Sun and Moon

 
Sun and Moon Poems from Oaxaca Mexico Rereading the Códices The Mixtec Códices, native screenfold books written on deer hide, 
are Pre-Columbian pictographs that record the history of the Mixtec peoples. 
There are no words: only brightly coloured scenes 
containing information about rituals, gods, heroes, and ceremonies. 
Only a few very precious documents 
(Zouche-Nuttall, Vindobonensis, Borgia etc) survived the ravages of time
and the continued purges of the Spanish Inquisition. 
This poem, self-explanatory for the main part, 
verbalizes typical symbols from the códices. 
Clearly, such symbols, as the poems suggest, are ambiguous 
and open to radically different interpretations. 
 "Two breasts: one green, one yellow, symbolic of the hill where the church stands; the church itself bicolored, strong stone walls, a spire. A large red heart symbolic of the love we bear for you, our masters. Two feet walking the path of enlightenment you opened before us; two hands pointing the way. The feet below the heart; the hands above the heart, like wings; and the heart becomes the body of the new place you have built for us. And in the heart is our sacred symbol: the Earthquake, a sign of leadership and power used only by those of Royal Stature and the Noblest Blood. Attached to the heart is the Numeral One which means Lord of the Earthquake; for you are Number One in our Hearts. Attached to the heart is a speech scroll showing felicitous words of praise; below it is the sacred earthworm, and beneath that the serpent head of wisdom and the flint knife promising strength through sacrifice. But be wary: for our symbols are double-edged! The colors of the hill are divided, as the hill is divided, showing strife and division. The church is on top of the hill, for the symbol has conquered the people, and the people are starving, subject, and destroyed. The feet are pointing in opposite directions, for the people are stalled. They have no forward movement, nor will of their own. For they are conquered by the sword and not by love. And the hands are pointing in opposite directions; for the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing. And the hands are reversed showing anguish and distress. The sign of the heart is the sign of the disembodied heart, torn from the heaving chest of the vanquished and thrown to the dogs. The sign of the earthquake is also the sign of movement. And that movement is a bowel movement. And one movement in the middle of the sacrificed heart is the victor excreting on the vanquished and treating them with scorn and contempt. The scroll protrudes from the nether part and says that the victors are speaking words of excrement, that verbal diarrhea issues from their lips. And the serpent has no feathers; it cannot fly. It is as a snake treacherous and bitter, crawling on the ground. The head of the serpent is two tongued and tells of treachery and of deceit. The flint is attached to a heart; it speaks of the heart that is as hard as flint, knowing no mercy. And at the end that heart will receive no mercy in its turn. Monologue Mono means Monkey in Spanish. 
Monkey is one of the day names in the Mixtec calendar. 
Monologue, then, is Monkey, talking to himself. "They broke our walls," Mono whispered, "stone by stone. A new church they built, on the land they stole from us. Red was its roof from a thunderstorm of blood. The white bones of their lightning scattered us like hail.   They ripped out our tongues and commanded us to sing. Carved mouths were ours, stuffed with grass, stone music forcing its way through our broken teeth.   Few live now who can read the melodies of our silence. We wait for some sage to measure our dance steps: treading carefully, we walk on tiptoe. A cross these stepping stones of time." Inquisitor 
He told me to read, and plucked my left eye from its orbit; he slashed the glowing globe of the other. Knowledge leaked out: loose threads dangling, the reverse side of a tapestry. 
He told me to speak, and squeezed dry dust between my teeth. I spouted a diet of Catechism and Confession.


He emptied my mind of poetry and history. He destroyed the myths of my people. He filled me with fantasies from a far off land. I live in a desert where people die of thirst, yet he talked to me of a man who walked on water.


On all sides, as stubborn as stucco, the prison walls listened, and learned.


I counted the years with feeble scratches. For an hour, each day, the sun shone on my face; for an hour, each night, the moon kept me company. Broken worlds lay shattered inside me. Dust gathered in my people's dictionary My heart was a weathered stone withering within my chest. I longed for the witch doctor's magic, for the healing slash of wind and rain.   The Inquisitor told me to write out our history: I wrote how his church had come to save us. Exile
 a black-robed devil wielded a whip of wind with a sea wave for a hammer he broke down our houses drove us from our fields and struck down our temples   dark was the sky rage deep was its anger the sea god rose on stormy wings his chariot was taller than our tallest house   who will wade in this river of mud? who will ask for a blessing now the sky has fallen?   homeless we seek our living abroad   beyond our hills: a land where no man speaks our language and every man’s hand is turned against us The People Zopilote is Trickster, the turkey vulture. 
Oaxacans say that in the early light of dawn
he brings the heavenly fires 
down to earth on the tips of his wings. our people emerged from deep caves through dank tubes of Earth the great mother bore us   we emerged from the shadows where sunlight couldn't reach us we came at his call Sun the Father Sun the Son Sun the Holy Spirit   we greeted Zopilote as he spread his wings above us we praised him when his feathers brought us fire from the sun   we will never return to the dark beneath the earth

never again will we crawl in dark shadows   New Fire Ceremony The New Fire Ceremony 
initiated a fresh calendar round and occurred every fifty-two years. 
