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"The scribe: writings, ink are his special skills. A craftsman, an artist, a user of black paint, a drawer with black paint; a
painter who dissolves colors, grinds pigments, uses colors."
"The good scribe is honest, circumspect, far-sighted, pensive; a judge of colors, an applier of the colors, who
makes shadows, forms feet, face, hair. He paints, applies colors, makes
shadows, draws gardens, paints flowers, creates works of art."
"A bad scribe is dull, detestable, irritating--a fraud, a cheat.
He paints without luster, ruins colors, blurs them, paints askew--acts
impetuously, hastily, without reflection."
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My name
is Michael, it is the sign of the archangel, the preferred name of mothers of
a nation as affirmed by the annual opinion polls, the who's hot/what's not new
year's cycle of ritual trivial. Mojo Michael, OShowMocho, the older one, painted (they say) to resemble a woman.
So be it. In my sister's story I am an angel who must learn to speak, a child
given whiskey (uisce beatha), water of life, as among my grandfather's
people when a new tooth bound in the jaw, the gums flaring like fiery hills
about to give birth to the moon). My place is with the children. For me, all of my life spent
among the elders, this is a great satisfaction, to be carried on the back of
the uncles.
I spent the whole morning walking around in the sun, her paper in my hand (my
sister's story), learning the months of the
year, this zocolo, trying to sound the names of the ixiptla, the thorny syllables of the Huitznahuac (a brother's
place), learning her ways around this place where she, too, does not belong,
where none of us do, neither my sister, nor my lover (sister to my
sister), place of the Nahuatl, Mexica, feather, bell, serrated shell knife.
The names of places are like bramble, thatch, weave. My tongue cannot learn
them. I linger here in the cold northeast, a man among children, a child among women, molding bread into dolls between my fingers.
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