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Thursday 28 July 2011

The Departed


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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/British_Museum_Mixtec.jpg

Turquoise mosaic mask: Mixtec-Aztec, 1400-1521 CE: photo by Gryffindor, 17 January 2009 (British Museum)


Watched through empty eyesockets by ghosts the souls move wraithlike through the deserted streets in fog with no gods to hear nor book to record their silent cries





Fog settles on the deserted streets of San Miguel Cuevas, a Mixtec village in the highlands of Oaxaca; over 80% of its population has emigrated to the United States, leaving it little more than a ghost town: photo by Matt Black

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/CodexZoucheNuttallMixtecBritishMuseum20050108_CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg

Pre-Columbian Mixtec writing from Codex Zouche-Nuttall: photo by Kaihsu Tai, 2005 (British Museum)

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Mixtec King and warlord Eight Deer Claw meeting with Four Jaguar, in a depiction from the Pre-Columbian Codex Zouche-Nuttall, a 14th-century codex recording genealogies, alliances and conquests of several 11th- and 12th-century rulers of a small city-state in highland Oaxaca: image by Ek Balam, 13 May 2006 (British Museum)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/MonteAlban021.jpg

Monte Albán, Zapotec/Mixtec site, highland Oaxaca: photo by Reinhard Jahn, 26 December 2003



Left behind by his migrant children, an ailing man lies in his yard, San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca, Mexico: photo by Matt Black

1 comment:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Another beauty --- "nor book to record their silent cries" (hope Joanne and Donald will get to see this) . . . .

7.28

light coming into fog against invisible
ridge, song sparrows calling from field
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

before and after, recording
of objective thinking

pictorial “ideas,” that can
be in words, there as

grey white of fog reflected in channel,
cormorant flapping across toward point