From a new bilingual Spanish/English Edition, translated by Lynn Levin. New York: 2Leaf Press, 2014

“Saint Isidore the Farmer” by Odi Gonzales

Basilio Santa Cruz Pumqallo, Cathedral of Cusco

The morning star
begins to brighten in the firmament
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++it shines
like the white coffin of a child
in a distant churchyard:

+++++++suggesting
the constellation of the plow

a great serenity
a motionless calm

On the terrace crowded with red parrots
chattering birds predict rain
and hailstorms
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++could this be the path of heaven?

Isidore the farmer
is not at his post, and the owner
of these parcels of land
planted with coca
discovers that in his absence
the angels are plowing his fields

++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++(the background

dissolves
into an arbor and
a far-off field of boulders)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++A few things more,
+++++++++++++++++++++as the oxen traveled back and forth
+++++++++++++++++++++driving furrows into the rocky ground
+++++++++++++++++++++I acquired the greatest of my misfortunes, old
+++++++++++++++++++++weary laborer that I am:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++now I have
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++stones forming in my kidneys
+++++++++++++++++++++and my hoe and harrow, the yoke for my beasts

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++rest
+++++++++++++++++++++on the plot of St. Eligius
+++++++++++++++++++++patron of blacksmiths
Notes:

Basilio Santa Cruz Pumaqallo was a master of the School of Cusco. He painted Saint Isidore the Farmer from 1691-1693.
Path of Heaven is a narrow street in Cusco.

* * *

“God Shows Paradise to Adam and Eve” by Odi Gonzales

18th century, Cusco School, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The forest of Colcampata
+++++++++++++++++++++Eyebrow of the rainforest
The orchards of the Urco hacienda?
The Manzanares Estate?

Eve’s naked charm, voluptuous flesh
the sleepy eyes of the first ox
cannot take it all in

A slender leaf covers her sex . . . a sprig of lemon balm?

Here, at least thirty types of birds
are scattered in the vegetation.

The bird of paradise/the passion fruit blossom
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++sprouts
Nile green
++++++++++++++flag red
in the forest clearing

And a river went out of Eden
that watered the garden

+++++++++++++++++++++Tea plantations?

Coffee haciendas?
The lowing of cattle at the troughs
No still life
++++++++++++++one
graffito:

exit on the right

two thurifer angels perfume
the last months of Mary’s pregnancy

+++++++++++++++++++++Mother Earth?

Hortus conclusus/cloistered garden

Notes:

Colcampata is an Inca palace located in the northern part of Cusco. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish conquerors gave the palace of Colcampata to Cristobal Paullu Inca, one of the puppet Incas installed by the Spanish.

Urco, a small village in Peru’s Sacred Valley, was the home of Inca Urco, one of the sons of the emperor Viracocha Inca, who ruled during the early fifteenth century.

Manzanares is a hacienda in Calca, a town in Peru’s Sacred Valley.