Bolivia

Mountains of the divine potato-
Smelting-furnace of coups d’états!
We are mining the future
In the altitudes of Indian eyes.

Ice-beguiled by Mount Illimani,
I survey the shanty slopes of La Paz,
Ramshackle lives not to be extinguished
Without some true commemoration.
In the Witches’ Market I buy paraphernalia
For appeasing unkind spirits,
Something to keep life at bay,
Where bowler-hatted Aymara women
Stand behind the stalls,
Babies strapped to their backs.
Mandrake roots of language
I pull from the air;
Spanish,Quechua,Aymara.
In the museum,I look upon
The mask whose wearer once had
To dance till he dropped dead
To guard the year from drought and disease.
Weird beauties, elongated skulls
Of the ancients, trepanned
To let the gods in, and exalted
Like mountaintops!

At Tiwanaku Viracocha stands
Above the Puerta del Sol,
Haloed with the puma sun,
Snakes and condors at his beck,
As he strides forth with staff
To climb the mountains of man.
The blood of the beheaded
Pours into the earth at his feet.
The lightning-struck man
Releases rain from his hands.

South through the open door
Of a Potosí church, look
Towards the devil’s cone,
Cerro Rico, bleeding red
And yellow,-these stones
Are mortared with the blood
Of slaves who mined
The Mountain of hell,-
Their souls corralled
And flogged into obedience
As their poisoned bodies
Fell into the earth.
The hands that dug silver
Carved suns and moons and sirens
Next to Christ and his saints
On these walls, and the Virgin,
Triangular Andean peak,
Reigns over all.
And here, over the doorway,
Is an archangel in the garb
Of a Spanish soldier,
Armed with sword and shield.
These streets are narrow
And crushing as the mineshafts
And corridors of the mountain,
History’s mercury destroying
The newborn’s blood.
All must pay tribute
To the leering Devil, king of the mines,
His engorged cock raised
In brazen salute,
Greedy for booze and coca.

The winged toad and the puma-headed bird
Roam the underworld of monsters
Where the horned devil reigns,
Back and red design
On a mountain woman’s shawl.
On a church pulpit:
A portrait of Francisco de Aguirre,
Rich mine owner who renounced
His life of power and vice
To become a priest;
He holds his heart in his hand,
Surrendering it to Christ,
While stepping on prostrate Cupid,
Ignoring the calls of erstwhile friends
Eager to lure him back to debauchery.

Across a sheer rockface
Thousands of dinosaur footprints,
Laid down in the Cretaceous era,
On a flat mudbed covered by shallow water
Then covered by volcanic ash;
Predators chased down and killed
By legions of scavengers.

On the outskirts of Vallegrande
Lies the pit where his executioners
Laid the corpse of Che Guevara;
In these low scrubby mountains
He chose his proper end,
Stopped at last, a man who never knew
When to stop,
Surrounded by enemies,
Abandoned by friends,
Ignominy transformed into tragedy,
A dog’s death into martyrdom.

The Jesuit mission church at San Javier
Built by forest hands that had never known stone:
Domus Dei et Porta Coeli,
Baroque plaster facade
And in the courtyard the belltower
Supported by massive carved tree trunks,
Inside the church the retablo
Shows St Peter crucified upside-down
Surrounded by black-robed Jesuits
Being martyred by native warriors,
While other tribesmen are led off
From a burning mission
By armed European slavers;
Priests play piano and violin
Along with a Chiquitano choir,
While others teach the Indians
To write in the sand.