It was late January of 1571, when midday, Inti hid from
his people.
The world ended for them, like in November 2024.
For the children of Ruby Bridges and Pachamama,
the sons and daughters of Kamala, Sapa Inca, and Leonard Peltier.
Los conquistadores set sail months before,
but they would not take Cusco until after Inti hid his light,
they would not take the Capitol until cowards called them hence,
but as all who worship the sun know must happen –
the whiteness of light always breeds the darkest of shadow.
Those Spaniards, made red by Inti’s love, would kill his children
lay waste to the cities, the priests, the khipu, the temples, the empire –
enslave whomsoever they could not kill, rape, or who twisted to their ways,
and take Inti’s heart back to the head that guided the hand of fire and pain –
The fifth Pious one, who killed a civilization, a hemisphere;
in the name of a god of love, sacrifice, grace, and forgiveness.
The heart of Inti was gold,
Our hearts are of muscle.
Gold melts, bends, shatters –
Muscle strains, tears, fails.
Gold gets hammered back into shape,
Muscle only heals when it stops.
For centuries, Inti could not stop, did not stop –
the heart and blood and life of his children,
they needed the light he carried to survive the cruel
jungle
that would eat them all alive if he stopped dragging that heartlight
across the sky.
What happens if I stop
carrying
all those tied
to the day-to-day
for whom the jungle waits
to subsume?
After Inti faltered in the midday,
He picked his heart, the light, back up
and next dawn,
carried that light around the world,
for all the people
even the blood-soaked rapist Spaniards,
their pederast friars,
and the asiento slavemasters in Gibraltar.
Even though his children died, he did not stop –
The system, did not stop –
The colonist millstone ground and ground and ground
the maize until gold was crimson,
and the blood plague of the Spaniards,
killed ever so many more than
Inti ever kissed
with flame and bloody lips
at the top of handmade basalt mountains.
How can those of us, facing new conquistadores,
wielding fresh-bound torches of policy and supremacy
crying for the death of
brown and black bodies,
people who speak languages other than
American?
Those who want the death and deportation of
gold and love and maize and music
just the same as those six centuries ago
called for the death of the
of children of the god light?
How do we face the emboldened racists
born on the eclipse of
January 6th –
the conquistador horde of
othering and bigotry and fascism and supremacy?
How do we,
the post eclipse
children of the sun –
hope to last longer
than those children of
Inti
slain by Spaniards?
The offspring of the gold-heart sun
outnumbered the conquistadores
tens of thousands to one –
but can only be seen today in
vine-choked ruins,
rubble-sturine mountains,
colonist-edited history books,
or white-curated museums.
I am told –
the light will fade
forever
If we don’t stop to
breathe,
rest,
heal our torn hearts,
and hold the light for all we shine on,
despite the looming eclipse.
I’m not proud,
but I beg you Inti –
tell me how you stopped
to heal a heart broken
by hate
and still hold the light
for all
even after they killed
everyone who revered
and loved you?