An old man stands before the imposing doors of La Merced Church. As an image, it evokes to me a weary soul seeking solace from a religion that shut him out and closed the doors years before. For whatever thoughts way him down, he has been barred from a fortress and left outside its locked and fortified gates.
That is the story told in the image, but not the story of the photo.
La Merced Church is located on the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, Peru. The foundation stone is officially from 1536 though the current building dates from 1675 after the original was destroyed in an earthquake in 1670. But the stones are really much older.
Most of the buildings in this old section of Cusco are built on top of and using the stones of the original Inca city. It is something to be in the city and to see blocks shaped and fitted like dry-mortored 3D jigsaw pieces to create the sloping walled Inca buildings to about chest high. Above that squats a Spanish style church – or hotel, hostel, bar… this is a modern city, after all.
Knowing the history that lays under the foundation stones where the old man, old Quechua man, stands, I see someone who is contemplating the past that is lost while confronting a present that shows an unwelcoming face. The two are merged now in modern Cusco, in a way that cannot be undone. The remains of Inca ways are now part of Peruvian modern Catholicism to create something else. But there are so many what could have beens….