Coffee & tumbao to greet
the morning. Conga & trombone to gather
steam. Campana & timbal to whittle
down the cerebral buzz
with sticks that tap
into an overwhelming breadth
& compress a 500-year-old history
of gold-eating
men into a single bite
size invocation that erupts
into trumpets
that push my gaze
not beyond the Basque & the Spanish
& yet bask
in the height of Huayna
Picchu

where I squint
at the absurd nine foot
wingspan of a bird that can fly
upwards of five hours without so much as a flap
of its black wings
& my ancestors
grasped the vastness of God in the condor —
how its immeasurable flight
could widen eyes
to the height & depth & breadth
of the cosmos.
Just imagine if my opposing forefathers
had seen. Imagine if you could read
this poem
in Quechua.

Alfonso Sito Sasieta is a mixed, white-adjacent Peruvian-American poet and dancer. Sito works in a L’Arche community and performs with the acclaimed Cuban dance company, DC Casineros.

This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 70, Fall 2023, Ancestors, Remembering for the Future.