Shaman Songs
Gene Fowler
In 1967, Len Fulton, Bob Fay, Andy Curry and three other laborers
in the field who sadly I did not get to know well and whose names I
do not remember, brought out my Shaman Songs poem on good matte
paper with drawings by Richard Ayer. It's easy to think, "Oh. Fowler's
'Indian' poem...". It's not that. I stood on California headlands (by
the Pacific) and on Nevada high desert and in cold northern states. I
took rhythms, wind-songs from this continent and, yes, images from
others who'd left them on the land and in the winds.... Find what
this poem is in your reading of it. I'm still doing that.
g.f., January 2005.
Hunting Song
a preface
When the moon
stays into morning
when the river
calls loudest the dawn
it is our time to hunt
and we hunt
the first bear
Speak Shaman How do we find
the bear
With the coming of night
build a fire
that you may see my words
With the coming of night
dance by the fire
that you may feel my words
We see Shaman We see
your words
by the fire
We dance Shaman We feel
your words
by the fire
Your bodies grow large
My words are flesh
on your limbs
We dance the flesh
Your skins grow shaggy
My words are fur
against the cold
We dance the fur
Your scent grows keen
My words are winds
with their secrets
We dance the scent
You run on fours
Run true on fours
My words are bears
with their secrets
We dance the bear
We dance the bear
Now you know the bear
We dance the bear
You know his ancestors
We dance the bear
You know his trails
We dance the bear
When the moon
stays into morning
you will catch the bear
1
My ancestors were shamans.
But i am not my ancestors.
I am shaman
to a tribe recently come.
A tribe with gas turbines.
A tribe with horror of Being
homosexual.
A tribe with a bomb.
A tribe with fear of the Other.
Foreign man.
Black man.
Sexed man.
High man.
Other.
A tribe with fear of the Other.
I wear animal skins
and cast huge shadows on the wall
And the old men sit in council,
sit at their fire.
They wonder
if i am their shaman.
Or if i am the Other.
2
on taking a coal from the fire
in naked fingers
The word
is in the hand.
Under the moon
in the hand.
At the head of the valley
in the hand.
It glows in the hand.
Here!
Look here
in the hand.
Look at the word
in the hand.
It glows.
A great translucence
in the hand.
Go thru the translucence
in the hand.
Into the world
in the hand.
The coals glow
in my fire.
Are words
for the hand.
3
You calld me, always, to heal you
when sickness came to you.
You calld me, always, to read you
the best path for the hunt.
Now you build
your fires big
but your skins
are not warm.
Now your pots
are empty
but you seek
no new game.
You calld me, always, to help you
and my magic was strong.
You calld me, always, to help you
when trouble came to you.
Then you said
my gods ate
what you could
not yet spare.
Then my songs
made you stand
where the storm
might come out.
You calld me, no more, to heal you
when sickness came to you.
You calld me, no more, to read you
the best path for the hunt.
Near my tent, you drop your head.
At my fire, your smile is stiff.
Still, you do not call.
4
I will journey
to a place where i may see
what each day we see.
These old friends will be
shaped and colord fires.
Heat and light will burn
within my eye.
I will journey
to a place where i may see
what we do not ever see.
I will write names in my blood.
When heard, the names will burn
within your eye.
I will journey
to a place where i may see
that which there is to see.
There, your eye and mine
will become a single eye.
That which i see will burn
as our eye.
5
I have journeyd.
I return with scarred flesh.
I return with tattoos burnd
in my meat.
I have journeyd.
Now i sit at my tribal fire.
I sit and watch tattoos dance
on my skin.
I have journeyd.
Now i let you watch my flesh.
I let you watch stories unfold
on my surface.
I have journeyd.
Now i try to relate my stories.
You are lost in dancing images
on my corpse.
I have journeyd.
Let me return.
6
I have shown you
coals in the fire.
Words in the soul.
Look at one coal,
a single coal taken
up into my fingers,
safely in the flesh.
Look
deeply into the coal
til the eyes sting
til the eyes cry out.
Move closer to the coal.
The flame does not flare
but it has not coold.
It has grown in heat.
See
the deep rooted fires.
See
the dark private places
Move down into the coal.
Feel the flesh as flame.
Where is this place?
What are the names?
Who are the shapes
moving about you?
Who the live dark spots,
the living white flame?
Whose flesh is flame?
Where is your eye?
7
It is the woman who grows things.
He who would make the rain fall
must be as the woman.
The body must be cut and turnd.
The dark and moist soil of night
brought to the sun.
He who would make the rain fall
must walk unclothd in the night
must be as the woman.
Hold the seed in careful fingers.
Seed that comes from every field
with its songs told.
Seed that comes from every field
must be planted in the bright sun
and left in the night.
The seeded and moist soil of night
will call and join the sun and rain.
The moon will feed you.
8
The eye is clear with the dawn.
The nostrils are wide in the wind.
The legs are strong from their sleep.
The arms that reach for the sun
reach far over mountains.
Run fast as the deer.
Taste the wind as the rabbit.
Be strong as the bear.
See with the eagle's glint.
Hear as the lynx hears.
The known trails are dry and fast.
The new trails are wet for tracks.
The game is unrested, out and moving.
The legs that reach for the sun
reach far over mountains.
Trail as the jackal.
Change rivers as the beaver.
Strike slyly as the weasel.
Strike fast as the rattler.
Steal as the crow steals.
Bring our tribe the needed meat
sighting the cooking fires from far
the night growing behind you.
9
four invocations to fish
i
Night's wing hides the sun.
O, dark fish run fast
thru cold streams and rivers
that prowl in raven's house.
Dance in white waters.
Become many in black waters.
Become many and dance.
