Poem: Lights of Lima

When the sun gives way to the drunken lamps, 

In a gradual descent, the clouds and the waves 

Transcend, into a perilous darkness and depth. 

Light, like the placid tides unburden’d,  heaves 

Onto the shore. 

I walked in silence towards the shore, 

In the tenfoldness of my wayward shadow, 

Or perchance ’twas a ten thousandfold or more, 

From minute origins gather’d, my footsteps they follow, 

And fall back to fade. 

But the light of the cross will not fade

Among the murky lights and the baggy smoke. 

Its electric light, daylight-bright, bless’d is man-made, 

Is the shadow-maker of this harbor and its folk. 

Where is the sea? 

The stone stairs chase the sea. 

I trod down the valley to that wintry beach, 

Yet tropical. With lights afar shadows had slipped from me. 

An affection rose for this boundless stretch, 

That shared its light with us. 

And the night had permitted us 

To cling onto our proud light, this petty passion, 

To rival nothing but the utterance “Que haya luz,”

While hours meander to dawn and we come to submission.