PAGEANT OF GOLD

When bright stars rise

nightly, ghost-birds mourn—wild jungle cries

weeping for Atahuallpa slain.

Softly, softly, the winds wail

echo along the mountain sides

down through the whispering golden grain.

Only a memory now—history—to tell tale:

a pageant of gold and sweeping tides

of empire.  The old “white god”

and the young golden one

called across time and space

to friendship in that strange unlikely place

on the sun-rim of Peru.

Slowly, deeply the friendship grew

but the feathered Inca god of the Sun

was no match for the iron hand of Spain;

Atahuallpa fell, and when the deed was done

Pizarro, old, heart-broken, knew

that Spain had found its gold

but he had lost a son.