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