What Is It Worth?

Those masters of barbarity tell us:
I’ll give you a millionaire’s bank account,
in exchange for your blue sky,
I’ll build you a nice supermarket
in exchange for your mountains.
One million dollars
for your children’s smiles
as they run in the rain.
We Mokayas laugh at their ignorance,
even the smallest children
know that money turns to manure
when you pass over to Tzuan.
We Mokayas ask you,
the masters of decay.
Is a millionaire’s bank account
enough to bring back
the laughter of our dead?
How much money is enough
to cleanse sadness from the soul?

Tzuan: one of the levels of the inner world, according to Zoque cosmology.