All fires were extinguished for the space of five days 
while people waited for the sun to rise on the fifth day. 
Then fires were relit "from the flames of the sun"
 and the calendar cycle began again.
Warriors who were sacrificed were reborn as hummingbirds
and served the sun in their afterlife. Now is the time of change now is the moment when the doors between the worlds open and strange creatures may come through in the mountain temples at Monte Albán the people make sacrifice blood is drawn with cactus thorns from lips ears and nose it is caught in ritual bowls where the fresh blood ripples    the priests dress in white and paint their faces black they believe they see the future written in this blood now they wait in silence for the tongues of fire that will send new hope leaping from hilltop to hilltop   captured warriors dream of the stone on which they'll be sacrificed soon they will climb to the sun's high kingdom soon they will ascend to the sun and serve him forever the humming bird in all its glory is not arrayed like one of these The Dead Man Murciélago (bat) and Tecolote (owl) are two of the figures 
the early Mexicans associated with death. 
They are often found in tomb carvings and wall paintings. Shadows move across the walls. Murciélago holds a promise dark with oblivion; Tecolote is a winged shadow, grey with despair.   Bound to this place, the dead man’s are eyes weighed down with two bright shells. He rests on his back. He cannot walk in his sleep nor open the door. He cannot stretch his hands before his eyes and lift off the sea-shells; nor can he pinch himself awake.   His mouth has slowly filled with dust, like the crater of a dormant volcano.   He cannot turn his head; he can only lie there, and wait. "Listen to the dust as it settles in the corners." "Listen to the spiders weaving dreams in their webs."   Opening the Tomb New tombs are still being discovered and excavated. 
Much controversy surrounds the opening and excavation of tombs., 
This may concern the distribution of precious treasures
which may be stolen or transported to Mexico City.
The controversy may also be cultural and religious:
with the desecration of a distant ancestor's burial place a serious concern.
 Armed riots at time openings are not untypical.
 Jaguar and Death (muerte) are two of the Mixtec day names. 
Carved and painted masks made from shells, pottery, and wood 
were frequently used in Mexican funeral ceremonies. The blond man spotted a known face in the crowd and cried "To me, my friend! Come! Stand at my side!" But the known face scowled, put on a mask, and showed its teeth. Jaguar it became, or Death, and its flayed skin flapped. "I have a document!" the blond man said. "From the Ministry of Science!" He waved his papers in the air. The crowd waved back: knives, clubs, machetes. "Our ancestors are buried there." they cried. "Leave them alone in dust and silence! Let them sleep!" But the blond man ached for the bright gold buried in the tomb. He turned away. The crowd rejoiced. Next day he returned: with soldiers. Then the fields were sown with bones and watered with blood. New headstones sprouted overnight in the village. Fresh mounds of earth, bright with flowers, white with crosses: fresh treasures for yet more scientists to find.   New Tomb at Huijazoo Cocijo is the Zapotec god of lightning and rain; 
his image is commonly found on Zapotec ceramic urns 
which were often placed as funeral gifts in tombs. Four strong men carried me into this room. My favourite figures were sketched on the walls: an owl, a jaguar, Cocijo, all painted in red-and-buff. At my side, jade beads, gold butterflies, a ceramic dog. My friends stayed with me for three short nights. Then they went away and I lay there in silence.   At first, I counted the days. But my mind came unstuck somewhere around a thousand cycles of the sun. Confusing the days, I lost count of the seasons; forgetting the seasons, I lost count of the years.   Between me and the world, they left a rubble wall. It stood in the way of the walkers by night. A tall man strode forth, blond, with a beard. He ordered my people back and forth in a loud voice. When the stone wall fell down, I was blinded by daylight. My spirit was afraid. It fled my flesh and hid in the darkest corner.   They stole my owl and hauled down my lion like a flag at sunset. One by one, my gifts disappeared. Suddenly I was lonely. “This is no place” I said “for my bones”. I long for the warm tongue of my little dog.   Suchilquitongo Águila (eagle) is another of the Mixtec day signs, as is zopilote (vulture). 
Both Mixtecs and Zapotecs shared a similar calendar 
and were known as the Cloud People. Here, at Suchilquitongo, the Cloud People built their frontier fortress. Then they abandoned it to the winds and the rain. As for the People, they wrapped themselves in cloudy cloaks of mist and rain and disappeared.   From the watchtower high on the escarpment we can still follow the outlines of their tombs and temples; this mysterious dip must have been a ball court; that rise would have been a temple or a tomb.   Eagle and Vulture soar above us today, as they have always done. They rise in ever-widening circles, now flashing fire from these living clouds, now rising slowly beyond our line of sight.   The remains of a vast stone staircase lie cracked and crumbled beneath our feet. The remnants of this stonework fills us with awe. At day’s end, as we prepare to leave, stars peek out. Our fate is written in their unthinking sparks. Tomb 104, Monte Albán A carved stone bat protects the entrance. He is trapped in the crocodile’s cruel, carved jaws. Cocijo wears a feathered headdress; he clutches Owl’s feathers as he flies on Owl's back. Inside, at the back of the tomb, in a darker world beyond the finger of our flashlight there are niches for a gallery of carved and painted bones. The thin pencil beam of our light plucks out carved stone faces. Brought back into a half-life by our unsteady light, shadows walk grey bristles across cheek and jaw.    We blink like owls as we ascend from the underground darkness. Here, in the real world, the one we know and love, our hearts sing like wild birds, caged between red ribs. Above us, the white skull of the moon, bares its rabbit teeth. Owl Tlaloc is the Central Mexican rain god. 