I will carry stones and earth
to mouths of rivers and streams
make deltas, make shallow places.
If the waters are made shallow
the fish must run near my hand.
O, dark fish run hard
into my quick hand.
ii
Night's wing falls
opens a thunder of sunlight.
O, bright fish run fast
thru spotted streams and rivers
that walk in long grasses.
Dance in light waters.
Become many in dark waters.
Become many and dance.
I will wade into the waters
til the two parts of my body
walk side by side.
I will catch the fish
if he does not know where I am.
O, bright fish run hard
into my quick hand.
iii
The raven and the golden hawk
have swallowed one another.
The birds of the sky are gone.
They took the sky with them.
I walk where day and night
do not embrace as lovers.
Many shades of day follow
and there is no beginning
and there is no end.
I wake and it is not light.
I sleep and it is not dark.
My only hope to find the day
my only hope to find the night
is to fish ghost waters, to fish
ghost waters for the coal fish.
I must fish with a dance.
I must fish with a song.
I fish for the night.
I fish for the day.
O, coal fish come burn
with light and dark places.
O, coal fish hurry now
into my quick hand.
I will reach into your
fiery heart, pull out
the sky.
iv
I hide the day in one hand.
I hide the night in one hand.
I fish in eight directions.
I fish among the many suns.
The fish I hunt will run
the spotted sky
dance away in light waters
we call stars
become many in dark waters
we call distances.
All forms are his form.
O, terrible fish run hard
into my quick hand.
And your fire and dark
will be my flesh.
10
each man's lust is a cult
The rains are warm.
Our valleys and plains are almost green
- under blades of grass so slight
a blade is seen only by a keen eye
from the height of a walking man.
The strong women who have borne sons are restless.
The ripe girls who have come thru the winter
watch the sun walk across the day.
Their eyes gentle as the wind, tender as the new grass.
The shaman's tent is prepared for fires and dances.
The ripe girls who have come thru the winter
watch the sun go away across the day.
The men look at the girls' throats and breasts in wonder.
Night lands, breathes
its strange winds around our closed tents, and fires
breathe their forms onto
the circling hides.
Women must be torn from girls in a cruel stench
of dance filld flesh and full thighs.
On stretcht hides of the shaman's tent
woman gods mimic the first wild dances
- thundercloud dancers in a sacrament.
Stolen tusk of a grandfather buffalo.
Unfalling carvd phallus of our tribe.
My corded arm is painted to the elbow
in the red rains of our Spring.
The sudden women shine at the river, trickt
from winter with a dance's thundercloud rise.
The rains are warm, our valleys and plains green.
11
O, thunder cloud
buffalo robe
of the sun -
how can you warm the sun?
The woman's belly
swells, summer melon
ready to split.
It warms my fingers
Dreamer's eye
a magic star, grows
in one night
to twice its old size.
Thru the grey cloud
lies a hidden sun
roasting potato -
no one to eat its warmth.
O, thunder cloud
roasting robe
of the sun -
I will rip you open.
12
We have made hawks
that fly
where no hawks have flown.
We have made hard sky
and look out at the rain.
We have made warm hides
from no animal yet slain.
We have made horses
that stride
as no horses ever known.
But, we are weak.
On our wounded plains,
we are alone.
We have forgotten
the shape and cry of our bellies.
We have forgotten
the dances of our own faces,
the songs of our own voices.
We have forgotten
the chants of the souls
in our running feet.
Now, we remember.
In our weeping tents, we are alone.
13
shaman stands on the pre-dawn
mountain, a dark mane on a thundercloud
i
One by one, all the old men of the tribe die, one
by one, all the old women,
all the young men,
all the young women,
even our children -
They all die.
The crows steal our eyes and fly beyond mountains.
The people of our tribe curl in trees, take on
the color of the desert,
and the desert begins
to swallow our plains, to pull down our mountains,
to burn our winds into
blackend breaths.
Our skin and bones grow old as the desert, become
rock of the desert.
Where our eyes lookt out, there are now dark caves
in twisted desert trees.
Ha he ye ya he ha-a-aa
I walk among the trees.
Ha he ye ya he ha-a-aa
Faces are gone with ghosts.
Ha he ye ya he ha-a-aa
I bury them in trees.
Ha he ye ya he ha-a-aa
Sorrow shakes my knees.
I, too, find my tree.
Ha he ye ya ha-a-aa
Ha he ye ya he ha-a-aaa
When the dawn fire rises, where will we be?
ii
You few, who have listend, must rise
and leave the tree.
You few, who have heard, must gather
your magic and go.
I cannot tell you
what you take with you
but, it burns, a coal
planted in your center.
I cannot tell you
the magic names you know
but, they wait, alive
planted in your center.
You few, who have listend, have known
my magic was strong.
You few, who have heard, will know
your magic is strong.
You have seen my gods
and given them more
than you had to spare.
You must grow your gods.
Skin and bones must become
rock, the ghost must rise
and fill you and burn.
You must grow your gods.
You few, who have listend, have calld
my magic and eaten.
You few, who have heard, must call
your magic and grow.
Near my tent, you lift your throat.
At my fire, your smile beckons.
Still, you must not call.
iii
When those who left the trees
have no more magic
when the ghosts who left
are in ghost trees
stronger shamans than i, shamans whose
eyes burn as suns in the sky
shamans whose
eyes burn as stars in the night
will come.
Their magic will stand on the shoulders
of my magic, my strong magic.
Their magic will ride on my magic
as a tall warrior rides, standing
on the shoulders of a great stallion.
And brushing the ghost trees with fingers warm as suns
those ghost shamans
will make the ghosts to walk
again in great tribes.
Gene Fowler
acorioso@earthlink.net