Na/GloPoWriMo 2025 Day 1-It Begins! Poem Title: The Striped People

My romanticizing of my ancestors, 

thoughts of indigenous people of the past. 

Simple needs, simple lives

closer to our humble beginnings, to Mother Earth, La Madre Tierra. 

Mothers washing babes on the shore of wild rivers

Brothers collecting wood for the fire to cook a meal and later sit around, 

Sharing stories, sharing a pipe

Were rudely interrupted,

A pleasant dream in the early hours of the morn torn apart by 

the (no longer enjoyable) jingle of my phone's alarm.

As I looked for the Nahua lines in the Aztec Codex 

(called the Codex Florentine by the the Florentine Italians)

Fresh from the Medici Library, 

To correspond to the painting of the spotted hare, 

I encounter: First they were adorned with red paper

Then white, and then red

and then finally with white again

Before being stripped and striped.

Long lines of red liquid rubber lined

Across their naked bodies

until they "would breathe their last, in which they were striped".

Then they would be flayed 

and their skin worn by an alive person for 20 days.

I closed the Codex

Brutally shaken from my dream.

Having trouble catching my breathe, my last breathe

Shutting off the alarm.

It feels not surprising that

Upon grazing the Glossery of Art Terminology 

In search of a new-to-me word that

In this gunky-eyed, semi-conscious state

ALLIGATOR SKINNING jumped from the screen

To grab me by the throat and 

refused to release me.

Alligator Skinning,

Such a violent sounding phrase to describe

Such a tame and beautiful thing as a paint texture. 

Aztecs alligator skinning prisoners

After ripping out hearts with a "Yopi" tortilla

While the mother bathes her babe next to a virgin river

And a brother collects wood for a fire to cook 

Some Carne Asada and tell wild stories around,

While they pass the Pipa de La Paz back and forth.

Orale.

Today’s resource is the Getty Museum’s online exhibit on the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century sort of encyclopedia created in Mexico by a Franciscan friar and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists.

And now, to round out our first day, here’s our optional prompt! As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.

Challenge accepted! I chose the word Alligator Skinning after reading about some celebrations to Aztec Gods where captive people were sacrificed to the Gods for rain or good harvest or some natural phenomenon they needed to please the gods with. They then often flayed the person and wore their skin. This may be why Alligator Skinning stuck out to me!