He is often depicted with large goggles for eyes.
Buho Nétigua Lechuza Tecolote: All words for an owl. Owl kidnapped the caretaker and showed the tourists round the tomb. "Mono is monkey," Owl pointed out. "You can fool around with him; but don't do no monkey business."   Eyes like Tlaloc, the tourists goggled. The black bat woke up, but he couldn't get down from the wall. "He's been like that for years," Owl said. "Completely batty."   Muerte drew back his lips in a grin. Butterflies dripped down. "Like moths from a miser's wallet," said Owl. The youngest tourist smiled: "Can I call you Wol?" "Why?" said Owl. "Because he's seen the film but can't pronounce your name." Mother flashed her four figure dental bill.   "I haven’t seen the movie and I refuse to change my name. I’m Buho Nétigua Lechuza Tecolote."   All You Ever Wanted To Know About Monos Monos, as well as being monkeys, are also 
the huge papier mâché figures that people build
to dance in on feasts and holidays.
Their faces used to be those of politicians or film-stars.
Disney figures are becoming more popular. If a tree could dance in the square and flap two enormous limbs in rhythm with the music, would it have such a tiny face, with small brown eyes peeping from the waistband of skirt or trousers?   Eyes fixed on each other's eyes, the trees lumber on and on. Everywhere, hanging in the air, liquid motes of fiery music, linked chains dangling, sublunar, for a second.   Men and women stand stamping their feet. Some dance on stilts, clumsy in their joining; yet they do not reach the top of these tilting trees.   Within their colossal frameworks of cloth, the children are restless in their wicker cages. They sway enormous foliage, lips pursed in concentration.   When the music stops, live dryads, bark-skinned, brown-eyed, no longer myths, invite us to replace them in the world of their tree.   Day of the Dead In small hill villages, people still celebrate the Day of the Dead 
with fancy dress parties that include the traditional Devil.
These festivals are often visited by tourists who take endless pictures,
sometimes without the permission of the people whose photos they are taking.
There is still a belief among many native people
 that a photograph captures a part of the soul.
Not everybody is pleased to have their photographs taken, 
nor their souls seized and carried home by tourists! The villagers walk round the village in fancy dress. This year the Devil is clad in red and yellow flames.   "Beware," he tells the villagers, "the camera's evil eye. Take care lest your face be trapped on film, or your soul lost forever in a gringo photograph."   Overweight and out of breath, Nikon and Minolta climb the temple steps. They can't tell the time from the sundial's worn out figures. The hands of their body clocks are thrown up in anguish.   "Give us some water; from thirst we are suffering!" "Gringos: bad news; our wells have run dry; but we'll give you mescal if you don't take our souls."   The villagers’ children dance victory songs. Who unearthed their conga from time's winding maze? Minolta and Nikon made peace with new friends. They lie down for a siesta in the pyramid's shade.   The Devil shuffles around their sleeping shapes, his pants are held up by camera straps.   Music There is a Oaxacan dance in which the young girl twirls 
her rebozo (shawl) into a rope and flings it over the young man's head .
The rebozo slips down, behind his knees, and the young girl
pulls the rope towards her, tripping the young man.
Mescal, especially when it is home brewed,
is a hallucinogenic, alcoholic beverage withe curative powers; 
it is made from the maguey cactus and consumed throughout Oaxaca. The dancers raise their hands and claw at the sky. Above them, their fate is scrawled in discarded stars, hardened and cold. Bright-eyed maidens avoid the young men's kisses: the young men are caught in the maidens’ net.   The old men savour each moment. Once upon a time, they too were caught. Now, they fill their mouths with mescal and their nostrils with tobacco. An old man's mind knows what has been, and what has yet to be.   The old men listen to the deep throated voice of stone. They feel the earth's grey bones responding to these stamping feet. "On stone,” they say, “we may dance forever!"   "And in the sky!" The Moon replies:   Mescal The sequence of events described in this series of poems has two sources; 
(1) an old man, drunk on mescal, being pushed along the streets, 
outwards from the city centre, by three policewomen armed with batons; 
and (2) a visit to a family distillery where mescal is still made in the traditional fashion.
The guajalotero, incidentally, or turkey-carrier, is a country bus.
This is often an old half-ton truck or a station wagon,
 laden down with people, live animals, and village treasures. 
