Enlightenment, Notes, A Box of What?
I’ve got a son taking freshman high school history. They’re talking about The Enlightenment, philosophers, the idea of the United States as a grand experiment. Also sugar. How sugar (and desire for sugar) changed the world.
When my son takes notes, it’s as if he has a stack of slips of paper, each with a bit of something written on it. And it is as if all those bits of paper are in a shoe box. And he shakes the shoe box and then pulls the slips of paper out one by one and writes them into a document he calls Notes. Which, you might imagine, is not the best way to structure your notes to study for the next big test.
Dad spent a couple hours explaining how these events and ideas connect to each other. Teen Boy went from annoyed and sullen to excited and grateful. I actually heard him say thank you and that makes a lot of sense, I see why these go together and I thought they were just a bunch of unrelated facts. And he sounded like he meant it.
That all doesn’t have much to do with this week’s poem.
The only connection is that the idea of all those facts rattling around, like piece of paper in a shoebox, waiting for something, reminded me of this week’s poem. It’s called Box of Heads. Actually, there are two of these poems. There’s Box of Heads, I and Box of Heads, II.
So I thought today I would share Box of Heads, I.
Why a box of heads? That’s a good question.
The poem was generated in response to a photograph I saw years ago, probably in an issue of National Geographic. There was a photo of several pre-Columbian clay heads, similar to the one in the photo below, all of which had been excavated from Teotihuacan, which is an ancient city not far from Mexico City.
Box of Heads, I
Clay, hand-fashioned and fired,
most with eyes and mouth open, beseeching,
a few smiling, not a frown in the box.
This city of gods is populated by head men,
some sleeping. Some wanting
to squeeze out tears.
Not a foot of clay here amongst these
wise men, philosophers trapped
in their heads for the long haul,
hundred of years, thousands,
whatever it takes to untangle the truth.
Wide temples.
Each little head no more
than an inch, top to bottom.
Flat-Nose holds central sway,
Chipped-Brain languishes beneath,
where he’s always been. Each face
fit perfectly to the soul inside.
Men of Teotihuacan,
bald and most of you looking to the future
(which is off to the right)
as if it could answer your questions,
where did you find such faith?
Men of Teotihuacan, elders
and gods, each so similar to the next,
Justice can hardly be told from Destroyer,
Virtue with difficulty distinguished from Peace.
The Birdman rides among you,
also bald, also blind,
luckier than some for he has a bit of a neck
in which he can still feel an ache.
A neck he can twist to see Jaguar or Patience,
or the one with his head dented as if by a fall.
What Birdman can’t see,
and would like to, is Composer,
who made you all, Composer
who had hands and hips and lips,
whose nostrils once flared.
Who is so long gone
Birdman sometimes believes he imagined
the man beyond the box,
the one who insisted on the future,
that almond-shaped distance
you all intended to see.
If you enjoyed Box of Heads, I
About that other poem, Box of Heads, II. Maybe next week?
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print. Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.
As always, comments are welcome. Feel free to tell me what you think, let me know if there is something you’d like to see more of. Or less of.
Have a great week!