One of the things that you learn when
you read the Cantares is that the world
of pre-colonial Mexico was just as complicated
politically as the world of post-colonial Mexico,
a lot of internecine warfare.
And because of so--
in any context where you have so much warfare,
there emerged the poetry of conscientious objectors.
So this is a poem of a conscientious objector
in pre-colonial times.
Six, "Conscientious Objector."
"Your magnificence, I can barely address
in my shallow loneliness.
How thin would I might then expect from you is,
famous Tetlepanquetzanitzin.
You were called to this Earth a while
to live in a child's peace.
But then the fashions dressed you up.
And well, you wore the war skirt and sash.
But the bare truth is there's war,
always war with its rage and hate,
modifying even how friends congregate.
I saw you, Tetlepanquetzanitzin, in troubled straits.
And speaking straight, I said less than manly things.
To hell with empire and its overgrowth.
To hell with the flowers that conurbate.
To hell with the south and east.
God damn them that injunct our ease with commands,
to obtain without cause, to siege, to bring bloody rain
on our neighbor's walls.
You wanted all that, but not for itself.
The problem is the war we might hate,
it's in war we learn whom to celebrate.
Ahh, hence this, Tetlepanquetzanitzin."
It's warrior.