We have, at home, a hand-painted ceramic guajalotero 
which carries a dog, a pig, a monkey, a parrot in a cage, 
in addition to a double mattress and its overload of people and goods 1 The distillery looks like a lumber yard, with wood strewn everywhere. Before us, the fire pit is as big as a communal grave. Fire-blackened stones layer the sides. Here the heart of maguey will be sacrificed. First, the fire is lit; then the maguey is laid across the red-hot stones; then the pit is sealed. 2 the old man vomits into the gutter   the crowd sticks to him like flies people in the street parting like a bow wave the ship shock of his passing   bottled sunshine the maguey its madness desiccating his brain pickling his wits burning his nostrils his throat ablaze with desire for the lime's bite for the numbing flame for the mescal's healing kiss   nailed to the cross of the sidewalk his arms hung out on the wind to dry a scarecrow's clothing cleaner than his clothes wisps of straw leaking out from his frame   3 The donkey trudges round and round. He is tied to his wheel of shame and walks in a well-cut groove, round and round.   He turns the stones that grind the roast maguey, shredding its fibres. Soon they will be ready to soak in the waiting vats.   Polished wooden chairs gleam in the sunshine. The sun’s rays angle down. We watch the the precious liquid as it slowly drips from the silver serpent attached to the alchemist’s flask.   4 people watch him as he passes they want to stand him up and strip him down their lungs that breathe their sensitive noses   he is stretched on an ancient altar his torso's closed flesh waiting for the blade his body bending to the slash of their obsidian gaze   the policewoman's baton tickles his ribs and pushes him on white lightning over layers of blackness the mist lying thick on his mind   5 Now the liquid is back in the alchemist's flask. The fires have been lit again. We await the miracle of the mescal's resurrection.   "A thin, pale snake of light, liquid descending the coils of the serpent's neck."   Cool waters bless it. It flourishes, drop by drop: a mouth-burning treasure.   The brewer passes us each a thimbleful. We drink: tears flow from our eyes.   The brewer shows white teeth in amusement.   6 children greet him with a song bright bells their lives swung to greet morning's freshness the joyous babe of this newborn day   the old man vomits again entrenching them in his paper bag reality they become strange animals they bare their teeth he brushes their ferocity aside with an anguished cry   mejor muerto / better dead the street people say closing in to gag on the stench of his passage parting on all sides the townsfolk hair beneath the comb waves beneath the ice-breaker’s bow 7 Now the bottles are lined up neatly in squads of four. Twelve to a box, four boxes to a case, a hundred cases to a truck-load, and the half-ton destined to travel to Yalalag, Ocotlan, Tlacolula, Guelatao, Zimatlan, Cuilapan, in camión and guajalotero, the mescal rolls along.

 8 people hiss from dark doorways chiaro of unsheathed teeth the lips pulled back oscuro of dark words sharp in his ears like broken bottles "¡Borracho! ¡Burracho!" "You're drunk! You donkey!"   blanketed with flies his face wet with vomit he kicks at the bars of the space within which he walks people surround him creating a moving jail   he shivers with laughter and spreads out his arms round wide eyes staring an owl about to fly in the cockcrow sunface   we draw too close and something snaps he laughs at our stabbing fingers pissing in a doorway through the iron of his cage   Conversation Piece "The rich man in Yanhuitlan bought a husband and wife from a nearby village. They cost nine pesos de oro.   Next day, he cut their throats at the foot of a large stone idol; then he sprinkled the dead man's grave with their blood."   "Now all is forgiven: the rains can return and the crops can grow again. In blood we were born, my friend; in blood we will finish our days."   Wind of Change A cold wind blew through the open window. Black and blue bruises of cloud, mixed with staunched blood in the evening sky.   "Speak softly!" the young girl whispered. "At times like these, earth's fires are low; if the wind blows from the wrong direction, the fires will blow out and nobody will replace them.”   She shuddered. "Goats and sheep have eaten the grass that binds the earth that holds the trees. Now there is no wood for fires. Our magic sticks have fled from this world and the new, foreign priests permit no sacrifice."   She paused; then cried "Put out the light!"   We sat together in the gathering darkness, listening to the footsteps of the wind as it snorted and rooted at doors and windows.   Scorpion The sánate is apparently a great boat-tailed grackle; 
its name, translated literally from the Spanish, means "Heal yourself"! Last night, in the wind and rain, a Scorpion, knocked at our door. We told him to go away. This morning, his drowned body dries on the stone in the sun. Black ants carry him back to their nest in bite size chunks.   "Heal yourself!" cries the sánate bird, drawing the knife blade of his voice over the sun-warm stone. The trees fill up with sparks of colour. A butterfly, yellow and black, shakes delicate wings and dangles at the end of his string above a flower. Soon the Bird of Paradise will open its eyes. Above us, Monte Albán basks in sunlight and its former glory.  Today, we are tourists travelling on an endless train from here to there to nowhere in particular. Santo Domingo Worshipping Gaia before the great altar in Santo Domingo If the goddess is not carried in your heart like a warm loaf in a paper bag beneath your shirt you will never discover her hiding place she does not sip ambrosia from these golden flowers nor does she climb this vine to mount to her heavenly throne nor does she recline in majesty a pantocrator in a mandala frowning down in spite of the sunshine trapped in all this gold the church is cold and overwhelming tourists come with cameras not the people with their prayers my only warmth and comfort not in this god who bids the lily gilded but in that quieter voice that speaks within me and brings me light amidst all this darkness and brings me poverty amidst al this wealth Sparrows Azoteas are the tiled flat roofs of houses, often used as roof gardens. 
