The Flight of Quetzalcoatl by Jerome Rothenberg

video cortesia de
mexicoprofundo

The Fligt of Quetzalcoatl

1967 Septiembre
Then the time came for Quetzalcoatl too, when he
felt the darkness twist in him like a
river, as though it meant to weigh him
down, & he thought to go them, to leave
the city as he had found it a to go, for-
getting there ever was a Tula.

Which was what he later did, as people tell it who
still speak about the Fire : how he first
ignited the fold and silver houses, their
walls speckled with red shells, & the other
Toltec arts, the creations of man`s hands
& the imagination of his heart

& hid the best of them in secret places, deep in
the earth , in mountains or down gullies,
buried them, took the cacao trees & changed
them into thorned acacias

& the birds he`d brought there years before, that
had the richly colored feathers & whose
breasts were like living fire, he sent
ahead of him to trace the highway he would
follow towards the seacoast

When that was over he starded down the road

:

A whole day`s journey , reached

THE JUNCTURE OF THE TREE
( so - called )

fat prominence of bark
sky branches


I sat beneath it
saw my face / cracked
mirror

And old man

& named it
TREE OF OLD AGE

thus to name
it to raise stones
to wound the bark
with stones

to better it with
stones the stones to
cut the bark to fester
in the bark

TREE OF OLD AGE

stone patterns : starting
from the roots they
reach the highest leaves

:

The next day gone with walking
Flutes were sounding in his ears


Companions ` voices

He squatted on a rock to rest
he leaned his hands against the rock

Tula shining in the distance

: which he saw he

saw it & began to cry

he cried the cold sobs cut his throat

A double thread of tears, a hailstorm
beating down his face, the drops
burns through the rock
The drops of sorrow fall against the stone
& pierce its heart

& where his hands had rested
shadows lingered on the rock : as if
his hands had pressed soft clay
As if the rock were clay

The mark too of his buttocks in the rock,
embedded there forever

The hollow of his hands preserved forever

A place named TEMACPALCO
:

To Stone Bridge next

water swirling in the riverbed
a spreading turbulence of water

: where the dug a stone up
made a bridge across
& crossed it

:

who kept moving until he reached the Lake of
Serpents, the elders waiting for him
there, to tell him he would have to turn

around , he would have to leave their
country & go home

: who heard them ask where he was bound for, out
off from all a man remembers, his city`s
rites long fallen into disregard

: who said it was too late to turn around, his
need still driving him, & when they asked
again where he was bound, spoke about a
country of red daylight & finding wisdom,
who had been called there, whom the sun
was calling

: who waited then until they told him he could
go, could leave his Toltec things & go
( & so he left those arts behind, the crea-
tions of man`s hands & the imagination of
his hearst; the crafts of gold & silver, of
working precious stones, of carpentry &
sculpture & mural painting & book illumin-
ation & featherweaving )

: who , delivering that knowledge, threw his
jewelled necklace in the lake, which
vanished in those depths, & from them
on that place was called the Lake of
Jewls

:

Another stop along the line

This time

THE CITY OF THE SPEEPERS

And runs into a shaman

Says,, you bound for somewhere honey

Says, the country of Red Daylight know it ? expect to
Land there probe a little wisdom maybe

Says, no fooling try a bit of pulque brewed it just
for you

Says, most kind but awfully sorry scarcely touch a
drop you know

Says, perhaps you`ve got no choice perhaps I might
not let you go now you didn`t drink perhaps
I`m forcing you against your will might even
get you drunk come on honey drink it up

Drinke it with a straw


So drunk he falls down fainting
on the road & dreams &
snores his snoring echoes very far

& when he wakes finds silence
& an empty town, his face
reflected & the hair shaves off

Then calls it
CITY OF THE SLEEPERS

:

There is a peak between Old Smokey
& the White Woman

Snow is falling
& fell upon him in those days

& on his companions
who were with him, on
his dwarfs, his clowns
his gimps


It fell

till they were frozen
lost among the dead

The weight oppressed him
& he wept for them

He sang

The tears are endless
& the long sighs
issue from my chest

Further out
THE WILL OF MANY COLORS

which he sought

Portents everywhere , those
dark reminders
of the road he walks

:

It ended on the beach
It ended with a hulk of serpents formed into a boat
& when he`d made it, sat in it & sailed away
A boat that glided on those burning waters, no one
knowing when he reached the century of
Red Daylight
It ended on the rim of some great sea
It ended with his face reflected in the mirror of
its waves
The beauty of his face returned to him
& he was dressed in garments like the sun
It ended with a bonfire on the beach where he would

hurl himself
& burn, his ashes rising & the cries of birds
It ended with the linnet, with the birds of turquoise
color, birds the color of wild sunflowers,
red & blue birds
In ended with the birds of yellow feathers in a
riot of bright gold
Circling till the fire had died out
Circling while his heart rose through the sky
It ended with his heart transformed into a star
It ended with the morning star with dawn & evening
It ended with his journey to Death`s Kingdom with
seven days of dankness
With his body changed to light
A star that burns forever in that sky

El Joven Rothenberg en el 1967
Rothenberg was born in New York City
and attended the City College of New York,
graduating in 1952. In 1953, he got a
Master's Degree in Literature
from the University of Michigan.
Rothenberg served in the U.S.
Army in Mainz, Germany from 1953 to 1955,
after which he did further graduate study
at Columbia University, finishing in 1959.