Tlaloc’s Cornstalks

Lee, the all-wise priest
The all-wise priest, Lee
All eyes on the all-wise Presley
El-vise Presley
Annually concocts for us
Coquito, little coconut
Coquito, not Cocijo
Which is lightning, yes
In Zapotec — Who
As Lightning gods will do
Created this world
From his breath
And lightning bolt tongue
Infusing the realms
His lightning/electricity
Beating our hearts
His immanence — in a sense
Cocijo’s like Tlaloc
A lightning god, too
With his bucket of rain
His coruscating raincloud brain
Planting his seeds
in wet clay faces of the dead
Whose bolts blast forth
From the caves of Earth
Those vents
to the underworld’s core
Sizzling outward
The fields of Nebraska illumine
For a moment green as noon
And soon collapse
Back into black
That lightning invisibly feeding
The roots of corn
Up to the kernel, the essence
This light, Cocijo’s
Forked silvery tongue
Abuzz — the path that splits in two
The tongue, the word, the logos
The Topos
Moses at the crossroads
The trial
By the bush ablaze
Its serpentining lightning
Blinding, fails to fade
Speaks in cracking thunder
This tongue
That bifurcates — this path

Its flagstones
The two tablets of the law

Caring, the hearth, the sheltering fire

Or the lands of ash, the firestorm,
The firebomb

Which do you want?

All-wise priest, Lee
Sings his song

Don’t be cruel
Do no harm

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