eric sundin

He had it right, Amerigo
though he hadn’t sailed a ship there.
While Cristobal, of lesser(?) ego,
just didn’t know he had been where?

He or she who endures travails
struggles hard & risks it all
perhaps rarely do they prevail
for lack of elbows & gall?

In life what one plans seldom follows.
Cristobal hoisted heavy sails
in his departure port of Palos
and returned to tell tallest tales.

The conquest remains Cristobal’s claim.
While for hapless Indigenous
now henceforth by (East) Indian name
now treated as vermiculous.

(+)
-Amerigo Vespucci = (1454-1512) was an Italian explorer, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia’s eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus’ voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto perhaps unknown to Afro-Eurasians. Nevertheless, the Indigenous People were henceforth referred to as Indians. Referred to as the New World, this continent came to be termed America, deriving its name from Americus, the Latin version of Vespucci’s first name
-Palos de Frontera = port in Southwest Spain, near Huelva, from where Columbus set sails
-vermiculous = wormlike

edited 04/24/17 0835