At her back, the South Atlantic’s rolling seas,
those ice blue waters, break, skittering
on the silver sands. Burgeoning with child,
she smiles for the camera, as always
optimistically. Mussels encrust the rock
she leans on, kelp bobs like seals on the foam
and Southern Right Whales blow almost out of sight.
Due west, across the unbroken miles,
is Buenos Aires and the teeming hectares
of the Americas. We turn inland. An ostrich
high steps through proteas and heathers,
a tortoise navigates the undergrowth.
Some flowers bloom only after fire. Good choice
to be here on this cape of storms and wrecks.
She carries so many of our pasts –
refugees and indigenes, blacksmiths
and architects, poets and sea captains…
That first image of the future, of something
commonplace, something extraordinary,
will surface without summons, rise instantly,
engulf her forever.
By David Selzer