In The Birthplace Of The Gods

I climbed the Pyramid of the Sun

Barefoot that day

Like thousands had done

Thousands of years before.

Each step as high

As my knees.

The effort taught me

How very difficult it is

To touch the sky.

I carried my pinche sandals

In one hand

And a sketchbook

In the other.

A Danish couple marveled

At my fortitude

And took pictures of

My bare feet.

I was wandering alone

Drawing my young way

Through Mexico

Trying to distill

An entire culture to lines

on paper.

That day I’d ridden

A deluxe coach

From La Ciudad

To Teotihuacan --

Until then just

An exotic confluence

Of consonants and vowels.

Later

Atop the Pyramid

Of the Feathered Serpent God

I sat in the blazing sun

Neverminding the dust

Of ages that coated

My feet

And began drawing

Quetzalcoatl

Whose lionesque head

Twined from the stone below.

Twenty feet away rose

The voice of a clay flute.

He played.

I drew.

The bustle of tourists

Fell away

And for untold time

We were alone

Together.

In perfect communion

my sketch finished

As his song ended.

His English

Met my Spanish

Seamlessly

I learned that his great grandfather

Had been an Aztec priest

Who spilled blood

On those same stones

A living gift to the gods.

The musician

Had no blood to give

But wrote instead

A song of honor and respect.

I, who have found

no god to worship

Had been witness

To the last breath

Of a hundred hundred years

Of prayer.

We smiled and nodded.

Suddenly

The table of the pyramid

Filled

With the endless chattering

of gawkers in bright shirts.

Their mindless noise

drove away the gods

Only loosely tethered

by our witness.

I turn, sometimes

To the pages I drew.

Mediocre sketches

That still bring to mind

The day I felt

the feathery touch

Of grace.

(Written in response to a prompt in the Poets of G+ community.)