the words came over the mountains
as we rumbled around blind curves
on the dirt roads of the Andes
heart lodged high in my throat
trying to read a book, needing some air
because it all took my breath away
the words came over the mountains
the ones I could not capture
with the short lens of my Pentax
the sparkle and hues of the valleys
majestic yet humble pastoral scenes
punctuated by colorful forms with bent backs
the words came over the mountains
honking their horns before hairpin curves
casting a golden light on the clouds at my feet
nestling in the furrows of the patchwork hills
clinging to rocks like lichens above the treeline
catching my eye with your smile from the backseat
I was unaware, but those words became everything
everything I wanted to capture
everything that touched my soul
everything that made me yearn
everything that made my heart sing
everything I wanted to share
everything that brought me to my knees
everything about you
inspiring everything that was me
and wanting, wanting
to somehow give it back
wanting to whisper it in your ear
but never knowing how
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Mike, Andrew, Anthony, Brett, and my dad.
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A mud hut.
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Southern Ecuadorean Andes.
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A breathtaking view.
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The valley below.
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The clouds at our feet.
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Above the treeline.
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The ruins of Ingapirca
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More ruins at Ingapirca.
Today, Anthony Desmond over at Dverse challenged us to write a poem that is influenced by certain times in your life that made you the poet you are today. I can trace poem-writing to when I was 8 years old, but the desire and need to write poetry sprang up somewhere in my mid-teens. I can remember distinctly wanting to express things in a way that I had not figured out yet. So, this poem is about that time in my life, specifically about a trip through the Andes, or rather several trips that my mind has put all together into one.
“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment… by writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.” – Walt Whitman
*Note about the photos: I originally posted a pic of my brother and I at Ingapirca because I thought that all of my other photos of the Andes were all gone. Well, the very next day after I posted this poem, while I was going through stuff, preparing to move, I found this set of photos that are all from that very trip that my poem is about! Serendipity 🙂
Tags: a way with words, andes, cuenca, DVerse, ecuador, incapirca, inspiration, majestic, mountains, poem, Poetry, words
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. The manuscript explores her Sephardic Jewish ancestry and bi-cultural heritage.
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