Desire’s Persistence

Yo ave del agua floreciente duro en fiesta. —“Deseo de persistencia,” Poesía Náhuatl 1 In the region of rain and cloud, I live in shade, under the moss mat of days bruised purple with desire. My dominion is a song in the wide ring of water. There, I run to and fro, braiding the logical act in the birth of an Ear of Corn, polychromatic story I will now tell in the weaving, power's form in motion, a devotion to the unstressed. Once, I wreathed around a king, became a fishing net, a maze “a deadly wealth of robe.” Mothers who have heard me sing take heart; I always prick them into power. 2 Y vengo alzando al viento la roja flor de invierno. (I lift the red flower of winter into the wind.) —Poesía Náhuatl