Cabitongo is a mountain whose name means “large gateway” in Culli, an extinct Incan language once spoken in the high Andes of Northern Peru. I lived atop Cabitongo for nearly a year while serving in the Peace Corps in the thin‑air village of Cachachi. During a full moon, locals say a beam of light illuminates a secret tunnel at the base of Cabitongo, revealing an underground passage carved by the ancient Inca to the legendary capital of Cajamarca.

Cabitongo also has a dark side. The elders say the mountain’s energy can confuse the womb, twist the fate of unborn children, or call them too early.

My piece, Cabitongo, is born from that year I lived above the mountain, where the horizon lay below me and the moon revealed secrets older than language. On full moon nights, I watched the beam of light carve open the hidden passage to Cajamarca; dissolving the penumbra between earth and myth into one continuous landscape.