Richard Marranca
Richard Marranca is an Assistant Professor of English at Passaic County Community College, and from 2002-2003 he was a Fulbright Professor at LMU, University of Munich. These Peruvian poems came out of his recent National Endowments for the Humanities summer study grant, Andean Worlds 2005.
Milky Way Shaman
Moche Ceramic: Man and Woman
Milky Way Shaman
On the floor sits a tiny cosmos:
feathers, flowers, beads, crystals,
rugs, shells, spices, seeds, coca
leaves, red wine, divine chicha…
Sharp sticks point from the shaman,
guarding against the array of dark
forces. He wears a red vest with
multicolored lines & leather jacket.
As we look on, he does the ceremony.
The shaman has us think of our desires,
then he goes around the room, touching
each of us, being present, communing.
Like Ganesh, he can remove obstacles.
Then, he folds everything into a package;
we follow him outside. He makes a fire
and burns these fruits of the earth.
I’d never seen the Milky Way as a
river across the ancient sky; I opened
my mouth as if I could gulp the froth
of impossible worlds. Shamans travel
across time, heal the sick, convey us from
where we were, from fear and loss.
They do not fly, they become flight.
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Moche Ceramic: Man and Woman
She is the earth and he is the sky.
The handle protrudes from
his back as she crouches on
all fours, sphinx-like. They’re
atop a rectangular beige vessel,
with white lines on the sides &
squares cascading down the middle.
He wears a hat, like the one I bought
at the Pisac market – pointy with
donkey ear flaps, of clay tones.
They are naked, of one anatomy.
The woman is hatless and focused,
with a powerful but quiet passion.
They boil, but you don’t see the boil.
The viewer is drawn to their
blending point. They still breathe: we
long for them, for that gasping place.
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