Barbara E. Hunt
These Churches
Cusco, Peru
will never fall completely out of use
for they are more like ancient
monuments disguised as a Cathedral.
With massive wooden portals not
opened since Spanish conquest. And
massive meteor-orb as touchstone
inside the anti-chamber for believers
to lay lips, foreheads and fingertips
to on their way to worship. Each crevice
and side-niche half-stripped of Inca gold
once carted across oceans in plunder.
Still silvered vessel, fit for any Rose
Bowl parade, cradles a bejewelled
Madonna propped on thick beams
a dozen burly men will carry through
jubilant streets in Holy Week. Absorb
incense and candlelight in homage to
god of stars and god of wind. How
strange this testament of faith that’s
altered each successive crèche and font
and nave. Made each crucified Saviour,
Holy Spirit, Mother Mary less Spanish,
less European, less white in favour
of bending the arc of praise towards
traditional, pagan ways. Even their
angels, saints and prophets; their
vestments evolved moving forward
by reaching back in time to symbols,
signs and elements of a righteous natural
world. Not long did those usurpers
have their way, for soon the Holy See
bred in these modern times, a pope
with Pacha-Mama sensibilities.