Not far from the streets of Santiago, Chile

Lies a long valley

Of serene pastoral beauty.

The miles there lull the mind

Into forgetfulness

Till the mountains’ wound

Is exposed in the summer light.

 

The heat of raw red earth

Radiates from peak

To valley floor.

The land is torn

As if by grate or rasp

Till the scraped away flesh

Lies in mounds

Like ground red spice

Poured onto the wide meadow land.

 

The mountains’ wound dwarfs

The road leading away

It seems merely a fine thread;

The machines that chew the land:

Mere flakes of mica

Tumbled amid the spillage

Of the harsh red, dry powder burn.

 

In an Idaho valley, U.S.,

Deep forest green appears blue gray

Through smoke filled air.

A rain-washed blue rings the mountains

Like the fringe of a Franciscan friar’s tonsure.

 

The air is thick with more

Than the factory spewed clouds.

It is like breathing fine stone

Or the dry dust of cinnamon,

Though the flavor is not so sweet.

For it is copper

That chokes the lungs

If you chance to take breath

In this deep valley.

 

And it is the milk of copper tailings

That spills opaque blue-green

Where the creek bed winds.

Amid the river rocks

The pale turquoise churns

Like liquid aged copper

Poured from a smelter’s pot

Into a pre-set form for sale.

 

Two continents, two countries,

Two valleys united a single cause:

Copper—turquoise poison

In Idaho waters

Copper—the red wound

In Santiago’s mountains.