Ushuaia, The End of the World – ooAmericaS 4

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

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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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