ESP.LITERATURE

an ode to volution

I come from a dark region,

I come from a land

separated

from all other lands

by the

steep

contours

of its geography.

I, the most forlorn of children, my thoughts oppressed,

my life grey with rain, obscured by mist and cloud.

I place no trust in humankind,

who are too often otherwise.

Hope, illusive,

one false summit after another,

trudging hill and dale,

kneedeep quagmire, creeks and cricks.

This journey,

how long ago now,

setting out

down the river in a hollow log,

hallowed by Yeis, shamans, godmen,

faced each day with qualms and quandaries,

hope illusive,

until the Water People

pulled me under log and all

down beneath the river

to the home

of

Water Monster.

Laughing at ignorance,

creator of chaos, confusion, obfuscation

enshrouded with mists of doubt and despair,

Water Monster, haughty, repulsive, offers no respite:

but Black God, moody trickster, bumbler, arrives from dream

threatening to set the waters ablaze,

a foot stomp.

a shrug.

And so forced was I to freedom,

freed after haggling misapprehensions,

freed and returned to river,

reaching at last the great whirling lake,

winddriven, where were two crossed logs

revolving in whirls and eddies,

white and black Yeis standing upright

on logends of turquoise trunks

turning, turning, turning

Water People, once again, led me away

through mires and bogs,

cross tributaries feeding

the endless estuary,

where, at last, I came with my log

safely ashore, journey complete,

ashore, my at onement begun,

back to my land,

land separated

from all

other

lands

by the

steep

contours

of its geography.

I, the most forlorn of men,

my thoughts once oppressed,

my life grey with rain,

obscured by mist and cloud,

learning moment by moment

to place my trust

in the swirling eddies

of fluvial vicissitudes.