Túcume, Peru

Spirits and demons infest the red hills
Where shamans, good and evil, contend;
Dead men’s incense clouds the sunset
Conquerors’ hymns fuel the high pyres.
Great city of pyramids, I come in peace,
With lapis lazuli and spondylus shells,
Where great balsa rafts catch the wind
And sail out to sea along royal canals.
The potter’s hands contain a universe,
Emptiness the substance they shape.
When pest and deluge blight the land,
The last Inca lord’s bright skull will sing
With prophet’s tongue,among the sands,
And his giant shadow walk in the storm.
What power have empires and thrones
Against the true word well spoken?
We come to this place to be reminded
Of what our hearts have always known.
The sacred stone tilts true on its axis
At the city entrance,in the solar temple;
My own dead bones I bury there, clad
In rich cloths, out of mercy and sorrow,
Then turn away through the bright gates,
Out into the desert, into the man to come.