Through the dazing splendor,

Through the dazing splendor,
through the night of stone, let me plunge my hand
and let there beat in me, like a bird a thousand years
imprisoned,
the old forgotten human heart!
Let me forget today this joy this is broader than the sea,
because man is broader than sea and islands
and we must fall in him as in a well to rise from the bottom
with a branch of secret water and sunken truths.
Let me forget, broad stone, the sovereign symmetry,
transcendent measure, honeycombed stones,
and from the square edge let me this day slide
my hand down the hypotenuse of haircloth and bitter blood.
When, like a horseshoe of red-cased wings, the furious condor
hammers my temples in the order of flight
and the hurricane’s blood-dipped feathers sweep the dark dust
on diagonal stairways, I see not the swift beast,
not the blind cycling of its claws,
I see the ancient human, a human slave, sleeping
in the fields, I see one body, a thousand bodies, a man, a
thousand women
under black gusts, blackened by rain and night,
with the stonework’s massive carving:
Jack Stonebreaker, son of Wiracocha,
Jack Coldbiter, son of the green star,
Jack Barefoot, grandson of the turquoise,
Rise to be born with me, brother.