikely honor, your right eye closed sooner than her left.

3. - Role of the Incan Doubter
Weathers change, so do men! The great
predictors who speak to the ground, the highest mountains
cannot imagine being chosen, cannot imagine not being chosen.
Their orders flow as rivers, never touching the mountain lake
and another six winters will hear hands clapping for another
youth to be left in a ditch on a mountainside, fine trinkets
at their frozen feet. Tell me, how long after the news comes back
will they continue to speak of her right eye, fairer than her left?


4. - Role of the Incan Believer
We call you our child, and so you are for now.
As you walk, your steps among the streets, gods glide
by in your aspect, and our work is honored. My hands,
not as fine as yours, do not choose the task, they are chosen.
They weave your gown. The colors, numbers; some even, some not.
Beauty that only your beauty could lift.
I only hope they do justice to your lovely
eyes, the way you turn your right eye to Inti always before your left.



5. - Role of Reinhard
I dropped a rock down the crater to see
which way the body rolled. When Sabancaya blew
it's top again my steps rushed up that fresh sand seeing sun
for the first time in five centuries. So little air on Ampato
your hands can't wonder if they've been chosen or not chosen
to find the conquest journal's sacrifice. But that day,
September, lightning flecked llamas of bronze and gold, sets of twos,
and she, frozen through, her right eye smaller than her left.

6. - Ascent

Each step you took was closer to the god chosen for you.
Each step higher among, above, gods, on paths
smoothed by worker's hands before your arrival.
Only your feet in sandals were numb.
Near the god, you watched 2 boys, cold, brave,
neither could imagine being chosen, having not been chosen,
as they were fed the liquor, strong for their age and one by one
had their right eyes smashed in, but not their left.

7. - Role of the Present Day Observer

It's still illegal for my hands to unearth a body
and I'm not sure I'd want to. If you buried your good wishes in dirt, how
to see the shepherd who shied from public, ceremonial
blood, but walked the steps of blood and dug up your dreams? Seeing you,
your Spanish grafted name, your double paned plastic box,
seems like feeling the indecent texture of Vermeer's curtains.
I can choose to look, but you now have no choice.
The ice saved your guts, not your eyes, neither right nor left.

8. - Juanita

It is no longer dirt, it is air. They've spread a carpet
to soften the walls and beside me have lain the
finest works from the hands of people, paired across the circle
around me. The liquor was strong. My shivers on my skin
seem a great distance away. And above me, music, each note
higher, clearer than the last. My pins are fastened, here with the gods
the minute to come, the music will cease and my light will shine.
One chosen to be with the god, never not chosen,
as this man's mace now makes my right eye smaller than my left.

--
a piece i wrote several years ago, following travels in Peru, regarding human sacrifice and the type of society that could construct flawless walls with 200 ton stones. this same society felt that it was necessary to sacrifice human beings in ritualized manners. all of this and a visit to Arequipa made me very curious to explore what i felt the dynamics were between such a civilization and the current iteration of society at large in america.