By Jenny Ward Angyal
Gibsonville, North Carolina, USA
Long ago, in a sacred valley where Inca kings and mountain glaciers reigned, there was a garden made of gold. A golden tree with silver leaves that danced and glittered in the breeze. Golden beasts and birds and flowers from across the empire. Stalks of maize with golden kernels. A jaguar from the Amazon, golden eyes gazing at the llamas and alpacas with their fine golden fleece. And all around, the walls of the Coricancha covered in sheets of gold, glowing in the sun.
Spanish conquistadors blundered into the garden, eyes alight with greed. Some made passing mention of its wonders in the chronicles they wrote, but no one took the time to draw pictures of the shining icons, nor even make a list of what was there. They gathered up the precious metal and melted it all down.
black gold
burning in our furnaces—
the ice caps
melting into streams
like crystal tears