Original poem by the Artist

Excerpts from Cuauhtlatoatzin “Talking Eagle” baptized Juan Diego’s account of his vision of the Virgen De Guadaupe written by Luis Laso de La Vega in “Huei Tlamahuicotica” in 1649

200,000 years ago the trees began to tremble in Mexico
Then without language to call it anything at all
Except for whatever language the giants spoke
The Mammoths and Mastodons
Ancient breeds of horses and Jaguars
Who all knew it’s bird song
“Listen and understand my littlest son..”
She roared
And threw rock and smoke
“Let nothing frighten or afflict you..
Or trouble..” trees bursting from their root
“..your heart. Am I not here?
I who am your..” smell of copal and sulfur
Mother? You who are under my shadow..”
Of ash falling like snow
Am I not your health?”
Your molten stone
My mantle..”
Not yet carved into gods
Or stacked into pyramids
That look so much like their
Mother
A spray of obsidian
Un-knapped into spearheads
And serated clubs
“I wish a temple be built here.”
Where the ash crumbled into a thousand temples
Sunk into the glow of my son’s caldera heart
“Climb up and gather them..”
These charred roses
“My name that he will see in them. My..”
Blazing fault
Tears in your eyes
“You, most worthy of my confidence..”
Claimed in the fire of my love
“Carried…” in pyroclastic ecstasy
“The misery..”
the rift of their small giant mouths
Their trembling lungs
Gasping in prayer
Only to be raised/razed again

Stone lithographic print on paper