The North Coast times-eagle., July 01, 1997, Page 9, Image 9

CHILE
I*—'
.M ra Í ac X
Æ i S m
bJ
'♦ «>•
/ murmur and invoke your name, an Indian word for cold-
from America's southern hemisphere you reply
as a flowering branch newly suspended over my life
neither twin nor imitation
but a world of differences
packed into one long strand of a country,
the great vertebral Andes
your axis of haunting deserts, arid plains,
vineyards, lakes, volcanoes, primeval forests,
archipelagos, glaciers,
a ribbon of land tangled in vegetable matter and stone,
in the untamed and modern,
oxen-drawn carts and computers,
always facing the broadest ocean westward
where the palm of daily fire spreads from the departing sun.
Never homesick, we wandered the road of our life-line
north to south
from vast desolation and unrelieved purple-brawn hills
to lush, planted valleys where
"el vino comienza su vida entre el mar y las cordilleras"1 2
and the markets are praised by the eye and the palate.
Our wonder opened at your unfamiliar tapestry-
guanaco, nandu, chirimoya, condor, copihue, cisne de cuello negro,
and your cities' ubiquitous motor and discord
to a rustic cabin perched above the beach
where all past suffering was put aside,
where our love-making was a mosaic of waves,
candles, night, and whispers
continual as the wind spilling over beyond itself,
and the clouds above us always travelling carelessly
within the permanent blue arch of vivid freedom. ..
In too many places,
people so wrought with scars dared to speak,
Pinochet still moves through the riverbeds
his torture was worse than death,
his terror held in the ground,
in only a tissue of time
there were guitars and the voices of Violeta and Victor,
now resting in the refuge of history,
echoes of strength in the strange theater of politics.
We journeyed in the middle of nowhere-
the vast Atacaman Desert
where mummies predate the Egyptians,
and where copper, iron ore, gold, silver, nitrate
are pulled out
and the earth laments
as the economy sings its riches.
Wandering down the coastline, the ocean's white petals
disappeared on the shores of pulverized shell
or sand or rock,
repeating its syllables
while our faces pressed against bus windows
everything seen with new eyes
and without assumption.
Arica to Valparaiso- 2,000 kilometers
the port's ascensores lifted us out from the chaos
to La Sebastiana, one of three of Neruda's homes
all filled with eclectic treasures, imagination, communism,
libraries, enchantment, the illumination of his poetry in every room,
his woman, his friends, in his beloved country where
"quiero poner mi brazo en tu cintura exigua
\
Valdtvu
CaxMcO
y sentarme en tus piedras por el mar calcinadas.. .
and Santiago, its hugeness alive andframed by mountains,
a density of streets, plazas, parks, lovers, buses,
a world-class subway, movie houses, hotels, ice cream shops,
universities, churches, racy coffee bars, wonders and disasters,
the stores that have everything,
melancholy sunlight filtered by smog,
a city saturated in allegiance to soccer
and the tragic grip of Catholicism,
Alameda's bustle, and almost half the nation's population,
all in motion.
Another thousand kilometers by the train's sleeping car to the far south
in twenty-two hours orchards became vineyards,
became forests dense with pine and eucalyptus,
ARCIIiri^LACMI
C m
became majestic volcanoes silhouetted against sky
with stands of monkey puzzle trees,
and Puerto Montt- the unpainted shingles of wooden houses
beneath grayness, thin drizzles and wet asphalt
too similar to what I needed to leave,
we turned north to camp
with the soft soliloquys of lakes,
the illegible writing of constellations,
beneath another face of the moon.
We travelled and loved and finally shook with the earthquake on our last night
as four months passed, I heard Gabriela's words in our good-bye:
"la misma ola vagabunda que te lleva te devuelva.
JUANITA HUEBNER
1 "the wine begins to come to life between the sea and the mountain ranges."
(Pablo Neruda)
2 ""I want to put my arms around your narrow waist and sit down on your stones
whitened by the sea
(Pablo Neruda)
3 ""may the same vagabond wave that takes you. return you "
(Gabriela Mistral)
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