Cachi, Argentina

To Pachamama...

The scene appeared a picture;
Mother Nature’s finest vista spread forth;
An orgy of bucolic beauty.

A painter of incomparable skill;
Her vistas burn the retina and indelibly lift the soul.

Bathed in the suns ever affectionate gaze she rose up to meet his stare;
Absorbing the affection he so willingly gave.
Glowing further still under the watchful eye of her eternal suitor;
Her reciprocation radiated and both enjoyed the union of heaven and earth.

The perfection of absolute tranquillity could not be broken with any conviction,
The persistent flow of the lands lifeblood;
The efforts of the breeze but perfunctory punctuation in an extended verse of perfection.

Animals lay still, hiding in the shade;
Knowing that movement is for other times.
Man closed his doors and windows;
Intending to sleep when work was no longer possible.

Strands of her pure silver hair threaded through the scene;
Tumbling over her clothes tailored from folds of the greenest velvet;
Concealing the troubles she keeps hidden beneath.

Ruptures, rents, cracks and crevasses lay upon her body;
Evidence of her indeterminable age;
Evidence of the struggles of days gone past;
For her beauty is not without pain.

Scarred by mans need to travel, his need to work, his need to sustain;
Where he no longer moves new life spreads forth with abandon;
Slowly and with patience borne of a life beyond mortal realms;
Beginning to reclaim all that is rightfully hers.

For in the beginning she gives life;
Provides that by which we need to grow; and
In the end, after the last breath, she provides refuge;
The final resting place for earthly vessels no longer needed.

She is the beginning of all things.
She nurtures and protects comforts and cares.
Creation springs from her every effort.
Her every movement creates beauty afresh;
Dramatic or subtle but beauty nonetheless.

In the beginning we are of her;
In the end we become her once again.
Perpetually the guardian of life and of death;
She takes from one and gives to the other.

Battered and bruised, she has been used and abused by her very own children;
She wears the indignity of pain with pride;
But with the reticent and sad knowledge that this life’s mistakes;
Will be visited upon her children’s children;
With a force too great even for her to bear.

Knowing not of borders and caring not for the disputes of man;
Her riches are plundered and pillaged.
Unappreciated by those she cares for her anger can be savage.
But in her quieter moments she is kind;
Her breath warming and her bosom a place to rest.

For she is mother earth and we her children.