Aztec Poetry: A Tribute! Poem by RAJ NANDY

AZTEC POETRY: A TRIBUTE!

‘All the earth is but a grave’, - wrote the famous
Aztec poet-King of Texcoco! *
‘Nothing recalls them but the written pages’, -
When the curtains are drawn over this grand
show!
Irrespective of our religion, cast or creed,
Our bodies all get interred, - into the bowels
of the earth!
While the ‘universal potter’ remakes and reshapes, -
Blending with colors of varying hues and shades!
The Aztecs who during the fourteenth till the
sixteenth centuries, -
Dominated the central Mexican region and created
history;
Worshipped the great Omeoteotl, their principal
deity, -
Who made heaven and earth, creating the entire
universe, -
While gaining immortality through his own
creativity!
And those Aztec poets aspired to do the same,
To immortalize and preserve their name and fame, -
With lyrical poetry of ‘flower and song’, -
A Nahuatl** metaphor for Poetry, - their highest
art form!
But their ‘song’ was more than ordinary music;
It was the ‘song’ of the wind, the sun and the flowers,
Of our life’s transient blossoms fading by the hour!
While Nature’s green cyclic recurrence, -
Added rhythm and beat to their poetic exuberance!
Their famous poets Tecayhnatzin, Ayocnan and the
great Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco, -
Used the Nahuatl language of ancient Mexico!
‘Cut flowers’, and the prefix ‘green’, occur in their
poems as a recurring theme!
The former as a symbol of life’s transience, and
‘green’ as a symbol of hope and its recurrence!
But in 1521 AD, Spanish Cortex plundered the
Aztec cities!
Lured by Aztec’s wealth and abundant gold, -
Thereby destroying a flourishing civilization, -
almost a 1000 year’s old! ***
-Raj Nandy
24 Apr 09
New Delhi
(*Nezahuacoyoti –poet king of Texcoco(1431-72) .
Aztec poets were educated men of noble birth!
**Nahuatl=language of the Aztec.***In 1521 AD, -
two years after landing on the Yucatan peninsula,
Cortex claimed it as Spanish territory!)
.