Only the Blood

Flashback: Mexico, 1996 - before back-to-back PAN presidencies, the H1N1 virus, and the current intensity of drug violence...

Tonatiuh,
bonfire-born god of sun and sacrifice,
grimaces from the cloudless center of his calendar stone,
his squinting fists clutching and gnawing the hearts of his sustenance,
bracing himself for yet another step toward
post
modernity
in his ancient land.
His rays barely penetrate the choking cocoon of dirt and soot
that has erased Tenochtitlan from the Valley of Anahuac.
Below the smog, it is el 7 de abril de 1996
(no longer 8 monkey or 11 reed)
and the five sacred directions have dissolved into the ubiquity
of the plastic ritual artifacts
with their seven foreign symbols
that spell:
TIME SET.
On this day, 90 million souls of a proud nation
offer up 90 million hours of lost dreams,
and this sacrifice—in place of the blood of the new flower warriors—
will save, hour for hour, liter for liter, millions of tons
of precious PEMEX petroleum.
But
Tonatiuh will not rise any earlier on the bankers in Monterrey or on the artisans in Oaxaca or on
the merchants in Guadalajara or on the priests in Puebla.
The revelers in Cancún will not have one minute more nor less than the revolutionaries in
Chiapas.
Tonatiuh will not rise any earlier on the thousands of laborers who cross the timeless border
between postmodernities,
Or on the bureaucrats in the capital, the new priests of sacrifice, who will repeat their daily
mantra, unchanged:
Mañana.
Tonatiuh, the fifth sun, arises again imperturbably.
Digits and clock hands, hourglasses and sundials,
daylight savings,
mean nothing to him,
nothing.
Only the blood.