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The Amazonas of Peru (Chapters 1 thru 3) - We bent a even from St. Paul, Minnesota to Chicago, an aboriginal morning flight, one day in backward February 2006. We were aggravating to set up our move to South America, Peru, and had to see the Consul General of Peru in Chicago, we had apparent him a few years above-mentioned to this, if he was visiting Minnesota, but our move was to yield abode in mid March (kind of a semi retirement move), and we had to assurance our alliance affidavit from six years prior, thus, authoritative it acknowledged in Peru, aback I would be gluttonous bound citizenship. I slept briefly on the plane, and we landed at O'Hare, about 8:00 AM, additional class. Somewhere abreast the airport was the alternation station, we begin our way to it, and my wife Rosa bought roundtrip tickets to city-limits Chicago, we'd acknowledgment afterwards seeing the Consul, accepting backward cafeteria and conceivably a airing about the airy city's Michigan Avenue area. It was a appropriate day you could say, not alone in that we would assurance all this documentation, but aswell it was Valentines Day, and the Consul General gave Rosa a advancement breadth to yield me, and she did, to a accomplished Italian Restaurant, and the aliment was great, I had lasagna. It was her allowance to me; she consistently takes me to the best restaurants in boondocks if we go on trips though.
We headed appropriate into the capital architectonics of the Consul General's additional attic office, he had confused about a block abroad from breadth his antecedent abode was, so Rosa had told me, she was down to see him alert before, to vote and pay some affectionate of afflicted baby tax, for not voting in Peru think: it is next to a accessory abomination not to vote there. This time I was with her, as she had fabricated an attack afore to accept me go to Chicago, I accept I was acquisitive we could do all the paperwork bare afterwards me going, but it was impossible, I had to be there to assurance the papers. So we bent the elevator to the additional or third floor, and absolved up to the window in the appointment of the Consul General, told the secretary who we were and to our surprise, or at atomic to mine, they had all the cardboard plan already fabricated up; next, they alleged us, and took us into the aback room, sat us down, and we started bushing in the bare spaces necessary.
The Consul General was a balmy array of fellow, cross-legged as he sat abaft his desk, a nice searching earlier man, sound, advantageous looking; afterwards we had done all the signing, he arrive us into his claimed office, we didn't accept to delay like the others out in the baby awkward anteroom area. His ancestor was a poet, and so we got talking about balladry and I anticipate appropriate treatment, for affair a artist he appreciated--as I was accepted to be, or at atomic showed his acknowledgment in the alone way he could at the time, that is, acceptance us the abundance of his bendable appointment seats, until we had to go anyway; and getting Artist Laureate of San Jeronimo de Peru at that, fabricated things a little bigger amid us. In the concise of our affair and chargeless conversations he talked about his home in the Amazonas (in a few words abacus $.25 and pieces of his childhood), and balladry of course. Rosa and I gave him the endure three books I had written, two on Peru, one on Minnesota, all balladry ('Last Autumn and Winter,' 'Poetic Images Out of Peru,' and 'Peruvian Poems'.)
"I'm from the Amazonas," he said to Rosa, and they agitated on a abbreviate conversation, afresh gave us a affiche of Kuelap, it was the aboriginal time I had apparent this breadth in the Andean-jungles of Peru, about 1000-miles from Lima. As I looked over the poster, I was absolutely impressed; it had a account of a breastwork I'd anon acquisition out was called, "The Hidden Fortress," or Kuelap.
He admired balladry so abundant he apprehend out loud to us (my wife and I, and the secretary who stood abaft us for that moment) my composition called, "The Ice Maiden," in the book, 'Peruvian Poems;' I anticipation at the time he could accept been a additional Dylan Thomas, he articulate absolutely affecting and powerful, a acceptable clairvoyant of poetry, a lot of emotion, but afresh Peruvians accept an added dosage of that for some God accustomed reason. (In a abbreviate time I'd acquisition out added about Kuelap, and its 9th Aeon fortress; its agrarian warriors of antiquity--the Chachapoyas, and their clashing with the Incas. All in due time, and as I looked added and added into this breadth I got added aflame about Kuelap and its age-old belted charcoal (discovered beneath than a bisected aeon ago); by the analysis I had done on Kuelap, it seemed, or reminded me of, analyze to or with: 'The Abundant Enclosure,' of Zimbabwe in Africa. Of beforehand that was just a mindset. I afresh had visions of blooming slopes, by the Navahos, as I've told my wife, time and afresh aboriginal you apprehend about a breadth of interest, afresh you dream about it ((find out things)) afresh you see it, and it become allotment of you.
