Via Negativa

Simon Zopeloxochitl (cont’d)

My lord, it’s true, everything
I’ve written: they honor the Lords
of Earth & Sky without drawing
a drop of blood.
Any man can carve a god
in his own image: feathered shaft,
sacrifice reduced to mere intent,
pure attention.
Their priests, sitting in darkness,
can raise the Earth’s very pulse.

Despite their suspicions, they let me
observe their ceremonies–though once
they found a pile of my sketches
& burned them. I learned
of a lake to the west where
the ancestors live, a place of herons.

It’s true, they impersonate
the gods of our youth:
Xilonen, Xochipilli, Xiuhtecuhtli.
No writing, no calendar competes
for the Sun Priest’s loyalty;
his accounting is immaculate.
The nameless days
announce themselves
simply by showing their unrepeatable faces.

I have learned
the Popoloca murmur
of wind through dry reeds,
the blood-colored canyons
where the rivers go
to hide under roots of willows.
I have seen the sun & the moon
trade places.

Toward the end, the nahualli
rarely slept except in snatches.
He half-believed a yellowbeard fable
that left no place for him,
an above-ground version of
that World where every locale
melts into every other.

Out of cliffs & crags & buttes
he tried to dream it:
a No-Place just for him,
garden within walls.
They scattered his remains
like dangerous seeds across what they call
Corn Mountain.

When I found the hidden trail to the top
I brought two scraps of deer hide
I’d prepared in lieu of paper,
one dyed red, the other painted black.
On the red parchment
in black ink I inscribed
the names of Christ–
Dios, Plumed Serpent,
Tloque Nahuaque, Sacred Heart–
& on the black scrap, in red ink
the mirror-words
for Tezcatl-Ipoca:
World-Owner,
Self-Parodist,
Enemy-of-Both-Sides.
I opened a vein, scattered my heart’s
petals across both pieces,
placed them at opposite ends of the butte.
In four directions I sent my breath,
calling Vulture by his secret name,
Lord of Oracles.

Six days later
when I went to check
both scraps were gone.
Two scrolls of coyote shit
sat in their place,
concise & pointed.
__________

Popoloca – Barbarian. What the Aztecs and other Mexica invaders of the Valley of Mexico were called by the urbanized Toltec, whom they eventually supplanted.

Tezcatl-Ipoca was the patron deity of sorcerers and the mythological opponent of Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent. The former was identified primarily with the Mexica and the latter with the Toltecs and their predecessors.

Simon Zopeloxochitl

My lord, the black nahualli is dead.
I went with the brownrobes as
you ordered, saw to it
that the lay brother called Honoratio
got left behind in Petatlán
with a sudden sickness.

Lacking a second white man, then–
an official witness–what Spaniard
would take the word of one
credulous friar, however many
natives he quotes? A foreigner even
among foreigners: he speaks their castellano
worse than I do. And whatever he meant
by “city of gold”–a world-denier
like him–no one thought to wonder.
Coronado’s soldiers hated him
from start to finish.

The nahualli Esteban is dead:
& with him the gravest threat
to the gods of our long-lost cousins
at Chicomoztoc,
at the Seven Caves.

I escaped their arrows;
they let me live among them
until the governor’s visit.
I taught them the art
of surrender, how to avoid
the yellowbeard’s venom.
To lend him what he asks for
without giving up the title.
At my insistence they kept
their sacred images out of sight, just
as if they were women, or reckless
boys. I recounted the pathetic
tale of Montezuma.

They would’ve killed me
for a witch as well
but I repeated Esteban’s admonitions
in language they’d accept:
You can’t stop a torrent–
but you can stand back, let
your check-dams capture the silt,
the rich litter.

the governor’s visit – Coronado’s expedition of 1540.

Reader (20)

Gold is shining in your sapodilla house of trogons.
Your home abounds in jade water whorls, O prince,
O Jesucristo.
You’re singing in Anahuac. . . .
You’re hidden away at Seven Caves
where the mesquite grows.
The eagle cries, the jaguar whines; you,
in the midst of the field–a roseate quechol–
fly onward, in the Place Unknown.
ANON. CHRISTIAN AZTEC, 16th century
(adapted from the John Bierhorst translation of Cantares Mexicanos 33:3-8)

You people desired to capture Elder Brother so that you might destroy him. You secured the assistance of Vulture, who made a miniature earth; you saw him at home engaged in this work. He shaped the mountains, defined the water courses, placed the trees, and in four days completed his task. Mounting the zigzag ladders of his house he flew forth and circled until he saw Elder Brother. Vulture saw blue flames issuing from Elder Brother’s heart and knew that he was invulnerable. In his turn Elder Brother knew that Vulture wished to kill him and had made the miniature earth for that purpose.
JOSí‰ LEWIS AND FRANK RUSSELL
“Elder Brother as He Restored Himself to Life” (version of a traditional Akimel O’odham speech/sermon)