The Heights of Macchu Picchu

This poem is about the difficulties that the people on Macchu Picchu faced. The speaker feels that there is no purpose for their life. He feels that "The human souls was threshed out like maize in the endless granary of defeated actions,". He thinks that their souls have no purpose because all they are doing is adding to the things that can't be done. The city that he speaks of has become a place of starvation and murder "the man was besieged by the bread or by the knife". He talks about how the people felt like they couldn't keep going on with life, but did "to the very edge of endurance, and beyond". He tells of how the people suffered everyday and didn't want to keep on living ("everybody lost heart, anxiously waiting for death..."). Many of the deaths in the city came through the insects ("a tiny death with coarse wings"). There was no discrimination in the deaths, no way to know who would live and who would be lucky enough to die ("the cattle dealer: the child of sea-harbors, or the dark captain of the plough,"). The people started to accept the bad luck that became a part of their lives ("like a black cup that they drank, with their hands shaking"), but they were still scared. This poem makes you feel very oppressed, like there is no hope. You had a way of life and then, all of a sudden, something changed to start killing off your people and there's nothing you can do about it. No nice thing you do or help you give can save your people. There is a feeling of loneliness that goes with the death in this poem, like when the people died, they died alone, dirty, and helpless ("a light flicked off in the mud at the city's edge"). The fact that the speaker mentions "endurance" suggests that the people put up a fight with this oppression while they could, but soon lost their strength to keep going. The light flicking off in this poem could symbolize either a life turning into a death, or all the hope going out of the city.