What if we were Mayans?
If time moved like wheels, landscapes mapped as rituals. Distance and time no longer separations. Memory present as warm sunlight.

We could return to the remembered valley, where mountains loom like pyramids. Hot winds flow ceremonially down their shoulders, whisking jet black swallows to the icy river. Their wing tips leave silvery rings on the calm surface, obscuring deeper waters both refreshing and dangerous.

You climb black basalt cliffs where listless snakes lie warming, to survey the land below. You are day goddess, priestess of the temple, offering.

Lithe bodies are purified by rushing water, slippery as otters. Fallen leaves lie scattered on the ground like drops of blood. In dappled shade, a campfire burns like incense, roasted corn a sacrifice offered. The healing ritual of copal and maize.

In Indian summer’s heat, the river’s cold is breathtaking. It freezes words of portent and remembrance.

If we were Mayans, we might move the wheel to this place, this time. But the wheel will not turn. It rumbles on relentlessly, scattering dust like ashes in its wake.