Only the old, wide-eyed owl dared ask “Who? Who?
Who dares trespass upon the flint-black plain
when the stars shimmer brightly, as if born anew
and crowned in radiance; their stelliferous reign?”
Coyotes caterwauled just beyond the horizon
and the hare in his burrow, like the sun, sheltered,
while twins crouched beneath the hides of bison,
stalking the thousand-headed herd.
The herd had thundered by the light of day
and now knelt before the ivory-horned moon,
the crown that empowered with each Dreamful ray
the White Buffalo that was named Fortune.
The twins watched from beneath borrowed skins
as that celestial beast touched hoof to earth
and Tawiskaron raised a spear to add to his sins
while Glaskoop shouted to stop such wicked mirth.
The herd scattered as if bitten by snakes,
but the White Buffalo faced his foe with his eyes afire,
his charge concussing the ground with earthquakes—
yet the hunter did not falter in his aim or desire.
The spear struck the brow of that Dreaming beast;
it moaned, swayed, and then collapsed in a heap,
and the wicked twin cut out its heart, thereupon to feast,
saying “I will now Dream of all beasts untouched in Sleep.”
“This is not good,” Glooskap said. “You have slain a Dream.”
“And more will I slay,” his wicked brother said.
He grinned then, as a skull, and gave forth a war scream,
vowing he would take every Dream Beast’s head.
But with the dawn came their ancient grandmother
and she went to speak to her wicked grandson,
asking Tawiskaron, “Where is your brother?
We must speak, for I fear evil has been done.”
“I know what has been done,” Tawiskaron lied.
“Glooskap hunted last night and has wickedly slain
the White Buffalo, skinning that Dream of its hide
and has vowed to hunt all Dreams until none remain.”
Grandmother Spider was fooled, or so it seemed,
and she banished Glooskap from her home henceforth,
so he ventured into exile while Tawiskaron Dreamed,
and soon the giant, Winter, rose from the North.
But Glooskap stole the White Buffalo’s hide
and used it to conceal himself in the coming snow,
hoping to hunt his wicked brother at Wintertide
to avenge himself and the White Buffalo.
Tawiksaron hid in Dreams, where none could follow
and so Glooskap roamed for many eons, all alone,
surviving on his own, but feeling lonely and hollow
for the selfish betrayal his twin brother had shown.
Glooskap traveled Westward, in search of power
to fend off the Winter, who raged over the lands,
and found himself witness to a meteor shower
that dropped many small eggs into his upturned hands.
The eggs nearly froze in the blizzard’s air,
so he took them to a mountain cave and built a fire,
then bundled them up next to the blaze, with care,
and hugged them to his chest so they would not expire.
For three years he warmed them in that drafty hole,
never releasing them while the Winter warred on,
and, in time, he felt them burning, each a hot coal
which he had endowed his own soul’s heat upon.
And then he Dreamed of his Grandmother one night
and she said she knew he was not guilty of any crimes,
but he had a destiny that would eventually come to light
as he struggled in exile and the coming End-Times.
When he awoke, the eggs hatched in a flash of light
and scintillating colors, the rolling boom-boom-boom
of electric-winged Thunderbirds taking to flight
like lightning, epileptic in that underground gloom.
They zig-zagged out of the cave, and out into the storm,
and grew larger as they crackled into the cold sky;
their lightning struck across the vaults of heaven, so warm
that it wounded Winter, and thereupon he did die.
Glooskap then awaited the end of the world
as the snows, which had fallen so deep and so heavy,
all at once melted, the profuse floods unfurled,
breaking loose over every dam, watershed, and levee.
And as Winter’s blood became a worldwide deluge
he saw serpents rising from the single, great ocean;
venomous snakes hungry and hateful and huge,
and swirling with a triumphant commotion.
The Bridge of Snakes rose, and Glooskap prayed for aid
to help him defeat such monsters therein encoiled,
and Grandmother Spider sent to him a tribe thus made
of survivors who traveled together as the ocean roiled.
Beneath the shadow of a Raven-winged magician
they invoked the Sun, that radiant daughter
whom was for every tribe, creed, and tradition
a nurturing light against the darksome water.
And it is said that they invoked the powers of Dreams
to defeat the serpents of the depths, ensnaring them all
in a great net of Dream Weavers, whose very seams
were threaded from Life and spirits that answer its call.
Recently a very generous reader gave my book “The Dark Dreamer” a kind review on Amazon, just when I needed it the most. Lately I have wondered if the book series was even worth the time and effort in pursuing as a trilogy, since so few people seemed interested in it (beyond the handful of people who have read it and expressed their pleasure). Anyway, lo and behold I had a poem in my head forecasting the rest of the trilogy and decided to write it down just before I read said generous review. I suppose I must finish the series now, if only out of obligation to such charitable people. It never ceases to gratify me to know someone spent time (a portion of their mortal life, no less) on something I have written. It is a sacrifice, in my opinion, and it embarrasses me to charge money for access to my work. —S.C. Foster
Tangleroot And Tressknot 