Oaxacans sometimes keep their dogs on the azotea, 
and it is not unusual to hear barking, look up, 
and come face to face with a dog growling down at you. And it's the sparrows I remember, squabbling on the red-tiled roof of my neighbour's house.   That sharp-edged screech is the sánate winding up the day with his long thin whistle. And now, on azoteas and in streets, the dogs are barking.   Suddenly, a warm wind walks through the open door, ruffles my hair, and climbs out through the kitchen window with a last wave of the palm leaves.   And this is my life: to sit here before an open book with black ants crawling across the page, carnations in a vase, and tropical fruit in a basket on the table.   The great wheel of the sun rises over the rooftops. Sparrows hop, dogs bark, and the sánate drags the long knife of his cry across the tinker's grindstone.   The Witchdoctor / El Brujo Sympathetic magic and homeopathic cures are everywhere. 
It is not unusual for people to consult with the witch doctor and the homeopath 
and both claim and can prove their cures.
My consultation with the witch doctor came about by chance.
We met. We talked. He gave me some advice. 
I took his advice and felt much better afterwards. Copal, incidentally, is a heavily scented wood, 
still used as a substitute for incense at Zapotec religious ceremonies.
Jamaica is a sweet, pinkish drink, made from hibiscus flowers 
and served with fresh fruit at breakfast; miel is honey. El Brujo gives me three polished stones: one black, one blue, one speckled.   He blesses me by touching my eyes with feathers. He cures with the brightness of forgotten gods: long-buried in splendour, still burning with life.   The silver sun he hangs on my chest mirrors the gold disc hanging from the sky. silver mingling with gold, warm metals bonding in my heart.   "This is a magic land," El Brujo says, as he sketches his spell. He lays hands on my sorrow, drawing it from my head and blowing it away.   Copal hangs heavy on the air. The room is warm ; suddenly I am sweating. When my body is empty, drained of all bitterness, he fills my mouth with honey and hibiscus.   He walks me to the bakery and we buy warm loaves of bread. Wrapped in brown paper, they snuggle beneath my shirt. I hurry them home in their nest by my heart.   A waxen star falls onto the stove; coffee is again the smell of my childhood.   Honey and hibiscus, jamaica y miel: sweet memories against teeth and tongue.   Sky Flower 1 Trickster sneaked between my ribs and seized my heart. He showed his teeth and changed into Death. When he clamped his jaws, my heart was as heavy as stone. When he pierced my heart, he broke his tooth upon it. 

“My curse upon you!” he said. He locked my heart with a blood red key and it stood as still as a rock within my chest. At night, I could only dream of dust and ashes.   2 The Witch Doctor told me to find a young girl. “Someone,” he said, “who will wrap your heart in a lettuce leaf of life and laughter. When the Bird of Paradise calls your name, your heart will grow wings.” 3 That night, when I laid my head on the pillow a moonbeam slid down from the moon and warmed itself in my heart. Next morning, my bed was empty but my heart was full of light. Sunbeams danced on my windowsill. A hummingbird pirouetted before my eyes turning my world into sunshine and flowers. Bird of Paradise The following poem is an earlier variant of the previous one.
