Remembrance of things past

Have you ever been to a place and instantly felt the urge to write a poem about it? I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit Cuzco, Lake Titicaca and Machu Picchu, and these are the sorts of places that brings out your inner poet.

Many years later, memories of Cuzco, Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes came back to me as I wrote the following poem.

Birds singing

in the dark night

— Rainy dawn

in Pachamama’s Aguas Calientes.

Peru has a way of remaining

Frozen in memory.

The sad mummies,

The quiet towers,

The unspeaking stones

of Machu Picchu

Speak the fame

of Pachamama and her Aguas Calientes.

When Pachamama had a tiff

With Pachapapa,

and the waters froze:

from the harbor of Panama to the land of Simon Bolivar,

from Venezuela down to Peru,

A cloud of incense shot through the forest

And nobody could breathe

In Pachamama's Aguas Calientes.

It reminded everyone of what was power,

and it was the same day, the volcano blew.

And the river swelled up

And drowned everything

In Pachamama's Aguas Calientes.

I read this story

of Pachamama and her fury

How the river rose up and flooded one and all.

It reminded me of the day the river ate my boat,

and my own humble experiences with waters

and, as the river gurgled besides us,

Namaamyaham, namaami aham

I could not but bow in respect to Pachamama

When I was in her Aguas Calientes.

Another remembrance I have of things past are my post bloggings. Here is a list of previous blogs, group blogs, and other blogging work that I have been a part of:

• Ask the Delphic Oracle, a blog started for an IndiaTimes.com column of the same name.

• Delfik Orakle, a blog I created both as a continuation of the Ask the Delphic Oracle and also as a repository to hold previous blog posts from other blogs.

• Zoo Station, a group blog I was a part of which incidentally won the IndiBloggies Award for Best Group Blog.

Enjoy your day!