PAGAN PRAYERS

ON THE WRITING OF A PRAYER OF PRAISE

(Mexican)

(This introduction to a volume of annals, written centuries ago by an unknown poet of ancient America, gives glimpse of the beauty of the native book craft, and the sacredness to them, of literature)

LIKE a red-winged heron of wonder, rising in flight, it shone.
The mist and the glow of the rainbow, it is there!
The harmony is as the tinkling turquoise bells on the silver drum: thus was a book of annals written and painted in colors.
I unwind my song!
I unwind my song like a string of jewels, all precious.