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