Editor’s Note: This poem is available to read in Quechua and English. Scroll down to read in English.

Kichka uma
tankar kichka
ñawiymantam
yuraq qasa inti suturimun

chuyunyaq orkokunapi
Wanchuy chuya maypi

sapan
sapachallan

yana tutawan maytukuykuspa
llakillay
puriptin.
Chaynama
llaqtanchik
yuraq qasa inti lloqlla
kay
chaki allpapi
laswa sachachakuna laqwasq jina

Kichka uma
tankar kichka
ñawiymantam
layqa

rimarimun

manañam
laswa sachachakuna kanku

allpatam
patarichimunku
raku raku sapinkunawan

ninayasqaña
qaqayasqaña

llipipikuq
sacha kaspa.

*

Little Tankar¹ of thorny head,
ice crystals like a white sun
fall from my eyes
over desolated regions, where the Orqos² lives,
over pristine waters born in the Wanchuy tree³.

Lonely
very lonely,
the body is one with the fateful night
when my sorrow walks across this land.
Our territory is like
a white frost
a sun of dust.
This infertile land
is crawling like the muddy and fallen trees in an avalanche.

Little Tankar of thorny head,
through my eyes
the Layqa⁴ speaks in this land
And there are no muddy and fallen trees anymore

The trees
are shaking the soils with its strong roots

What a fire is burning now!
What perennial rock is rising now!

Because they are new beings, splendid trees!

Translated from Quechua to English by Christian Elguera

From the book Jarawi (Lima: Editorial Universidad Federico Villarreal, 2000)

¹ The Tankar is an Andean tree with a thorny body.

² In the Andes, local people consider Orqos or mountains as mighty beings.

³ Andean populations believe trees such as the Wanchuy to be the mothers of rivers.

⁴ According to Guaman Poma de Ayala and Cristobal de Molina, Layqa means a diabolic sorcerer. However, Layqa is an indigenous religious specialist with the skills to interact with powerful deities or non-human entities in Andean rituals.

Photo: Woman weaving, Cusco, Peru, by Adrian Dascal, Unsplash.