Deep in Colombia’s
Amazonian jungle,
even today
the Huitoto tribe
peacefully subsists
off fishing, hunting
archaic farming,
protected by the bush
from our so-called
“civilization”,
able to cling to age-old
traditions and rituals.
Among these,
today’s savants interpret
the Huitoto myth
of Creation:
The Father first birthed
the land, its trees, vines
and flowers,
followed by the waters
of seas, lakes and rivers,
clouds in the sky,
lofty and low,
gray, white and blue,
while in the depths
of the netherworld,
He created Rafuema,
“beholder of tales,”
and ordered him to voice
his own description
of Creation.
To describe the wonders:
all kinds of animals,
from crickets to whales,
tree-eating black monkeys,
fruit scaveging tapirs,
bush boars, warthogs, feral piglets
birds of all chirps and colors,
clouds of gnats and cicadas
and other wild and domestic beasts.
To me as a poet,
this Huitoto myth
is both transparent and exalting,
for in the order of Creation,
after earth, sea and sky,
the Father birthed Rafuema,
“beholder of tales”,
another name for
poet,
bard,
minstrel,
troubadour.
This is why I propose
to elevate Rafuema
to the symbolic rank
of poetic deity
of Colombia,
“land of poets”.
where a giant creative
circle has expanded
over time by those
following his path:
Chibchas singing lullabies
to full moon Mother Chia;
Muiscas humming chants
as El Dorado submerges
anointed with gold dust
into frigid Lake Guatavita;
the four winds resound
with the battle hymns
of ferocious Pijaos
and man-eating Caribs;
and cryptic mantras
are endlessly repeated
to the beat of tom-toms
and shrills of reed flutes
at Cunha fertility rites
in Darien’s somber swamps.
Pilar, my daughter
and defacto accomplice
in DuoPoetico,
feels unique telluric links
with Ancient Peru,
and from her home
in Big Sky Montana
she writes odes
to the sun god of the Incas,
to Pachamanca,
the Quechua earth goddess,
and to the moon’s vestals
who soar over Machu Picchu.
I’m blessed with
similar solace and inspiration
irradiating from Rafuema
and other tellers of tales
who, century after century,
have followed his path
in what is now Colombia.
Daughter,
let us continue
this dialogue inspired
by the changing of the seasons,
the power of the sun,
the phases of the moon,
and all our indigenous heritage
paying homage to our ancestral
bards:
whose words still burn
in our hearts
in our veins
in our souls….
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