in Chile’s mountains, secret forest where

the long dirt road’s capricious roots and rocks

jut up to defy any squealing tires bringing

in the jeeps of the anti-poets wearing pistols

and waving machine guns. Every fascist knows

writers are like mice able to disappear down

the invisible labyrinths of the silence beneath

tropes, why it is such fun to torture them in cellars

when those fucking freedom lovers get caught

and pain twists their songs to squeaks. But

on this night only you have found the way

to the border arrogant enough to split Argentina

from Chile, staggering through black woods

yet seeing clearly as if it were high noon,

monkey puzzle trees asymmetries against

a sky of so many stars they touch light to light.

Your feet are stopped by a moss-covered log

shaped like a whale, you kneel to feel

the soft spongy green which shocks you into

realizing this is another poet, this is el maestro

Pablo Neruda garbed in an emerald coat,

beached across Pachamama where amigos

brought him to escape across the Andes to another

country, fleeing los Carabineros planning to blow

out his brain and its bravery of visions. You lay

your own body near Pablo’s, close as possible,

curving frail arm around him in an embrace

not easy to accomplish when he is of the vastness

of seas and skies, when you are growing older

and smaller. Is he dead? Is he sleeping?

You pray to preserve him, starlight to starlight

igniting a trembling fire.