When the World Was Young

Wolf

photo by Deborah Steel

Ha-shilth-Sa newspaper

In the lifetime before the lifetime before this one,

and again the lifetime before that,

I danced under the blue sky at the sundance,

when I and the world were young.

The beat of the drum sang in my blood

and my feet moved in joy,

      and I danced

          and I danced

as if it would last forever,

when I and the world were young.

The Old Ones smiled on me

with kind eyes, but with sadness, too,

for their dreams foresaw suffering

for the people.

Over in the meadow, grey wolves flitted

in and out among the Standing People, 

paws prancing high,

and the backs of the buffalo carpeted the earth

in the days when I and the world were young.

And now I live again in an alien skin,

in a world grown cold.

The buffalo are gone and all that moves

is made of metal.

And I am an Old One with kind, sad eyes,

watching the young dance in a world gone mad,

and the ancient spirits are crying still,

remembering the days of dancing under the sun

when they and I and the world were young.

Two nights ago I attended young Sebastian's Christmas concert. I have been babysitting him since he was two and he is now a big boy of six. He attends a First Nations school outside of town, where the curriculum instills pride in culture, teaching language, respect of the old ceremonies, and the songs and dances of the Nuu chah nulth people. 

So the concert was a wonder: two hours of song and dance in full hereditary costume. The last dance was named Everything Is One, (what happens to one, happens to all).  As the drums beat, children of all ages twirled and swooped and dove, dressed as hummingbird, eagle, heron. Children wore the pelts of bear, cougar, wolf, and they danced a long, joyous dance of interconnection with all of Mother Earth.

I was, in a word, in heaven. And I knew, as I have always known, that in another lifetime, I was one of the people, for the drum quickens in my blood like a homecoming, and I feel more at home among First Nations than among my own culture. I always have. 

We came out to thick, fat snowflakes falling, the children running with joy, faces upturned to catch the flakes upon their tongues. For them, hope is alive,  and joy is catching snowflakes. For them, the world is still young.


posted for Kerry's prompt at Real Toads: Going Back in Time, and for Poets United's Poetry Pantry.