In the shadow of Hungry Coyote
Well, I'm still trying to write my Aztec novel, The Teleportation of Gilbert Perez. Even after my crisis of imagination the other day, even knowing that it will be very hard to understand the way the Aztecs saw the world well enough to write a story that doesn't simply steal their feathers.
But their poetry. Oh, the poetry! The poetry is stunning, familiar in places, alien in others. They sang all the time and poetry was an important civic virtue. I have done a few translation/imitations/adaptions for use in my texts, for instance
I will kiss your mouth
in the floating fields.
I will kiss you in the marigolds.
Shimmering beauty,
You have to awake.
After a Mayan piece, actually. Marigolds, then as now, are explicitly flowers about death, grave flowers. I am using this in my text as a poem of mourning.
But their poetry. Oh, the poetry! The poetry is stunning, familiar in places, alien in others. They sang all the time and poetry was an important civic virtue. I have done a few translation/imitations/adaptions for use in my texts, for instance
I will kiss your mouth
in the floating fields.
I will kiss you in the marigolds.
Shimmering beauty,
You have to awake.
After a Mayan piece, actually. Marigolds, then as now, are explicitly flowers about death, grave flowers. I am using this in my text as a poem of mourning.