Obsidian
by snow Tuesday, Aug 17 2010, 9:51am
international / prose/poetry / literature

stepped Mayan pyramids
lay in ruins
desolate,
unnervingly quiet --
thriving cities
have become undergrowth,
jungle again.

fruit trees
are bearing bitter fruit
this season,
orchardists are at a loss.

ruins
in Central America
bear witness to
a violent past
reminding us
that conflict,
bitterness and acrimony
become convenient weapons
serving only unscrupulous invaders
that utilise divisive forces
to devastate
and destroy
cultures and
lay waste to
entire civilisations.

a slow
steady gait to the top,
each stone step counting
minutes, years, centuries
of pliable time;
a climbing procession
to the high priests of the Sun.

the chill in your demeanour
today
pure frost
ice,
an incongruence in this tropical
heat.

i remember
the jagged obsidian knife,
bloodcurdling screams
and my pulsing heart
in your bloodied hands
which you offered to an impartial
[Sun] God --
a gaping wound,
a cavity without a beating heart
is all that remained of my life.

oscillating time
now finds me offering
your heart to
that same dispassionate
Sun
under which countless
atrocities have been committed;

today
only inarticulate stones,
remain
as mute witnesses
to the glory that once was
our lives.

i turn my face
away from the burning sun
to the cool blue [sky] –

acrimony and bitterness
no longer find
a home
in this (renewed) warm,
beating heart;

frost and ice
are unable to form
or exist here.