A
Timeline of the Conquest
The ship
sank off Yucatan, I alone
coming to
the shore, a slave to the Maya
these
past ten years.
My lord
Geronimo de Aguilar, after a long campaign,
discovered
me, and bartered for my freedom,
thinking
I should know the chiselled glyphs
mapping
the places
of gold
and silver – translate the stony heights into plunder
for the
King of Spain.
I could
say only what I know: of fever
draining
through the heart,
of the
noises in the night, the cries
of
strange animals.
I could
say only, that for the colour blue
the Maya have
nine words, or perhaps
it is one
word
casting
nine shadows;
three for
the sky banked with oily clouds, the sky
polished
with heat, or caught
pale
before dawn
in the
time of the blood festivals;
one for
the stones
ground
brightly for diadems of thirsty gods;
two for
pools of ceremonial light
reserved
to cleanse
the
first-born for the sacrifice;
the last
three words they hold more closely,
to
describe, along the city walls, the density of colour
beneath
changing skies, here and there
where pikes
are set: above the spiked heads
of
conquistadors,
the flies
in moody plumes.
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