Against the Risen Flesh

Abstract

Against the Risen Flesh Randy John Koch (bio) Whether —Botello Puerto de Plata; 6 July 1520; in a temple on a hill near the road to Tlaxcala; found in a box of papers belonging to Botello aft er his death Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 152] Bernal Díaz said that Botello Puerto de Plata (?–1520) was considered by the other men "a sorcerer" or "astrologer" (297) who attempted to foretell the future by posing questions to himself in the form of "whether" statements and then offering answers. Similarly, Francisco de Aguilar said that after Cortés's forces defeated Narváez on the coast, Botello told Cortés that "'Alvarado the captain you left in the city of Mexico is in great danger. They have waged war on him and killed a man of his, and are scaling his quarters. You must therefore make haste'" (Fuentes 150). The Spaniards hurried back to Tenochtitlan, and a few days later Botello died with his horse at the bridge on the causeway while trying to escape from the Mexica on La Noche Triste (Díaz 297, 301–2; Prescott 441–42; Thomas 382, 395, 411). [End Page 153] The Catechumen —Juan de Tecto; 1525; in the Caribbean Sea Water breathes, shoulders pitched in endless black.Water dreams of narrow stone channels steep with foam laughter.Water rubs stones smooth as a girl's ankle.Water envies darkness, its travels easy and infinite.Water remembers the dog's curled tongue and fatal breath.Water knows the body's secret hallways.Water says yes for five hundred years and for a thousand more yes again.Water invites mosquitoes to skate on its still skin.Water suffers the oar, the prow, bilge, and wake.Water arches its back to the risen moon.Water concedes underfoot, underway, underhoof, undercinch, undercloud.Water denies old age and the guttural color of wine.Water confides the words it cannot speak.Water forgets.Water lifts funnels above plunging boys.Water lies about its silent quarters roofed with worm and settled bone.Water calls all unbridled by loss.Water schemes with reef and rock.Water endures the wait men suffer in youth.Water begets puddle begets trickle begets river begets island begets flesh begets water.Water embraces plank and sail, quiets the fear clinging to a shattered mast.Water drinks sunlight in smooth, angled shafts.Water seeks new latitudes measured with shadow and grain.Water thinks it's born of cloud and leaf.Water despairs not, for it knows neither beginning nor end.Water profanes the bed with the groan of its coming.Water forgives the desert its long absence.Water beholds all in its wake, no matter the hour, the calling, the leagues of despair.Water mourns nothing, neither distance nor loss, for all are gathered and rise.Water walks on small feet filled with light.Water shall know no other sky.Water is.Water is.Water is.Water. [End Page 154] Juan de Tecto (1468–1525), professor of theology at the University of Paris, arrived in Veracruz on 13 August 1523 to begin converting the Indians to Christianity. Because Tenochtitlan had not yet been rebuilt after the destruction of the conquest, they went instead to Texcoco. He quickly learned the Indians' native language and wrote his Primeros rudimentos de la doctrina cristiana, or the basics of Christian doctrine, in Nahuatl. He traveled with the Cortés expedition to Honduras in 1524 and likely officiated at the marriage of Doña Marina and Juan Jaramillo during the trip. He drowned when the caravel taking him from the Gulf of Honduras to Veracruz capsized during a storm (Bancroft et al. 161; Lanyon 153). A catechumen is an adult instructed in the fundamentals of Christianity before baptism. [End Page 155] The Given —Gerónimo de Aguilar; 1531; Valley of Mexico We talked about words. We sat on the deckagainst a heap of rigging, the main mast floppingoverhead, the bow rising and falling, eclipsingthe distant shore. Her huipil covered her folded legs, and her dark hair poured aroundher shoulders. Her hand touched the plankbeneath her. She was still, watching, as if lyingin wait...