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One of the things
that you learn when

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you read the Cantares
is that the world

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of pre-colonial Mexico
was just as complicated

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politically as the world
of post-colonial Mexico,

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a lot of internecine warfare.

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And because of so--

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in any context where you
have so much warfare,

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there emerged the poetry
of conscientious objectors.

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So this is a poem of a
conscientious objector

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in pre-colonial times.

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Six, "Conscientious Objector."

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"Your magnificence,
I can barely address

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in my shallow loneliness.

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How thin would I might
then expect from you is,

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famous Tetlepanquetzanitzin.

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You were called to
this Earth a while

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to live in a child's peace.

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But then the fashions
dressed you up.

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And well, you wore the
war skirt and sash.

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But the bare truth
is there's war,

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always war with
its rage and hate,

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modifying even how
friends congregate.

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I saw you, Tetlepanquetzanitzin,
in troubled straits.

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And speaking straight, I
said less than manly things.

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To hell with empire
and its overgrowth.

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To hell with the
flowers that conurbate.

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To hell with the south and east.

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God damn them that injunct
our ease with commands,

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to obtain without cause, to
siege, to bring bloody rain

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on our neighbor's walls.

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You wanted all that,
but not for itself.

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The problem is the
war we might hate,

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it's in war we learn
whom to celebrate.

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Ahh, hence this,
Tetlepanquetzanitzin."

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It's warrior.

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