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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here.
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18. Machu Picchu
HOW?
No wheel for rolling,
or draft horse for pulling,
and hills too steep,
with trees thick and deep.
So how to move countless
stone blocks up a mountain?
A hundred-man force
up an inclined plane course.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
After a week that featured wonders of the modern world chosen by The American Society of Civil Engineers -- the Empire State Building (my favorite of my poems this week), the Golden Gate Bridge, the Itaipu Dam, the Delta Works, and the Panama Canal (I cheated and wrote a non-wonder poem that day) -- it's been nice to return to some ancient wonders: Petra yesterday and Machu Picchu today.
And what fun to learn about unknown or little-known places around the world, and to marvel, day after day, at the ingenuity of the human race!
Robyn has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Life on the Deckle Edge, and the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem comes home to Irene at Live Your Poem.
Kevin wrote a pensive ransom note poem for today. It's at his blog, Kevin's Meandering Mind.
Carol Wilcox's poem for today focuses on a tiny detail to get at the big picture. It's simply masterful.
Carol Varselona at BeyondLiteracyLink wrote a poem for the Panama Canal.
Carol Wilcox's poem for Petra is at Carol's Corner. I immediately thought of the cliff-dwellers of the American Southwest when I looked through the pictures of Petra!
A poem as ransom note
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Kevin
You captured the mystery of this engineering marvel, Mary Lee. I like how your poem also works as a riddle.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I have whined and moaned and complained about all of this poem writing, I actually am enjoying it. I love learning about all of these places, some new and some remembered (I have decided we should take a poet's trip to Macchu Pichu!). And I love your poems, which I think I don't always remember to comment about. Every time I research one of these places, I'm drawn as you were, to the construction details. This poem should be in the Poetry Friday Anthology for Math and Science!
ReplyDeleteAnd finally, I did it! A morning poem!
ReplyDelete"Alpaca"
One thousand years ago,
when the highlands of Macchu Pichu
echoed with cries of White-Tipped Swift,
and Collared Trogon
and rainbow winged butterflies
flitted through lush tropical forests
we were there
grazing
And seven hundred years ago
as Inca craftsman hauled
enormous blocks of stone
up steep slopes
to build temples and tributaries
and observatories
we were there
grazing
Six hundred years ago
Spanish conquistadors arrived
plundering pillaging
decimating ancient civilization
and we were there
grazing
One hundred years ago
a little boy
led eager anthropologists
eight thousand feet
up steep mountain slopes
to vegetation covered ruins
and we were there
grazing
Tonight
as darkness fall
three thousand tourists
will cease their climbing
and exclaiming
and clicking
we will still be there
grazing
(c) Carol Wilcox, 2014
You've shared your own 'wondering' of how this beautiful place was built. I often wonder, and then usually find it was slaves who did the work, 'almost slaves' even for the Panama Canal.
ReplyDeleteIt's been kind of hard to stay on the positive side with these poems. There's always the "At what cost" piece. The destruction that goes with construction.
DeleteSpeaking of "mystery" .... it IS amazing, isn't it? Thank you for your poem, Mary Lee. I love how this brings to mind the power of the masses to create... we are natural problem solvers, but we need more than just ourselves. xo
ReplyDeleteHard to imagine what life was like for those stone-moving men. This poem would be wonderful to include with a study of simple machines.
ReplyDeleteLove that you've boiled it down to "How?" - and your poem could spur on so many discussions.
ReplyDelete(Lovely pic - my hubby was there year before last.)
I wish I had followed your project more closely so far this month, but I let busyness get in the way of poetry! I will try to do better for the rest of April!
ReplyDeleteSuch magnificence. Nature and all its wonders. Thank you for sharing this. Great image too.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating project you've set up for yourself. Your poems and those of your buddies would make a wonderful collection.
ReplyDeleteViolet N.
I love the approach you took by asking how and reminding us of all the tools they didn't have. It helps me imagine how really terrible the process must have been.
ReplyDeleteWe just spent time along the National Road (now US 40) learning the story of how it went from Native American Indian foot trail to crushed rock toll road to interstate highway (not to mention the marvel of Fallingwater itself)--and admiring these achievements puts me in a position to be walloped by your Macchu Picchu moment of wonder. LOVE your form incorporating near and perfect rhymes, Mary Lee.
ReplyDeleteAnother winner, Mary Lee. It's amazing what willpower (and slave labor) can overcome.
ReplyDeleteI'm always in awe of your poems, Mary Lee, just as I'm in awe of the wonders created with simple machines!
ReplyDeleteAmazing! So much to ponder with these wonders of the world.
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