The men and women villagers
with their crooked yellow teeth
obsidian eyes and black jade hair
stand talking on the dusty street.
One utters words that sound like
the flocking of tropical birds mixing
with water splash riffing along rills,
off rocks, spilling into dark pools of silence.
And one summons blue windsong
through the milpa on steep slopes,
nahuals of lightning strike bone,
the jaguar growls deep in canopy.
A third's tongue grinds corn
in a metate rhythm, flint on flint
sparks, stone crafting stone
shakes the death rattle of ancients.
When its my turn
to open my mouth
and begin to speak
my words seem to fall
thin and distant,
pale bodies whose souls
have flown far away,
a world apart.
Phillip Michael Sawatzky
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-world-apart-2/
