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Ombligo |
Navel of the world they claim – ombligo.
Such a sense of roundness in that Spanish word,
fastened to rock, a spurt from breaking waves.
How far to sail across that wet stretch before
we reach the armpits, crotch, scraggy neck?
Where is the head of the world if this blip
in the Pacific, Easter Island, owns its belly button
and an enigmatic littering of blind sentinels,
moai, mostly bald like the calmed craters,
three barnacles on ocean skin?
Fifty years before I asked about babies.
They live deep inside and venture into the world
through ombligos – so I was told.
Such irony that I should be kneeling
next to my mother (who first implanted this image),
our hands resting on a smooth, stone hemisphere,
the navel, ombligo, Te Pito Henua,
ripe with energy, warmed by the southern sun,
healing us with its magical embrocations
as we smiled at the camera, the sea to our backs.
copyright 2005
Graham
Burchell |
