Dear Impossible Song, dear Vesper Song, you wander along the sun’s path, its lowest point, this longest night. I know this, the music of your promise. And still I hope implausibly, for today, my body is an earthen bowl to be filled, and to be filled again.

MEDICINE SONG

MEDICINE SONG

windstorm in the throat, burning

hummingbird in the throat, flying

river tide in the throat, howling

eagle in the throat, blessing

birch tree in the lungs, branching

thundercloud in the lungs, singing

buffalo in the lungs, rumbling

she-wolf in the lungs, leaping

voice that is the smoke, weaving

voice that is the fox, laughing

voice that is coyote, thrumming

voice that is the drum, praying

WHY GIRLS DO NOT SPEAK

WHY GIRLS DO NOT SPEAK

You are wondering why some girls have lost their voices, when this one here rushes her words as if she were a brook, engorged with monsoon. At the running waters of Agos, a girl once stopped to fill her canteen. She had come down from Bundok with her father’s ashes. Because her father had no sons, an unusual occurrence, the task came upon her to scatter his ashes into Dagat, which the lowlanders called El Mar.

As I have said, it was unusual for the men of Bundok not to father any sons. If one woman into whom he planted his seed could not give him one son, the man would simply plant his seed into a different woman. And if she could not give him a son, he would continue planting his seed into other women until a son resulted. Many girl children were born this way, set aside by their fathers.

But her father was different. He loved his child and he could not bear to cast her away. He cropped her hair to her skull, and taught her to hunt. Like a man, she learned to spear fish, to build bangka, to chisel their deities in wood. She kept vigil with the other hunters, and yes, she also took heads. She came to tell stories of the hunt, and the people loved her stories best. Few knew this young storyteller was a girl.

Now, regarding the girl children of Bundok, pale men from the coastal lowlands came to Bundok. They had heard stories of the women far outnumbering the men. They came and found so many fatherless daughters, weaving mats, dyeing cloth, cooking meals, learning to tell story. Some sat idle, somber, bored, for there were more girls than needed to perform all of the daily work. When the elders explained to the pale men there were not enough of their own men to marry all of these young women, the pale men promised to supply many good husbands. To this, the elders responded with relief.