arequipa central has 530 registered buildings
according to the world heritage archive,
and this room this bar these four old couches are supported
by eighteen foot ceiling, four foot thick walls, limestones
urged from the earth in forever ago, so
when the earth shakes there's somewhere to go.

this morning I couldn't finish my coffee but climb in a bus
with a man who
said the mountains, here, were once people too.
misti & wife chachani, urged from the earth in forever ago
once fought with such destruction that God, in His
almighty Wisdom
sundered and separated and a canyon placed between their
penitent heads all bowed surrendered
in caps of snow.

but every age or so
she is much taller but he, a volcano, spews and
spits she stands and
we carve out the earth in hollow dens, so
when it shakes there's somewhere to go.

and they say when the ground gives way, you
all you can do,
is to look up and see snow.


in the holy talmud they wrote,
cover thine head
in order that the fear of heaven
may be upon the living.

and conduct great sorrows on the those who dwell below.