Teotihuacan

How can I tell you how it is here? I twist my thoughts
in hunt for words to say I glide on roasting asphalt,
feeling each flex of muscle on the bottom of my feet as I
step off onto powder fine soil. Bits of dried grass twirl up
in a sudden gust of wind. Sun cooks stones that have
turned their molecules to that hot light forever.
Maybe those stones were covered for centuries
by the natural push of weeds to blanket man’s creations
until scraped at by archeologists, the skin
of the city flayed so stone can cook in sun again. I can
touch the stone and feel it as alive as I am, as alive
as an agreement of atoms to hang suspended
next to each other and make matter. I dream backward
a few thousand years to hear the grind of pestle
on raw mineral, the rasp of brush on wet plaster, smooth
stone burnishing red oxide into high shine, the chink
of obsidian splintering into blades, the pat of hands
pressing mud into deep lava tunnels formed
even millennia before the dream.

I could stoop in the soil and turn over a rock to find a clay
face, fine eroded features looking back at me. I could sift
the dirt in my fingers and come up with thousands
of shards, chunks of pot and plate and cup in infinite earthen
hues. I tell people always, the city is a living being,
and I fabricate its life from dreams left out under
stripped skin pinned back by posts and stakes.
I see the city’s bones as stones and faded frescoes, its nerves
as electrified filaments in an invisible web – when I
touch those fibers, I am a magnet and my hair rises
to the charge. Tourists see cement and rocks, and the vendors
frantically wave their woven blankets, polymer statuettes
of warriors, and trinkets that are almost silver, almost original,
almost free. Free and original is what I become, sticking
my finger into the socket of all these old stones. You might
not believe me, but behind what you think you can see, there is
an unfolding of worlds, tipping with the soft clip
of dominoes. If you step through a doorway that ends
in a wall of bricks, I might not be able to go in after you.

I always breathe deep before climbing steps
because steps lead to temples and temples breathe
right back at you. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice
that the others copy me, or maybe they, too, feel
the temple’s breath and they are brave. These people
summon everything, driving themselves down
into the shittiest of childhoods and blazing back out
with truckloads of suffering to feed to the drooling
maw, the hot breath dragging after them. They toss it all
into those big jaws the world opens for us when we’re ready,
like a jagged toothy head, hungry and yellow-eyed,
and we wonder how in the hell we missed seeing it before.
They are brave and they sing the snake handler’s song that just
piped into their head like a gift from an old god.
They’ve forgotten his name, but they mumble big thanks,
tumbling out of the basket of their tender hearts.

I breathe before I take a step, and we climb up
onto the backs of pyramids, riding them like they
are living beings, which is what I always tell
the people to remind myself to be careful
and have a little trust. My life is on the backs of gods
up there, whipping my hair into tangled strands
and pricking my skin into sunburned redness.
Pyramids, much talked about, leave no room for words.
Yes, four triangular sides rise to a point. Units of measure
made from the Earth’s diameter meet alignment
with the Pleiades, Venus and Orion’s Belt, and so,
being divine, we scrape our decaying cells of flesh up
its side to touch the nucleus of its divinity for a minute.
You know? The part of us that recognizes that it is divine
recognizes our own divinity. For a minute. I weep and open
my eyes and see the crisp outline of the valley, hills,
buildings, tourists, everything illuminated by the clearest
white light. Clean clear light. I breathe and immediately
try to hold onto the clarity, and as I ache my way down
the pyramid with a sore hip, I mumble big thanks
from the basket of my tender breathing heart.


Perhaps you have an experience in your life that you find difficult to explain or describe in words. When words fail you, can you find a new way to use words? Can you write a poem or perhaps leave the realm of words entirely and use a different medium to convey your feelings and express your experience?

Image #1: In the Belly of the Serpent, Soft Pastel on Amate Paper, Emily Grieves, 2011
Image #2: Pyramid of the Sun as seen from Temple of the Women, Teotihuacan, 2011