they both have merit in their different ways. Jaguar crept between my ribs and took my heart into his mouth. When he closed his jaws, my heart was as heavy as a stone. Jaguar bit it and broke his tooth. He cursed me. My heart remained a rock within my chest. At night, when I sleep, I dream of dust and ashes. “Seek,” the Witch Doctor told me, “Some fine young girl, one who will wrap your heart in laughter. Each morning she must feed you milk and honey: then your heart will grow roots and begin to flower. If the Bird of Paradise calls your name, your heart will grow wings and fly to the sky. Your tears will disperse and turn into feathers. A sunbeam on your plumage will fill you with glory.” The Dancer and the Dance 1 she comes here to dance for me only for me does she dress this way   she shows me her dreams unfolding them one by one silk and cotton garments drawn fresh from her scented closet   thin copper bracelets carved wooden mask only her eyes reveal subversive flesh and blood   2 she orchestrates her story skin drum rattle of seeds in a sun-dried pod single violin string stretched across an armadillo's shell   I too am tense like an instrument waiting to be played   the bones of my love reach out towards her   3 when she makes her music familiar spirits return to the earth dancing in a sash of moonlight   she recreates an ancient spell gold letters plucked from dark scrolls no wands no words just water's purity flicked fresh across lips and face   she binds me with the string of notes she undoes with her hair our bodies form an open altar we worship with mysterious offerings drawn from wells set deep within us   4 rain falls from the sky Moon turns his face away suddenly in darkened alleys clouds hold hands and dance   dense streamers of light dangle from street lamps shadows remember their forgotten steps   gently she draws me to her I try to follow frail whirlpools of withered leaves fragment weak sunshine in light's watery pool   5 her magic grows I take my first step unmapped journey desert spaces   we move to new rhythms across moon flecked clouds raindrops fall more slowly faltering drum beat diminishing water   6 high above us the ghost of a melody shaking its head wringing its hands   we return at last to light and air the moon's vacant face scowls in an empty field   someone has plucked the stars one by one and threaded them like a chain of daisies now there are no sky flowers to adorn the night   7 noche de rábanos someone has taken a knife and peeled an enormous radish   this cartoon moon face this full skull hanging from nothing this lantern above us   now my lover sculpts time and space into small chunks   each sacrifice a jewel between her fingers   I pin to my chest three small notes and a skeleton of words   8 inside my dancing head the fires have gone out   without her hands to guide me my feet have turned clumsy   scars layer my wrists and ankles star crossed bindings cutting against the grain   I gather a harvest of stars she holds them in her eyes   her fingers are grasshoppers making love in my hair   when she kisses my fingernails one by one we both know our bodies will never be the same   9 together we weave a slender cage she cuts out my heart with her tongue placing it on an altar inside the bars she locks the tiny door a silvery key wrought from moonstone   my fluttering heart grows miniature wings next time the door is opened they will fly me to her lips   my heart is a caged bird on a tiny perch it chirrups a love song its image in the mirror answers back breathless it scrapes its wings on the moon its body striving upwards to the stars   10 on Monte Albán the danzantes sway to soft music they dance on stone as they have danced for centuries   wind rustles the grass moon casts sharp shadows   darkness ascends the temple steps huge fingers grasping upwards an owl's feathers clutching at the skies   at dawn tomorrow the sun will rise beneath our feet we will squint down on its majesty we will pluck the ripeness of its orange in our outstretched hands   11 our last night together I pluck a blossom from the tulipán a final offering of my love   she gives it back I place it in the pocket of flesh where I used to keep my heart   tomorrow when the flower breaks it will stain my shirt a damp splash of blood no longer running in my veins   the scent of our happiness will cling forever to my fingers Alebrijes Alebrijes are fantasy figures of anthropomorphic animals
and mythological creatures.They are carved from wood
then painted in a pointillistic style and sold to tourists.
The great debate: does the form in the wood
reveal itself to the carver,
or does the carver impose his own vision on the wood? Are they half-grasped dreams wide eyed in the sunshine? Do they pinch themselves awake then spring into life from root and branch? Or are they fished from our minds’ dark seas, their underwater dampness dried out in fiery blocks of coloured wood? In one corner of my mind, my neighbour’s dog barks bright colours from his kennel on the roof garden. I dream dark angels with the bodies of butterflies, their inverted wings spread over my head to protect me. Dream of Oaxaca My dream recalls the sound of eyelids whispering across the evening's cheek. A mascara moon casts alternate bars of light and dark. We drowse to the mosquito's circling whine. Bright bells and flowers adorn your nightdress; fires flow beneath cotton to warm my blood; the veins on the back of your hand draw maps which guide me to the land you promised. Angel wings brush through my hair; you gather darkness in your arms and bless me. Flowers burst into bloom Come into my arms. Together we will rock ourselves to sleep.   Poema de Amor Mitla is a sacred burial place in the Oaxaca Valley.
The caves in the nills above the town
are said to communicate directly with the udnerworld.
Legend has it that if you embrace 
one of the columns at Mitla 
the time left for you to live can be measured by the distance 
between your fingers as they almost touch.