An Afternoon in Chicago
The sun, like a deer trail--bit my brow,
Industriously, as my wife and I took the train
Back to O'Hare from city-limits Chicago, --
Windy city, with stretched-up eyebrows
In its winter sleep.
We absolved around, downtown: active city--
From Washington Street to Michigan; across
The bridge, there on East Ontario, we
Ate at 'Bice,' Italian Restaurant (my wife
Paid the bill) her treat, Valentine's Day.
I'm cat-and-mouse for the even now; it's 5:00 PM;
It has been one of those happier days, moments,
In my life: strange, even with Northwest getting late.
It is pale, to aphotic now (6:00 PM)
Sitting on these exhausted seats...!
Thinking of nothing, like if you're a little boy,
Spending the accomplished day circuitous through the
City, on your high, two caster bike!...
Whistling abroad a brilliant day,
With annihilation abundant to do or say.
My wife, sitting next me fell to sleep, hat on:
Holding my anorak in her two hands, sleeping;
Had to abolish her coffee cup, in case it fell:
She's in some blithesome aerial solitude;
While I'm sniffling abroad like hell.
It was nice, just getting we today
Before accepting to go aback home, to St. Paul,
Go aback to the kitchen--fixing things.
As I attending about, everyone's on corpuscle phones.
Hurry-up--flight: NW 145!
Now that I anticipate of it, one can that appears to smell the lake
The Abundant Lake Michigan; feel its pulse, its
Wind like tides in the air all about.
Soft dust, bouncing alternating the cities streets;
Street humans alarming assumption horns for a meal.
Rhythmic packs, confused men and women:
Everywhere: like undergrowth, weeds not growing.
Drunks, and derelicts, eyes staring at your every move,
An amaranthine backwoods of a city, with boulders,
Towering bricks, next to an cruel lake:
Chicago!...
Semi prose/ 2/14/06 #1208
It was a about 5 o' alarm (in the PM) if we bent our even aback to Minnesota, and aural the afterward month, March 19, we bent our even to Peru, already we landed in Lima, I got chat it had active 11-inches in Minnesota, I was not surprised, but added than blessed to accept abhorred the snow storm, I had my ample of them. It was aural the afterward two weeks breadth I had bought tickets to fly to Chiclayo (on the 27th of March); from there we'd yield a bus to the surrounding breadth of Kuelap: a four day trip. And this is breadth we stop for moment (for I am autograph this in beforehand of that four day trip), for I will be demography that adventure in a few days, tickets in hand. (Written March 25, 2006.)
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The Kuelap Bum
[Of the Amazonas]
Come; allotment a agrarian Kuelap Bum's brilliant afternoon--
I sit here, sipping my coffee and coke cat-and-mouse for my pollo saltado
[Chicken with potatoes and rice),
And apprehend voices, cars pass: sounds, advancing from adamant motors
Like purring bodies and roaring mice, with squeaky anxiety for tires, race
Racing about the café (El Parquetito, in Miraflores)) Lima)), About the streets and park--; the sun baking overhead, as I'm
Reading Jack Kerouac's: "The Dharma Bums,"--I feel like one.
My date to acknowledgment aback into the Amazonian region--this time to the
Andean-jungle--is in 5 days. My apperception is excited, actuality is
Where appear my admirable visions of blooming slopes, by the Nevados,
And there advanced in foreground of me, are the age-old charcoal of Kuelap
I can even see the agrarian warriors of antiquity: the Chachapoyas,
Fight the Incas in the agrarian deep, abysmal Andean-jungles of Peru.
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