Legend, Lore, and the Truths they Carry

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.