About that Mayan Calendar . . .

Yesterday I wrote a piece that had writing prompts, and I promised a poem of my own.  Here, without further ado, appearing in public for the first time:


Creator of the Last Mayan Calendar




I made the last Mayan calendar.
You wonder why it ends so abruptly.
You imagine impending apocalypse.

But I just grew weary
of this calendar cartography.
I got tired of all that carving.
I wanted to move
on to a different project,
a new path for my creativity.

At night I dreamed of tapestries.
I launched a quest
for the finest thread.
I spun a wide variety of fibers
in my search for texture.
I learned the properties of pigment;
I let the soil speak to me in a new
language. I boiled scraps
of all kinds into a soup to dye
my yarns and threads.

Tired of thinking about the future,
I turned to the past. I assembled
panels of cloth, not stone.
I stitched the history
of my people into a medium
that rots in a tropical climate.