A Psalm for Quetzalcoatl
Ometecuhtli
Lord of all dualities
Dwelling beyond space
Before time
Faceless formless nameless
The one and the many
The void
You died and were born again
And again and again
Catapulting the spheres into orbit
Your blood dripped
From your celestial abode
Deep into our soil
Dyeing it green
Red silver sienna
Copper dawn
Crimson dusk
Midnight blue
Starry bright
Your breath blew
Mist clouds rainbows
Molten gold
Pomegranate juice
Liquid emerald
Sapphire fire
Caught in soaring wings
Drowned in bottomless oceans
Spread over grasslands
Glazed over high peaks
Tezcatlipoca
Smoking mirror father sun
You baked clay figurines
Into faces and hearts
Feeding them ripe corn
And roasted chocolatl beans
Fashioning stalwart
Warriors and women
And you sprouted peyotl
All over the land
For our seers and poets
To peer into your soul
Xochiquetzal
Blossom of all blossoms
Without your moist lips
The hummingbird
Would thirst for nectar
And lovers’ lips
Would never meet
Without you
There would be
No flowers and songs
To mourn our dead
And cheer our living
And silence the screams
Of women at birth
Your fragrance
Stops our air from turning stale
Like the stifling depths of Mictlan
From where nobody returns
In which day and night are no more
And the warbler is silent
Quetzalcoatl
Plumed serpent
Astride the evening star
You had promised to return
Instead
Bearded strangers
Took on your shape
Descended upon us
From their floating houses
Trampling on our children
With their neighing four-legged
Metal-clad bodies
Putrefying our skin with their fetid pox
Torching our visions and our past
Reducing our understanding to ashes
Tearing apart our sacred cities
Tenochtitlan Tlatelolco Teotihuacan
And our steps to sun and moon
Strewing death and desolation
And we let them
Because we thought
You had come back
Where are you Quetzalcoatl?
Don your plumed garment
And ride the evening star
Cradle in your fangs
Our floating gardens
Our singing maidens
Our dancing warriors
Our bright birds
Our jade our obsidian
Our chocolatl
Come back
Bite your tail and swallow it
Quetzalcoatl
And close the loop
A new cycle begins
© Maya Khankhoje
This poem was published in Writing the Sacred. A psalm-inspired path to appreciating and writing sacred poetry, by Ray McGinnis, Northstone, Kelowna, 2005.
