The bells of Tepotzotlán say, be less
righteous. Golden city, walls of ochre.
Each oblong of butter hand-wrapped in tissue of corn husk,
secured by a bow.
Be less judgmental: each part of the plant has use.
Bells order traffic.
Buses bounce
up the mountain from Rosario, the process
in which you partake.
Breakfast shared with a hornet.
Do not rush thought.
In plaited segments,
pilgrimage song, layers of air.
Each statue of la Guadalupana
has a gray face,
no other indications of indigenous masses enslaved by the
virrey.
In the parroquia adjacent, a truly attenuated Christ.
From the wound behind his ear, blood runs into the armpit.
My
text repeats other texts on the theme of oppression.
Self-accusatory about my bourgeois mysticism, devout before
the golden altars.
Not a dark face within the multiple perspectives
in the golden Capilla de la Virgen de Loreto, jeweled house
transported
from Palestine. In the mirrored Camarin, Archangel Michael,
white
warrior, defends the heavens; canopies of stars ride his
shoulders. What can be said about the role of art in creating
a national
consciousness when its burden is historical fact? To transform
without transport denies blood lore and ritual, enshrines
compulsion.
In the market of Tepotzotlán, she sells
small plastic umbrellas,
child-sized for a Tres Reyes pleasure.
Offered under the gold tinsel cone of the municipal Christmas
tree
are mirrors set in ornate plaster frames, gilded cages for
your parakeets.
In the evening light, how the market rivals the dome of San.
Francisco!
Reading in La Reforma, in her daughter’s
words,
how her husband silenced Elena Garro’s advocacy of labor
and indigenous rights—
core of necessary identification
cites betrayals
that garrulous men cannot understand.
“La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas”
Copper hatchet, sign of the inebriated, Tepoztécatl |
