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Contents Page: October, 2010, vol 6 no 3

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Jim Kacian

Theatre of Dreams

Every year the Zapotec Indians come here, the Plateau of Petitions, full of belief. With impassable peaks to one side, and the gray-green sea to the other, they make their offerings in full solemnity, and wait, smoking, dreaming. And then it begins:

The barren woman dandles her son.

The ugly man struts in his newfound handsomeness.

The lame fly, the poor ride, the unlucky discover treasure, children become giants and giants become children.

A bricklayer paints pictures on the wind. An artist builds a wall

But:

A corn tassel is the hank of hair.

A leaf of a tree is the polished mirror.

A tree branch is a mount, acorns are the eggs of fabulous birds, and imagination is the land where giants and children dwell.

There is no one who believes in disbelief. Such an apostate would have no place here, and no life: this is the dress rehearsal for things to come, and where there is no belief, there is no reality.

high sky—
the cloud face
disappears

 

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