Petrus, a rock, in Latin, evolves into piedra, 
a rock or stone in Spanish. 1 We walk on tiptoe round the garden peeling free the sunlight cloud by cloud   sometimes the heart is a sacrifice of feathers bound with blood to an ornate altar   petrus this rock cold against my chest piedra centuries of glyphs alive in your face   if our arms meet round these all too human columns what will become of us?   2 beneath your skin the woad lies as blue as this evening sky yellow light bends low in the fields below us each pool of light a warrior fallen beneath the sickle   the moon paints a delicate circle its great round open eye stands out above the rooftops tonight it bears an eye lid carved from cloud   our teeth are diadems of whiteness we tie shadows to our heels and dance in triumph through street and square   3 daylight bends itself round rock and turns into shadow we flourish in blocks of fire   dreaming new selves from roots and branches we clasp each resurrection with greedy fingers   will we watch the moon again tonight?   dark angel bodies with butterfly wings our shadows have eloped together   we can see them sitting side by side bumping each other's knees at a table in the zócalo   4 church bells gild the barrio's rooftops our fingers reach to the skies and hold back light we draw blinds to shut out the day and shadows fill us   we dream ourselves together in a silent movie closed flesh woven from cobwebs waiting to be opened by a slash of the tongue   the neighbour's dog watches from the azotea he barks bright colours as dawn opens doorways on the street   can he see the flowers growing from our tangled limbs?   your fingers sew a padlock on my lips "Listen to the crackle of the rising sun!"   Awakening My ears fill up with a crackle and roar, wave after wave of sunlight breaking its brightness over the houses. Blind with music, deaf with light, I am awash in the sea surge rhythm of this surfacing sun.   My dreams have broken up like biscuits: between my fingers a sandstorm of crumbs.   Night has flown back to his distant cave. Light falls on the parrot's cage. Armoured with new feathers, he clings to the bars, and "¡Loro! ¡Loro!" he shrieks at the sky.   My vision crawls across a vellum codex. Morning blows new colours into each corner: red and green gods pose on each page; I link them together with lines and arrows.   Their frowns and smiles will scar my life forever.   Song of Praise He promised me moonlight in the sky at night and cast a flat stone into heaven. "Take care!" he said, and vanished: a swift down a chimney, a bat into night's cave.   Crocodile held the moonlight in his mouth, but light escaped through the gaps in his teeth: silvery beams filtered through bars of ivory.   Moonlight played on the pond's blue wave till Monkey broke its mirror with another stone.   Then there was moonlight on mountain and rooftop. Dogs and the valleys sung the moon's praise.   At dawn, a young boy struck the church bell with a hammer. A carpet of sound: bruised petals of metallic music.   At daybreak, Cloud People gathered at the sacred cave. They swore new oaths to their fathers’ gods and washed the new religion from their hands.   Dreams Dreams are important in Oaxacan mythology.
Do we create them ourselves?
Or do they come to us as celestial messages?
Can they exist without us?
Or do we form a symbiotic relationship.
each dependent on the other? Eight Deer or Tiger Claw / Ocho Venado or Garra de Tigre is a Mixtec Hero; 
his name is composed of two parts: 
(1) day name (ie the name of the day on which he was born) Eight Deer and 
(2) nickname Tiger Claw. 
His symbol in the códices is a small circle with a comma like a tiger claw.
Nuttall is the twentieth century editor of the Zouche Nuttall Codex 
in which Eight Deer's history of conquest is recounted.
Nine Wind / Nueve Viento is another Mixtec Hero 
and the founding father of the race, according to some códices. Once I stole the nose from a sacred statue; today I watch it cross the square attached to a face. Eight Deer walks past with a fanfare of conches: you can tell him by his donut with its little tail. A shadow moves as zopilote wings his way across the square. I caught him once on a midnight bus; he begged me to fold his wings and let him sleep forever.   A gringa called Nuttall sells tins of watery soap. Her children fill my days with enchantments: bubbles born from a magic ring. Eight Deer, eight years old, sets out on his conquests. Nine Wind births his people from a flint, or was it the magic tree in Apoala?   The voices in my head slip slowly into silence. Sometimes I think they have no need of me, these dreams that come at midnight, and knock at my window.     Symbols One Alligator was stronger than the Wind Four Deer was faster than the Moon Two Flint broke his heart on his mother's birthday Three Death stood there in anguish wringing her hands   an old woman touches our minds at midnight silver dreams slide down to us and trouble our sleep   pigeons scatter across the square as the great bell chimes I count the sounds but my fingers cannot recall the order of the regiments as they marched across the cobbles   the wind is playful as it drifts through the square two coloured balloons escape to the tree paper chases its tiger tail round and round with the leaves rainbow bubbles burst or float away from the child who tries to trap them     Flower People Monte Albán walks the tight-tope of the skyline: strings of garlands, white temples, clean sheets waving their washing on the wind. Who cast what net into the Atoyac and drew forth stars? Who gifted the captives their final floral dance, then sacrificed them, flesh and blood, over blunt stone? Their warrior feet stamped to strange rhythms: the conch's ocean roar, the thin voiced piping of inland sea birds, the sweet sea-surge of throbbing drums.   The high priests picked their prisoners carefully. They followed an ancient ritual, swayed by the waxing and waning of the moon. Cast now in stone, the dancers dance on and on. Some are bent and bowed; others stand straight and strong. The best are reborn as hummingbirds and dance around the sun.     