i

There is more going on in a man's mind, infinitely more, when he realizes he has to do something.

And could I ever become that-- that vague and overwhelming and responsible thing called man? I haven't really been listening to the things around me. There is on the other hand for children a light to maintain their breath and movement; muddied a feather drying in the slow to come sun.

He is there and there he lives.

ii

Gukumatz sat in the heart of heaven, wondering; whether the viper would be and it was; whether the bird would be and it was; and whether jaguar would be and he was.

And this of course was in the days of Hurakan, Xpiyacoc and Xmucan, who worked the nomadic Zapotec as messengers though of roots these men remained unrevealing,

as living roots often remain;

iii

and which roots writhed for the catarrh-strick Atlacatl, who slew from the skies in several battles the marsupials with a flint-edge spear; and I saw his boots of yellowing snakeskin, crusted in mud coming down the peak though finally botched at El Mozote,

where the Atlacatl scorch-trained-- that is to say northern-trained to rapid deployment and action-- Infantry active mostly around Morazan, drained of 900 men, woman and their children blood back to fire and mud.

And when the Gods saw that the wooden man was often heartless, they instead made man of spilled and coagulated blood.

iv

And void of the beryl beneath, Camazotz, Lord of the House of Bats, could hardly sleep and worried awake between nightmares and the sound of across the sky rains--

as later that night a spider seemed to be crawling the air while invisible he thought or tried to think through the nature of these nightmares

v

(Though this of course was before white maize had been torn out the emerald teeth of the gods;

Mamita Unay, or United Fruit, having only just begun to railway the plantain fields of Goathemala;

and this under the thousand and the whirling of their leathern wings):

vi

In the tropical climates of Cuscatlan and Goathemala the sun at midday appears to draw around itself the clouds in serpentine designs,

and from these come thunder and lightning and the rain,

and here beneath I sat with Bolivar, Lord of the Face of Torches, who said to me:

vii

And we also have a dirty god about whom I could say nothing that isn't true; he lies, cheats and steals; and when we were introduced he was faraway from anything I'd known and I've probably hated him maybe almost as much as I love him.

His skin is black from constant exposure to the sun; he often shows toothless gums and is known also to protect the foolish enough to have wandered to the unknown wastes.