Siane. Part 2 (from basa nuvo poems by pd lyons)

PART II

When I was born I saw the world through the eyes of a crow. For at least three maybe four days. On the day the crow returned my soul to my body I was able to see through my own eyes. The first person I saw through such eyes was she who was my nurse. When I was older she told me of this event. Explained how I was special because usually crows do not return such a lost or stolen soul. That children's souls are so sweet they are usually eaten right away. But she had this feeling about me and stayed by me constantly during those days so that my worried parents might try to get some rest. I asked her if it was because my soul was not sweet that it wasn’t eaten. She laughed and told me that even the most wicked person was born with a sweet soul.

So what did I see when I saw through the eyes of a crow? Well one day as I was still child enough that all chairs were big enough for me to curl up in, I did so in the kitchen. Staring into the fire I heard the voice of my nurse, softly, tenderly she spoke and quietly falling asleep still hearing her voice I began to dream. and she, from whom I have never had reason to doubt and from whom I have only known loyalty and love, this is what I told her from my dream state about those days when I saw through the eyes of a crow:

A great grey sky almost to rain. Leaves gone to colour muted by soft and steamy morning. While Below, arched like great green cat backs, farming lands bordered by trees rowed up like man soldiers behind walls of stone which long ago toilers of these fields had so piled. Then as if in memory I saw them, those man-things building walls. Stones like teeth, roots like tendons pulled from a dark open earth. Then as if in further memory I saw those same lands in a time before the man-things, a time when all was tall forest, hard wise wood forests before the man-things came....

But now its only overgrowth, sapling and briar borders along these scrubby pastures where I must keep my attention. Now my vision follows the lay of the land, rolling down to a small valley curling with a silver stream then over again until directly below me a field just before the water slips into the woods. It is a field now for the dead of men. Vivid in an otherwise dull landscape their blood pulls at me. A rare moment - Not only much flesh but none among them upright, none to bury these fallen in the ground as if some seed to sprout anew. Now they are still, delicate, exposed, but I cannot let my vision linger long. There are my comrades feeding, they will leave aside some favourite scrap for me. But I cannot let my vision linger long. I the watch must keep… Until, finally I hear their call “Come. Come. Come.". my legs tense with a will of their own, push off, the earth happy to see me rushes up in greeting and with a jolt I’m standing wide awake before the kitchen fire.