Sun and Moon 1 Last week an old man squeezed the moon; tonight, she's a shrunken orange in the sky.   "Tell me, Moon: when all the stars have been caught in my net, what will I harvest?"   Silence descends a ladder of moonlight bearing an offering of gift-wrapped stars.   "Wise Old Woman who lives in the sky: what man tore your bones apart and gave me your face?"   Dead leaves rush out through my eyes. My hands stretch out before my face and I wash them in moonlight.   "One day, I'll climb to your silver palace and steal all your secrets."   2 Eagle paints my eyes with daylight. He offers to fly me to the sky. His feathers trap sunshine in his pinions. Morning is a rebozo draped over his plumage.   "My mother is blind." says Eagle. "Her sight: cold ashes in the fireplace. Stripped of her dreams, she wanders in darkness. You must give her the fire from your eyes!"   Tiger offers to carry me to the sky. Flame speckles his pelt. His eyes are two scorched blocks of charcoal. "I will break the bread of your bones," says Tiger, "and warm myself on the fire of your blood!"   Serpent offers to bear me to the sky. His scales are shards of emerald and ruby. His serpent's blood runs cold through his veins. He weighs me in the twin dice of his eyes.   "Where I lead you must follow." says Serpent. "There is no other price."   3 At midnight, Serpent slithers through a gap in the unbroken fence of my cactus dream. He slides close to my shivering body and lies there chill against my skin. He is long and thin: a sword without a scabbard; he is an unscaleable wall of unblemished steel severing all warmth.   "Tomorrow," he says, "I will take you to the sky. But first, you must watch me dance." He twists in circles, winding and unwinding, infinite loops and figures of eight, endless cat's cradle of bottomless shape.   Sleep draws my feet deeper into quicksand. The night wind whispers me a head full of dreams.   4 Night without moon, without stars, dark sand dropping, filling my mouth, I walk the lonely bed of a dried up river.   When I stumble in my dream, my feet leave no footprints. Colourless is my path through shadow and sand.   Figures of darkness are conjured before me, hollow their eyes, their mouths black caverns; no flesh decks their bones.   Footless, they sigh a sibilant song. Mindless, they draw in a net full of sorrows, silver fish darkling, losing their sparkle.   5 Dusky shawl of a knitted dream wrapped round my shoulders, I pick at knots of tangled memory:   a word as sharp as a stone cast at a friend; sea shells cutting naked feet at the water's edge; sunlight weeping blood over mother-of-pearl.   The Wise Old Woman winds a ball of wool. She handcuffs my wrists with softness spun from lambs. My hair turns silver in her mirror.   Snakelike, I slip around in my dream, sliding sideways into deep wells of night.   6 "Wake up!" says Serpent. "Knock!" I knock: the door springs open.   The Wise Old Woman sits spinning at a ghostly wheel. She draws me to her with a string of starlight. I squirm on the fishhook of her eyes; when I blink, I fall gutted to the ground.   Herringbones knit me a tangled destiny: lost people wandering in a tapestry of dreams.   As I read my story in the sky around me, the New Moon scythes my heart into tiny slices; a fishbone slides stitches into my side.   Dice click! Two red snake eyes stare into my eyes.   7 The Wise Old Woman weaves a crinoline from starlight. She plucks roses from oblivion and turns them into haloes. Poinsettias blossom on the perfume of her breath.   The cardinal's song is a crimson voice hidden among leaves. Mercurial in the moonlight, the Wise Old Woman coils her relentless cage.   One by one the cardinal's tunes are imprisoned. A butterfly impaled on a moonbeam: the last note of his song.   8 Draped across night's blackboard, stars and constellations all erased.   My black angel bruised by the dark. The world's feathered wonder reduced to shadow and ash.   What dreams are these?   Feathers against night's window. An angel of darkness descending a steep stairway, tumbling through the night.   Whose dreams are these?   9 The Wise Old Woman walks within a cloister of stars. The heavens arch above her like a peacock's tail. She chants the garland of her rosary. Pearls she sheds from her cratered eyes, stringing them like counters across night's throat.   Beauty she calls forth, beauty fresh, and youth renewed. Flushed with a virgin’s pride, she steps into her jewelled boat and sails across a sea of crystalline sky.   She enfolds the cardinal's wings in a cage of moonbeams. "Sing!" she whispers. She rocks a new born baby in her arms. The night is hushed with lullabies.   10 Old Father Sun thrusts his fierce face through night's dark window. His voice booms out like a golden gong: "What have you done with my child?"   Curled and flaming, his orange corona, head lucent with a coronet of radiance and fire, his eyes sweep night beneath day's rug.   The New Moon pales and fades into a corner. Serpent escapes through a crack in the wall.   11 The poinsettia: a star spreading crimson fire. The sunflower: bright mirror to the sun’s golden face. The hummingbird: hovering on a whirr of wings Am I less than a flower or a bird?   If my fingers could grow feathers... If my face could sprout petals and leaves...   Hollow bones whistle a sad song: the sailor lost at sea, the wanderer asleep in foreign soil, both far from home.   Gringos They do not see the things we see. Sad clouds sail over their heads: this way, that way; they know not where the clouds are going, nor whence they came.   Birds talk to us from the trees, but to them they're just birds: small birds, brown birds, black birds, yellow birds, song birds.   They cannot put a name to a bird; nor can they place him in our vast mythologies. They cannot recognize this food we eat, nor do they worship at the sacred places where we pray.   They do not know the litany of our names. “Do you eat it or drink it or visit it or talk to it?” they ask. guajalote, sánate, tianguis, tecolote, apoala, yanhuitlan, cuauhtémoc, oaxaca, tlacochahuaya, yucuñudahui, yuco yoco, nochixtlan, ilhuixóchitl, macuixóchitl, huajapan, cuilapan, zopilote.