Patagonian Child

Sunlight dancing on her tousled head,
a child wanders barefoot by sandy shoals;
waters that cut fierce furrows
in lone stretches of cracked riverbed.
She’ll stick her finger inside hollows,
shelter for fertile pools;
life teems in cool underbellies of stone.

Now and then she crouches to spy
behind dunes and rocks,
curious about desert crabs burrowing
in mounds of pebbles.
Her wary feet skip by sandbanks,
nature’s gifts to indigenous people,
when winka hadn’t come to scourge
llanos, nor gun the sleek nawuel.

Sculptured bones shed lucent hues
on flatlands cowered by white-hot winds,
where streamlets seldom reach the sea.
Unreal Patagonian sky, merciless and blue,
an indifferent vault over souls and things.
As she trips by snaky rivulets
lean horses falter on tablelands,
pulling at tufts, kneeling by scarce waters;
her world is full of burning blasts
of summer air; sometimes
she hears fast tuks tuks of coots;
senses the hawk lording it over skylines
to nab some creature fleeing in the brush.
Chimangos fly in lazy circles over carrion,
like airplanes waiting to land.

The child feels and breathes the power
of nothingness shaped by a mighty hand.
Comrade of solitude, she views sunlight
pulsate on steppes, where stoic languages were
spawned for nomads treading olden routes.
The child is a mite on this rock of ages,
where a cactus sprouts a flower
of beauty rare, which lasts a night.