El Condor Pasa

At dawn in Arequipa our hired driver
took us on a tiring high-altitude ride
over horrendously rough, dusty roads
until darkness fell as we reached a
rustic hotel close to Colca Canyon
where we went late the next morning

to the edge of a precipice, to watch
the condors lift from cliffs and soar
on supporting updrafts generated by
sun-warmed air, when somebody said
that a bold bird might come closer

if one of us went fifty paces away
and played dead, so I volunteered
to go lie down, facing upward and
watching till a hungry condor did
glide silently above me, gracefully

circling near enough that I could see
individual feathers outspread at its
wing tips — while my companions madly
snapped pictures — and when I returned
home from this trip, I soon learned that
a dear lady and a good friend had died,
and checking my calendar, I discovered
she had passed away on the day I played
dead under the gloriously soaring condor.