We were bound for Las Islas Flotantes
a morning tour on Lake Titicaca, who bid us enter with a cool cobalt elegance,
her welcome a gentle rippling of ribboned dreams streaming their way to her shores.
There is a stillness that envelops on this lake,
a quiet awe for the mirrors of water and sky.
Even the reeds and rushes, thronged spectators to our somnolent arrival,
know of what it is I speak,
whispering their reverence to the black ibis
and the Orestias building cities where fishermen call.
There are many prayers I offer,
invocations of morning and night.
But sometimes God meets me in a space too grand to conceive:
the barefoot children singing a boisterously sweet welcome from Huacavacani
and the woman whose hands, industrious weavers of so much vibrancy,
take my own in her palace of cattails and stone.
They are simple people, the Uros,
and I am warmed by their generous smiles and ready humor,
though their homes hint of scarcity and strife.
I want to sit with them on their floating islands
and feel the energy of water
while being blessed by the light of the sun.
I want to know how it is the heart stays pure
in a hungry and ravaging world
and how joy can take root without soil.
Oh, Pachamama, provender of all we could ever need,
you have brought me to your kingdom of gold-tipped glassy waters
and Totora villages that thrive with the love of your land.
May the memory of this day forever be a jeweled speck in my eye
that this gift of second sight will live
as the teacher guiding my path
and the promise of dawn every day.
- Naila Francis
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