From the Top

The clock strikes four and the climb begins

Through gutted rain and Andean winds

From painted bridge we burst and turn

And for the top each light does yearn

To walk the trail of Incans past

To ascend gray stairs with lungs that last

With the sun we slowly rise

heavy hearts and bleary eyes

Few will reach the stone clad gates

For oxygen outweighed their haste

 I enter now with a soggy soul

Trembling limbs, rain takes its toll

We weave through houses steeped in stone

Cracked sun dials which stand alone

The toil of those 10,000 men

Whose city was just taken when

The Spanish came with bullet arms

As Chonkas lead them to Incan farms

It was not long before the city fell

Covered in mud and earthen hell

The ruins remained hidden, 400 years

Unbenounced to Spanish ears

Who sought to find what they were told

Was a city clad in silver and gold

But they never uncovered the Incan truth

Of sacred terraced mountain youth

Until a scheming American came

And took from that mountain his bid to fame

Without remorse he looted it

Sending artifacts home for his benefit

Now In an ivy tower they do lay

And without redemption they shall stay.

I am but one among the mass

I climbed the WaynaPicchu pass

And from my stone carved in the earth

I look at Macchu with dismal mirth

For had the Spanish had hearts or souls

They might have felt these grassy knolls

The hundreds of terraces born from scratch

Each engineering feet and hydraulic hatch

The 2 ton stones moved by sheets of lumber

The tombs of old where young kings slumber

The sacred realms where a child’s blood

Was offered to God in cups of mud

A civilization ended far too soon

Where clumsy travelers climb and swoon.

I curse the Spanish for what they’ve done

and descend now with the setting sun.