Xobanhaltun 

Like bones half-buried, tempting as a skull
to questing shovels, titanic ruins rise,
forgotten by the vultures and the flies.
In bas-relief the feathered serpents crawl,
obscured by moss, eroded by the years.
And even as the corbelled arches fall
in grim neglect, and silence fills the halls,
through hidden chinks a watchful presence peers.

Dense jungle south of Uxmal hides the way.
The sac be roads that never seem to end
wind strangely there, forever gone astray.
Perhaps it's just as well that we pretend
that nothing human lives there anymore --
much less the primogenitor of war.
Copyright © 1986, 1997 by Keith Allen Daniels. This poem originally appeared in Late Knocking.
Artwork copyright © 1987, 1997 by Marge Ballif Simon.

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