Pegasus2000

At Chichen Itza
Joseph Floyd
Third Place, Poetry
  Henry W. Grady High School

The top of
the pyramid
where Mayan
priests held their rituals
tourist in t-shirts with
Mickey Mouse, Tommy Hilfiger or
“Cancun” on them throw away empty
soda bottles and pose for photographs in front
of ancient hallways where the walls still smell of
pain, incense, jaguar pelts and blood from sacrifices to Chaac
and Kukulcan, who have departed in all but spirit and have ceased
to inspire fear, and are now just archeological relics of an era which has
been forgotten even by the people who built them, who now sell souvenirs to tourists
who will return to their homes in Europe, or the U.S. or some suburb of Mexico City
and still be totally oblivious to the presence of those priests who, if they were still alive today,
could see that their great cities could be saved from the jungle but nothing could save
them from time.