Wednesday, April 02, 2014

TRICKSTER MAGIC

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Today's prompt says, "Every time and place and culture has its myths and legends..." I was going to write a poem based on the story of how Frog Mountain in the Slocan Valley back home came to be, according to the mythology of the Sinixt First Nations people, but I am hesitant, for it is a creation myth and creation myths are so very important to the people whose myths they are. It is going to take more than a day to get it right, if that's even possible. 

So instead, here is a short poem about a certain tall rock that stands in the Kootenay River.

Trickster Magic


On the old road
beside the Kootenay River
where black tree lichen
creeps down lodgepole pines,
I hear coyotes.
One starts and the rest join in,
triumphant, dreadful baying.

Up to its knees in river,
Coyote Rock stands guard,
waits for the right time
to welcome back

the anadromous salmon.

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