Turtle Island

That night he had a dream.

It burst out of  black 

nothingness.

Then he woke.

His dream had died

as dreams will often do,

pipe dreams 

drowning 

in wakefulness.

So then in the light-time

he sought to give solidarity

and substance to the stuff

his dreams were made of,

like an artist sculpting

his dream alive.

Plants, people, 

fish, frogs, 

flowers

were fashioned

and all creatures

lived in harmony.

But he made a mistake,

a minor misjudgement.

Only They, The People

were given the pipe

to keep them 

calm

and peaceful

high

up on the mountain.

So all too soon, in serpent-time

the forked tongues flashed

and the fights and floods

drowned his dreams

as the darkness

descended

again.

Then he saw the turtle.

It didn’t mind the soil

placed there on its back

and he saw its potential

to begin his creation again.

As the turtle grew and grew,

everything else grew and grew.

All was well on his Turtle Island.

But not all growth was good growth.

and They, The People outgrew

his control

their brains

their being

belongings

their stuff

that stuff

the stuff

of his nightmares,

dwarfing his Turtle,

drowning it in vile violence,

drowning it in creative destruction,

destroying it all as the waters rose higher

and higher.

Then 

he began

to dream

again.

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