Bestiary for the End Times

Mexican walking fish (Xochimilco)
 
Let me recount the story:
When the fifth Sun was born
he sat high in the sky.
He did not move.
So came the wind, Ehecatl
whose killing blade
lay low the gods
to induce the Sun to move.
Xolotl, lightning man, his job was to guard the Sun
his job was to retrieve the bones of the dead from Mictlan
his job was to dart from heaven with a torch in hand.
Xolotl was unwilling to die
to give movement to the Sun
and so he changed his shape.
First he became a young maize 
with two feet in the earth.
Next he became a twin maguey
with his spires twining to the moon.
Last he became a water dog
in the moonless underworld.
But in the end the wind came even there:
Ehecatl found and killed Xolotl
Ever since, Axolotl, water dog has remained
unchanged in the limestone grottos of Xochimilco.
 
And so let us leave the coal in the hole for you
let the fires of Xibalba burn as they will for you
let us leave the waters of night to their own swim for you
leave the torch of the heavens to its charges for you.
For you are the electromagnetic god of lightning in the caves.
In the spring you leave the ground and cavort in the air.
In the spring, the grass becomes fog, and from the mist you are born.
In your underwater caverns you travel like Slavic eggs
carried by Asian nomads from the Scythian steppe to the Mexica homeland.
In mountain and in hill you have survived worlds upon worlds
feeding the birth of the world. May it be ever so.