Waking finds soul high atop the earth.
The eagle brings a message from the elder.
A simple offering of pine ash and earth
Newly uncovered from a blanket of snow
In an offering bag is given to the messenger.
The message had been stored for the day to know.
Sleeping finds the soul within the earthly.
Temptation surrounds the image of the shadow.
The badger dances for days before the journey:
The wind blows into its being and brings the dancer.
The dancer is tied and bound by another dance.
The badger is drawn to the idea of the chance.
The badger’s friend, the wind, blows them together.
The strings fall away from the dancer’s arms,
The strings fall away from the dancer’s feet,
But not from her head’s heart hidden by charms.
The dancer’s journey led her here without a dance,
So she dances the badger’s dance until she dreams
of a dance for the two of them and teaches him.
In her dream the badger is trapped in a cage,
Of work and life and lonely, with an open door.
He is so occupied by work and life and lonely
That he does not see the door or himself anymore.
But the dancer does not want to be the reason
The badger finds the door and leaves the cage,
So she adds work to the cage and leaves it open.
The badger follows her into the field and dances,
Then returns to the cage and lives with nights
Filled with the dance and the moods and rights.
Waking finds the dancer and the badger in the field
Finding earth’s dance and earth’s song, and earth
The mother of the badger’s new birth.
And the earth warms them with reflected sun
And feeds them with the words and stories
And protects them with the arms of the great oak.
Earth’s fields become their home as they roam.
The dance and the stories and stories of the dance
Fill their lives with riches and opportunities to share
And opportunities to care while being true: to life,
To the earth, to the fields, to themselves, to the sky
© 1997   Tim D. Coulter Sr.