women weave in synchrony, bodies swaying

to pan flute harmonies, around them bright yarn

twirling on drop spindles.  My body is hypnotized by rhythm. 

 

Recipes pass mother to daughter:

crush cochinilla bugs for red dye, add lemon

to blood for burnt orange, chisel from indigo rock

the marine blue buried in the deepest corner of sky.

 

Find bliss in the burgundies.  Let smells of chocolate

and greens seep from nogal leaves,

rustle quietly through huarango trees.

And always, always set fire to the elements—

 

a fire that requires attention, an innate tenderness,

like the tenderness a mother gives her child,

a gift of sancha suncha violets wrapped in her words,

El tiempo todo lo cura.  Mother, I think of you now

 

as an Incan woman offers me a scarf of the finest alpaca

sprinkled with bits of gold, as the crisp Andean air presses

against my face, while the black night uncurls its hands

over the mountain pass and releases me.