Following The Story Vine

I wrote this poem from a journey where I was looking for the source of stories.




Following The Story Vine

i.

Hummingbird circles my head
and asks me join him
as we seek the first creation of
all stories

I mirror his shape and
spin along in train
Time for us hummingbirds
is different
You huge ponderous mountains
move glacial wise
But we take our time
sweetly knowing
our hearts are bolder
and stronger than yours

My guide shows me the vine
thick stringy curling
Spooled out along the ground
Purple flowers like Victrola trumpets
Drinking the nectar makes
one drunk on the light of time

We followed it, a long extent
even longer for you
arrived at the tangled nexus of
thick vine trunks

A massive root struck into the ground
deep into Earth
tendrils encircling
going deep
We followed in hummingbird bodies of light
and went deeper deep
and back

ii.

We come to the Chamber of Creation
where the Sun was yellow soft and bright
not weak and harsh like today
The Creators were there
discussing contending laughing
creating the story of this world

Spreading time into infinite portions
debating on us, knowing
what will we be?
we human people?
(I care not, as hummingbirds are too
proud to take notice of
troublesome people
who are too slow to see true)

One of the Creators stands
at the head of the table
near the fire
and propounds the first tale
the creation of human people

iii.

"I draw them with mud
and bake them in the fire,
I cool them in the water
that secrets under the Earth

"The whole of their awakening
will be a forgetting and on
And their forgetting will
be the cause of their purpose

"I close them off from the
stars that sky the inner lands,
I turn their heads around
and around again

I wash their hearts in my spit
and bury them deep
waiting for the day
that day of luminal waking"

iv.

The Moon hears and is not best pleased
she wanted for a different beginning
but too late
to put Her seed of our story
in the cauldron
of the time
of creation

So she chose to follow us
from our deep dream of the fire
and to watch us all
each one

v.

The first Creator saw me watching
from the untold future
and laughed

"Tell MY tale" said he
and I fled
back to here
back to now

vi.

Maybe I will remain
a hummingbird
part of that proud and fierce clan
of warriors explorers and poets
and watch the Moon for signs
and omens
of a new seed tale.