Cathedral of Cusco

Translated by Lynn Levin

Blindly attributed
to the Tenebrist Circle of San Blas
to the Anonymous One of Maras
to the Master of Taray
++++++++++++++a little something
I have to say:
+++++++this painting
came from my own hands: I  alone
painted, prepared, set forth the Sacred Meal

+++++++++++++++++++++Here
the cunning Indian painter—the Anonymous One of the Cathedral—
in a flight of ecstasy
added on his own initiative
hearty stews and the fruits of his harvest:

+++++++in place of
the holy bread—flat and unleavened—
I set upon on the paschal table
roasted cuy, stuffed peppers
+++++++spicy pepper
as if the Upper Room were not in the Holy Land
+++++++but more likely
in cozy tavern in Cusco, let’s say
++++++++++++++“La Chola.”

Notes:

Maras is a small Andean town in the Sacred Valley of Peru in the Cusco region. Before the Spanish conquest, this region was the center of the Inca civilization.

Taray is a village in the Sacred Valley of Peru.

Cuy is guinea pig, a staple of the Andean diet.

Chola is an affectionate name for an indigenous Andean girl or woman.

La Chola was, during the late twentieth century, a popular Cusco chichería, a pub in which one could drink chicha, a fermented corn beverage, and eat typical Andean food.

This poem is from Odi Gonzales’s collection La Escuela de Cusco [The School of Cusco], (Santiago de Surco, Peru: Ediciones el Santo Oficio-Gráficos, 2005). This translation by Lynn Levin was first published in Per Contra.