My spirit has been yearning for a visit to Aztalan for quite a few weeks now. It’s a state park only an hour from home, but as I’m sure you understand, life has a way of interfering. This week I finally made it, and taking a page out of my friend Julia’s book of Little Adventures (if you don’t already follow her, you’re missing out!) I wanted to bring you along for some background before sharing the poem that came to me there.

Aztalan’s beginning as a park started in 1922. It officially became a State Park and open to the public in 1952, and was designated a National Landmark in 1966. It is a 172 acre park, including the approximately 35 acre space where a Native American village once thrived, mysteriously disappearing in about 1200 AD. If you’d like to check out more of its history, you can find it here.

Here are a few of the informational signs located around the park:

There is something special about this place. You can feel the history and the mystery, but there’s a peace about it all too. If you have visited here, or if you do in the future I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about it as well. Here are a few more photos, and the poem that bubbled up while I was there.

Birds sing amongst
Ghosts of the past
Do they hear echoes
Of children playing
Smell the cook fires
Hear the sounds of life
In the now grassy field?
Eagle soars high
O’er the banks of the river
Does he know
Where they’ve gone?
Wildflowers bloom 
Upon burial mounds
Mother Earth remembers
Trees grow tall where 
Warriors once stood
Stockade walls 
No longer protect
But still hold fast where
A people flourished
Where did they go?
Listen to the 
Heartbeat of the 
Water, earth, and wind
May it whisper secrets
Deep in your heart
Allow you a peek
Into the past
Honor the space 
Reserved for memory and if
You are open and very blessed
You just might walk
Among the shadows 
Of what once was and 
Visit a people long gone