The Chief grows older,
as we all must, and returns
to the land and lake waters
of his birth, his spirit rising,
and lays himself down on a bed
of needles spread, a mossy bed
to await his days counted out
by time’s decree, ready to meet
the one who will guide him to
home’s
final rest, a travel companion to
take
him back to the land of his
forefathers,
back to time’s beginning, before
there were men, before the people
of the lake. Here now is his last sleep,
a calm before leaving, open to the
wind’s
music in the trees, to birdsong
and the whistle of breezes blowing,
the thrumming of Earth’s call,
a steady beat slowly sounding.
And the legend says the companion
takes the form of a large cat,
feline
shape of a cougar, cat of the
mountains,
mountains’ lion, a cat bound to
this land
though seldom seen, just unconfirmed
glimpses roaming these woods to
guide
the Chieftains home, their spirits
leaving,
when their time comes to an end
and they join the ancients,
answering
Earth’s call to return, to go back
to time’s beginning, so the story
goes,
a story told and retold, a legend
come to life.
He starts from his couch at a low snarl,
barely heard, and the footfall of
soft
paws on earthen soil, the smell of
the wild
in the air, and he feels the warm
breath at his face
waking him, breathed into him, and
he rises
slowly from his old body, tall and
straight,
his old hands, coarse and rough,
aged, reaching out
to bristling fur, the fur of Cougar.
She is here
but for one purpose, to reclaim him
as her
own, born to be Chief of the Lake
People,
a new breath now breathed into him,
to take
him from this place back through
ages and ages
of time, assembling with the
ancestors awaiting
him, Chief no longer, his reign and
realm
passed on to the one next called, a
new Chief,
a Chief’s son born and ready,
bearing in him, too,
Cougar’s breath. The Lake People,
their land
prospering, their lakes large with
fish, are renewed
now by Cougar’s strength, Cougar’s
wisdom,
by Her stories told again, Earth and
mankind continuing
in these tales of old and in the
ones to be told anew.
Earth’s beginning, man’s
foundation, and
humanities’ renewal are carried on
the winds of stories
told, one continuous story, a
living story
that unites us, moves us as one
people,
one humanity moving together as one,
one story, one humanity, one Earth,
the legends and the lore and the truth’s they hold.
