head in the clouds

In Patagonia
the sky embraces
the pale land still cool to the touch
after last winter, which left the pampas grass brittle thin and the eagles fat
now they can see their prey for miles and miles

This continent is so narrow here
the two oceans could talk to each other
still, they do not
the cold deep Pacific sings like a fish
but the warm shallow Atlantic
busy with its orcas and seals and whales
does not even listen

Between the two
much happens here
such as the Andes
packed with deep snows and trimmed with ice crystals

such as the endless flatness of nothing
but also sheep and horses and cows
(not to mention the guanacos and foxes and pumas)
warmly furred and walking day after day into the wind
which seldom quits

But the most reliable are clouds

I wake before dawn and smell the sky
and they all come in, rushing over the steppe
turning somersaults as they go
and twisting into spires and bright hills of deep-tinted vapors
like me, they are a bit crazy, too

Then the sunlight finds its way into their folds
so they can glow
and if I stick my head in the clouds
the morning will come and sit in my lap
and fill me with amazement

But if I move
I will also see a dead guanaco trapped in a barbed wire fence
its strong body caught in a mid-leap not high enough
to clear the obstacle we erected across its wild trail
and all over this land

And I may notice bright skeletons, scattered like puzzles on gravel bars
and wonder where are the bones of those
who disappeared in Argentina when the junta used to roar
or those who perished in Chile
when old man Pinochet killed and killed
and inflicted sorrows which may never end.

And I see roadside shrines erected for those who died after their cars rolled
or slid off the pavement and crashed
does not matter how it happened because it already did
still wet with tears of those who kept on living
I see their pain caught in plastic flowers
chipped vases
and weathered plaques swinging in the wind.

This is an empty and magnificent land where the living are few
and I seem to see the traces of the dead wherever I look.
I do not want to see them
but they are there, unmoved and omnipresent.

Now, speaking of lesser sorrows which end quickly
the other day Dr.Rios of Puerto Natales thought he found something surprising
right in the middle of my body
and furrowed his brow in concerned

But I should have told him it was nothing to worry about
just a condor's egg
big and round and held safe from all this wind
and I should have told him I was all well

But what about the egg, this egg, he would say, and insist I told him the truth

You know, there are condors here, slicing the peaks in half with their gliding wings
and who knows what else they do in Patagonia
when no one is watching?


©Yva Momatiuk

the persistence of memory

There is a mountain lake high in the Rockies where aspen trees spill their reflections across the surface, and if the October breeze jumps over the surrounding peaks the reflections would keep dancing until your heart spins. John is already waiting for them on a high bank of the lake while I, far more impatient, pace the shore, as if moving could snag the magic and spread it over the water. "Got any good snaps?" asks a trout fisherman as we pass each other on a narrow trail.  "No," I tell him, and it is true: ever since morning I have been trying to find a spot, the angle and the moment when... how did he say it? a good snap could happen. But magic has its own hidden agenda and tells me nothing. 

I walk among tall aspen trees, stare up their feathery golden crowns and touch the smooth skin of their bark. Still -- nothing. Instead, I see every obstacle: the profusion of their dead black twigs, the cloud invading the clear blue of the sky, and the unforgiving harsh light which sucks brilliant colors from the leaves. I am coughing, too: a persistent respiratory bug has settled on my bronchial branches and sits there like a dark bird straight from hell. 

Hours trickle by and I think I've had it. No luck, and the sun is dipping behind another cloud. Better find our camper and start cooking. End this fruitless day. Wave my white flag and surrender. Then I round a corner of the lake where a low dam keeps the water from tumbling down the valley. And there, just past some dead leaves cruising in a small eddy full of dirty foam, there are reflections of tall aspen trunks broken by the evening breeze, dancing. They expand like elongated balloons and shrink into fine lines. They bend and twist. I only work with stills, yet so much is happening in their movements. The golden hues of their leaves are dancing, too, and I suddenly think about Salvador Dali's painting "Swans Reflecting Elephants" where the reflecting swans turn bare tree trunks into elephants and the Catalonian landscape behind them goes afire.

What elephants? What swans? Here in Colorado, on 10.000 feet? But the persistence of memory holds. I am suddenly looking at the tips of my patent leather shoes and the elevator floor when the door folds open and Dali walks in first, with Gala, his wife and muse, following. There are only three of us in this small elevator of Gallery of Modern Art, at 2 Columbus Circle in New York City and the year is, I think, 1967. The painter and his wife are both small and stand very still, dressed in conservative dark clothes, while my mini skirt suddenly feels very short. We do not speak but I quickly look at his eyes, dark and alert, and kill my urge to touch the tips of his upturned mustaches. Then it all fades, and I am back at my mountain lake, with white aspen trunks dancing among small waves.  ©Yva Momatiuk