Page -ix

PERSPECTIVES

age Six PER&-r SPA-ATIVA

LOS VOLADORES
... John Howard

I. THE WAITER AT "MIGUEL'S
There is no finer place in Mexico
To eat: the food is good, the people here
Are such that one may see the world in them,
And all of history that's lost and dim .
Just see our waiter there, how carefully
He bears the wine to us: as though it were
Sun's water, precious in a golden cup,
Enchaliced on a temple top at dawn's
Beginning brightness out of jungle gloom.
He is an Indian, all right - his face
Would tell you that: dark eyes that look beyond
This room, beyond the jungle strip, to where
His fathers lie in dusty rags of what
Were all their riches, once uncountable
His eyes are such as saw the Spaniards come,
The men most cruel, encased in steel gone green
From sea-spray; men most brave to ride so far
Into an alien land where all they heard
Was consonantal singing from the lips
Of those who dwelt in that exotic place.
He does not know that now, cannot recall
The swift and sudden glint along the shafts
Of arrows whispering in air, aimed at
The Spanish ribs which, dead, would mold away
To hopeless dust forlorn of Spanish hills.
His eyes don't show that they have looked upon
The fabled treasuries of hidden hills
That now are drowned in mists of wayward dreams.
If only he could talk! If only he
Remembered what it was he saw or dreamed
Up in the hills, then we, entranced, would see
Him standing in the crowded square where now
They are preparing for a dance which he
Has never seen before and shall not see
Again: it. celebrates a century's
Safe start drawn out of holy hopelessness:
A cold five days of fasting when the fires
Burned black and cold upon the holy stones
To tell the deities that human ones
Were waiting here in doubt, and were afraid.
But now the final, fateful dawn has passed
And they are raising up a tree's tall trunk
Until it stands upright as when it grew
On hills more blue and distant yet than these.
Atop that pole four men will dance - not men:
For fleetingly they're gods, as momently
As that brief time between the flaming dark
That still is night and that bright splendor which
Is sun along the holy eastern sky.
The poles upright now; the dangling ropes
Down where the dancers fly when they
Grow men again from gods, from sky to earth,
Are fixed: the infirm foot-square platform where
They dance is now in place: the music starts.
To the decorated cadence of a drunken-sounding drum
The dancers approach, the proud ones come.
The people stand in a dream, in a trance;
These are the mighty gods that dance,
That came from their home in the holy east,
These are the gods, more wise than the priests!
One is death, forlorn and alone:
Every finger is a white, white bone;
Two is he who holds in his hands
The harvests of the hard-worked lands;

Three is she who gives green birth:
Pregnant and fruitful mother earth;
Four is he whose feathered lance
Shows him the chieftan of those that dance.
These are the gods that soar and fly!
These are the gods that dance in the sky!
II. THE DANCE OF AHPUCH LORD OF DEAT -:
I dance, and all men die:
Only death is sure.
More certain than the sky,
There's nothing can endure.
Only death is sure,
There's nothing one can clasp.
There's nothing can endure:
All comes within my grasp.
There's nothing one can clasp,
Not hope, not faith, not life.
All comes within my grasp.
Father, and child, and wife.
Not hope, not faith, not life,
The little dreams of men.
Father, and child, and wife,
I take them all and then
The little dreams of men.
(A few remain, bereft))
I take them all and then
I take the ones I left.
A few remain bereft,
But they shall also come.
I take the ones I left
To the music of my drum.
But they shall also come,
And even the world someday,
To the music of my drum
Which none can hear me play.
And even the world someday
Will come to the tunes I beat,
Which none can hear me play -
But oh, the tune is sweet!
Will come to the tunes I beat
Sky's blue, the land's good brown.
But oh, the tunes are sweet,
And I take all things down.
Sky's blue, the land's good brown
Grow harsh with storm, with flood.
And I take all things down
In softness, sweet and good.
Grow harsh with' storm, with flood -
What is as well might end
In softness, sweet and good.
Now gone is every friend.
What is as well might end:
All is mine at last.
Now gone is every friend,
Darkness settles fast.
All is mine at last,
More certain than the sky.
Darkness settles fast:
I dance, and all men die.