The Andes - Refugios de Ensueno

The Andes - Refugios de Ensueno
(Surreal Sanctuaries)

where I grew up the earth’s bones
are encased in thick green skin
made of conifer and oak trees
even where her surface is thin.

It is awesome and yet disconcerting
on these Peruvian autumn days
to find them as naked skeletons
laid out to heaven’s lascivious gaze.

Flat vertical walls of bare stone
upon which even hanging vines
fail to find purchase-wash away
rock gullies without large pines.

It’s like discovering the excavation
of deeply carved fissured fossils
or the autopsy of a goddess.
having removed all the muscles.