You said I should write about the fact that I\u2019m coming to the end <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I help a judge empty his office and am rewarded <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Birth of the Syllable You said I should write about the fact that I\u2019m coming to the end of a Maya 52-year cycle. I\u2019m not connected by blood or memory to that story-drenched culture but it does populate me at the idea level, like spray at the top of a fizzy drink. Over more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[333,334],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nof a Maya 52-year cycle. I\u2019m not connected by blood or memory
\nto that story-drenched culture but it does populate me at the idea
\nlevel, like spray at the top of a fizzy drink. Over more
\nthan a century, some of the world\u2019s loneliest and most gifted
\npeople made it comprehensible enough to us that I think
\nI understand what the countdown period in the cycle is for.
\nThe graphical unit of sense was a square that first contained
\na single eye-word. I\u2019m getting it wrong but cultural pressure
\nover time forced several logograms into the same quadrilateral.
\nIntegrating them was an art passed down person to person
\nwithin a scribe caste that exists today, switched to Latin
\nby those friars who didn\u2019t kill them for their love of pictures.
\nA 16th<\/sup> century handscript long absent from scriptoriums
\nof Seville is still fluently used by indigenous people who can
\nneither read nor write except in the stolen tongue of Christ.
\nThey already know the world didn\u2019t end as it was meant to.<\/p>\nMonarch<\/h4>\n
\nwith a cap on which an eagle clutching arrows
\nspreads the golden wings of Washington\u2019s authority.
\nI bear no federal power but on summer rides
\nacquire a taste for doubletakes, flinches and nods
\nthat come without any pretense on my part,
\nI tell myself, mounting up for spins through
\na noticing citizenry. A September festival
\ncelebrates the butterfly that through my northern
\ncity also dawdles, lolls and zooms. Science
\ndisplays, puppet shows, wide drums, and dancers
\nin feathery, pre-Colombian regalia
\nintermarry cultures that an insect connects.
\nI make a Sunday of it, belly up to a food
\nstand selling Mexi-Corn\u2014roasted sweet
\ncorn drenched in butter and cream then
\nsprinkled with crumbly cheese. It\u2019s delicious
\nmy wife will agree, after making room
\nfor me on a wooden bench facing
\nspirited interpretations of Toltec and Maya.
\nThe brown-skinned proprietor turns
\nand gives the nod to a man behind him
\nwho\u2019s missing some teeth, who reaches
\ninto a roaster that has simplified his hand
\nwhile aging it. Two younger fellows
\nchopping onions and peppers at a counter
\nhave slowed, wary, watchful. When
\nfrom the main stage a horn sounds
\nfour times\u2014long, clear and sweet\u2014
\nthe ache of migration is in the sound
\nbut it\u2019s not plaintive, not in any way.
\nWhile filling a paper boat with melted
\nfat for my ear the man stops and asks
\nif I know why they do that. I answer
\nwithout thinking much. In inflected
\nEnglish he says no, it\u2019s the directions,
\nif you don\u2019t forget them you can get
\nback again. And he glances skyward
\nas his ancestors might have while
\nmine were inventing pollution. I say
\nyes, it\u2019s very beautiful, I\u2019ve taken
\nlots of pictures. My change is five times
\nwhat the item cost and twice what I paid.
\nWhen my beak closes I have lost my way.<\/p>\n