Poem 315

Sparked by the discovery of Spanish armour in a South American river, remains of a conquistador drowned by the weight of his carapace, his own technology his downfall, conquered by this new world rather than the other way round …

( I like the way soldered rhymes with boulder but also suggests soldier, the alliteration of flash/flew/fell/fast/freezing and the image of the armour as a shell, its inhabitant long gone … )

River Of Cortez

One boulder turned over in the river
and the soldered suit of armour
came free
with its cargo of bones

parrots shit on the white ground
beneath the trees
same flash of colour as the ones that flew
when you fell
shallow but fast and freezing running
stones slipping and rolling underfoot

on the wide bright bank you were unwilling
to strip off
                     to bare yourself
to whatever the green country had in mind

held down three centuries 
you resurface
shell of a European soldier
having only now been able
to shift the continent
from your chest