PostsChallengesPortalsAuthorsBooks
Sign Up
Log In
Posts
Challenges
Portals
Authors
Books
beta
Sign Up
Search
Profile avatar image for jeffmach
jeffmach in Fantasy

That First Stolen Song

When the Trickster

(what trickster, which trickster?

Coyote, Anansi, the Harlequin,

Lady Eris?)

who knows?

who cares?

When the Trickster stole the first song,

the Gods were wroth.

They spun fire

(ANOTHER stolen thing!)

and whipped smoke

and generated the great waves

which lifted Atlantis to the stars

(you thought Atlantis sank?

That's exactly what They want you to think.)

And they yelled and bellowed and raced down the great Mountain into the lands of Mortals,

howling,

keening,

swearing,

past

(but not into)

the villages and towns,

through the caves of glyph and silhouette,

past the Valley of Shadow

(well: near enough;

nobody really knows where

the Valley of Shadow is)

until they collapsed,

laughing,

at the feet of the thief,

who herself laughed,

plied them with wine,

and sang with them;

for all songs are stolen,

and it is the reshaper,

the word-wrestler,

the listener,

the lover and the critic

which give shape to Song,

and you can't really steal

what no-one can truly grasp,

so pass the jug;

if the Gods were truly angry,

they wouldn't have given us wine.