Monday, January 7, 2019

Copan

Read "Copan" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/102/copan

The ancient Mayan city of Copán has had some associations with the concept of "ancient astronaut" visitors to our planet, and it seems that Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) picked up on that idea in this sonnet.  I find these lines especially appealing:


Sculptured with signs and meanings unconfessed,
Its lordly fanes and palaces attest
A past before whose wall of darkness fail
Reason and fancy, finding not the tale
Erased by time from history's palimpsest.


That's a really wonderful description of the nature of unknowable mysteries from the past.

The is the first poem I've read by CAS that deals with Mesoamerican history and the myths associated with it.  I'll be interested to see if he returns to this theme in later verses.

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