Spillway Review
Poetry

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BROKEN IDOLS, FALLEN GODS
 

by Richard Fein 

 
He commanded us to be quiet.
He told us to bow our heads.
He asked us to chant along with him.
He pleaded with us to pray to his gods
as he invoked those ancient Mayan deities
in a language none of us could understand.
But he couldn't have been pure-blooded Maya,
for conquistador features faintly outlined his face.
On the lecture stage, sitting cross-legged like a Yoga master,
he summoned phantom Mesoamerica.
The Mayan tongue is as ancient as Church Latin,
and perhaps as old as Hebrew.
Shamans and priests seem to always
beckon their gods with half-forgotten tongues.
 
However, in English he told us that Mayan Cities had no walls,
and so  peace was granted by loving gods.
But a decade later
deeper archeological digs uncovered
the ash of ancient wooden barricades and butchered human bones.
Soon after the inscrutable hieroglyphs
surrendered their dark secrets
and whispered the tale of Smoking Frog
and his bloody conquests of rival kings.
 
But on that rapturous day in the museum lecture hall,
that guileless day before bad tidings of truth
were resurrected from jungle humus,
the shaman spoke with child-like wonder
and sang songs as soothing as nursery rhymes
to a congregation of seekers.
And in that large assembly hall,
innocent shaman and naive audience
chanted in unpolished harmony
prayers of peace to bloodthirsty gods.
And our petitions softly echoed back into our ears.