Creative writing and travel writing from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, at the tip of Patagonia and Argentina. Part 4 of ooAmericaS, Journey through South America.
Ushuaia
Dec. 14 – 17
Monolithic, megalithic
Symbols
Stories uttered, and stories heard, and stories unheard
Tales foretold and enigmas revealed
Mysteries abounding and secrets unchurned
Symbols
Symbols of the beginning of time
And symbols of the edge of space
Symbols seen in smiles and rocks and a flock of birds’ flight
In the entrails of a chicken and the ripple of a pond
In anything, and everything
That we’ve heard or smelt or that we’re to see
Ever
Gulls fly high and low above the frozen seas
Chase teems of fish gliding through the unbroken waters
The smell of petrol and incandescent industry
The ruinous immobility of ice-breakers moored for the day
Trucks pounding through the Aduanas,
Full of produce come from the world’s seven seas
A sign warning the British boats to stay away
Remembrance of territorial disputes decided in the high-ceilinged
Floors of palaces and Congresses thousands of miles away,
And Apart,
Teens hunched over a cigarette or smoking joint,
Perched high above the hovering city
Like birds of prey, or unfed vultures,
Lingering in the comfort of their wooden towered nests
Standardized buildings, and standardized roads
And cars of the same make and model as everywhere else
A casino, blooming in abandon, brand-new
Giant flags that flap so high and loud
As to reach the furthest depths of the outbound Sea
Claims of more territory, more territory
A mullhawked youth speeds past the muddled ground
Executes a jump on a makeshift board,
Lands on an unused stretch of road
Unnoticed, but in his eye the hopeful glitter of Hope, he pedals again
And circles for another round, improving on his form
A merry go-around, abandoned too, and Wifi in the public park
A few families enjoying the cool – cold – summer air
A beaten down relic of a ship, shipwrecked in the shallow waters of the bay
The clatter of a container docked on top of other containers
And the huddle of real people who wait at the bus stop
An anonymous market that is crowded every night
With the same people
Buying the same fruit
Symbols,
Symbols rejuvenating, and symbols old,
Symbols full of glory and allusions to the unknown,
Symbols trite and overused, blunted by use, like knives that once cut
And now catch the dust of a kitchen’s drawer
We walk the Glacier, a steep, wide expanse of flattened earth
Till we reach the first plateau, and the first snows
And turn back to see the city now so small
So unnoticeable when put in perspective
We push a bit into the ankle deep snow, wettening our soles, then calves
She is afraid, afraid to slip
Afraid to fall
Afraid to hurt
She is brave too, and she sheds the tears away
With a swipe of the right hand, then the left too
But the tears keep flowing
Till it is too much snow, too much seeping into our skin
Too much steep looking back at the city
Now a tiny, infinitely distant speck
I conjure an unwanted sweet bothered from the flight
To help forget, and we tread back down
Symbols
Symbols forlorn, and symbols longed for
Symbols of patience and wisdom, of hatred and mischievousness
Symbols of human emotion, and abstract isms
This is why we’ve come to the end of the world
To the End of the World
This is the only reason
Symbols
—
For more from Ushuaia, Patagonia and Argentina, see the photos from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, read the travel tips to Ushuaia or view all the travel stories, videos, photos and writing from Argentina on Rolling Coconut’s Travel section.
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I absolutely loved both the photograph and the poem.
Hello and thanks! 🙂