by Marty Newcomb

He is collapsed
In her arms,
An everlastingness;
Her tears of marble
Falling on his chest.
She's lost her son --
That only thought
Chiseled in her mind.

"Tierra! Tierra!"

Then I hear what I have
waited my life for. Those long harsh
years of pandering to kings and
preists, the constant study of the
pear-like earth, a hope for a new
passage to the west. My brother
felt I was a fool, helped me
all the same. He worked as
hard as I did, believing in me,
while queens laughed in his face.
I have often wondered if in fact
I was a fool, chasing his tail around
the world. I worried I would
end as Dulmo and Estreito, looking
for Antilles, and never coming back.

Toscanelli, you fool! I cursed him
to myself; if only I had not read that
damned letter, promising a western
way to the land of Zipangu. I
taught myself to write for your ideas.
Was Ptolemy himself wrong,
and the world is larger than it
has been dreamed?

These doubts ebb inside my mind
as I stand here, God's great witness,
listening as Pinto screams
TIERRA! TIERRA!
The west has now been reached.