The Atacama is a thin strip of land
on the edge of ocean. As of this writing: the driest place
on earth, the center climatologists call
absolute desert.
Observatories dot the coastal range, the usual
atmospheric veil pulled away, the cosmos
exposed, like the bones of a face.
I read there you can actually poke the heavens�
there the lack of moisture means
any dead body left lying
does not break down, not on the usual time scale.
Almost all the living decay
or blow away, but when they began to widen
the Pan American highway locals already
named one hill Cerro Ballena for its accumulation
of fossilized bone. The skeletons of over 40
individual large baleen whales dominate the site.
With them: billfishes, three kinds of seal, and the bizarre
aquatic sloth. The hill is the rare home to the mass strandings
of four separate die-offs�
the orientation and condition of their skeletons
point to death at sea. After ingesting
harmful algae bloom their bodies drifted
to an estuary to rest�
not on the sea bed but the high tidal sands�
all facing the same direction.
Cerro Ballena by Amanda Hawkins|Pink Peony Poetry Reed Diffuser
$15.00Price
