“Without our land there is no life”
dispossession 1
memories
black marble horsemen
with helmets medals and guns
celebrating the history of conquests
dominate santiago’s plaza des armas
yet i’m drawn by an abstract monument
catching morning light
history’s cry is its caption
without our land there is no life
its massive basalt boulders
circle like a gossip of standing stones
and mounted high
on a roughly hewn second tier
chiselled cracked and cut
as if lightening spilt the rocks
a shadowed noble face
bigger than life
its carved wistful eyes
look beyond the plaza people pigeons
to the mountain
once home of the mapuche people
around its base children play
lovers cuddle adults chatter
while first people still with indomitable spirit
bear memories of dispossession