Four Poems
Being led astray—Ekbalam, Yucatan
Being led by example—Xpujil, Campeche
Being led by choice—Becan, Quintana Roo
Notes
BEING LED ASTRAY—EKBALAM, YUCATAN
Precise is a way of moving
and in a place like this
an advantage.
So one should very well
think before.
What one misses while considering
what one finds overwhelming.
Certainly one hears where to look.
To contemplate the advantage
of movement over an obstacle.
As instance
one who has gone to the top.
How could that be? And why?
What were they thinking?
Would we have done something different.
Then again perhaps there is something
in the word pyramid.
Being led by example—Xpujil, Campeche
Restrained by the following
as if a position could ask for details
as if someone wanted to
they could find a way.
She sat – he sat
the horizon familiar to both
from different points of view
although the angles were the same.
Language was exchanged in a way
quite similar to money from the old world.
Light and sound did what they do.
When he got up – she got up.
When he left – she sat down.
What he left and what she kept did not seem to differ
and it was thought
to be not that important.
The point being – she sat.
That is sometimes a response.
To begin again is not an option.
Learning Maya is.
The ‘door’ so to speak
remains either open or shut.
It is not that far.
Where there is a will.
Being led by choice—Becan, Quintana Roo
There are some places that
change the way one writes.
This is one of them.
Unseen before. Ever.
And now. It was not now.
Memory perhaps not the best choice. Ever.
How does one begin.
Here is a strange place. Too me.
And not too.
What was here before is still.
And beyond that it appears.
Like nothing.
Perhaps observing is all one can do.
Then again observing implies
more than one can say.
After all it does imply some kind of study.
Overall it is finished. The mounds stand.
The vine, the snake, the cat remain.
One can walk away. With ease.
One can say they have visited.
Unknown always what one leaves.
New to find what one brings along.
North. In the end.
Notes
These poems – what do they be? And why?
Certainly there is that ‘history’ – Olson
dithering around as we all do. “My god this is new!”
Well maybe it was . . . or was not.
It is not “archaeology” . . . not that. What, I think,
I discovered . . . is what we carry.
Kansas . . . with our education . . . Creeley, Olson, Dorn.
Some thing shared between us – not them. No not them.
You can ‘see’ the stone.
You can hear the language of the Maya – but not listen.
Part of my response comes from the quiet (ness). That
simple. I suppose what I have done is no more or less
than anyone else. Looking at any pyramid – Tennessee,
Campeche, Nile valley.
Why Yucatan? I would invite the reader to look at a map.
It is a straight shot south from Kansas – few hours in
the plane. You step out in Merida. For instance.
And there is the impossibility of interaction, relation,
circumference and conception. Some of the things one
does encounter.
Now to give up the experience. And come back to Kansas.
has lived in and around and off and on Lawrence, Kansas for 40 years. (“Yeah, since the summer of love, baby!”) His latest DIY publications include limited editions of the following titles: Hotter than and now; Holbox; My Book and Being Frida Kahlo. The poems presented here were originally published in a limited edition chapbook, Mayaland, by John Moritz and Jim McCrary, published in Lawrence in 2006 by John Moritz.