Turtle Island 

That night he had a dream.
It burst out of  black
nothingness. 

Then he woke.
His dream had died
as dreams will often do,
pipe dreams
drowning
in wakefulness. 

So then in the light-time
he sought to give solidarity
and substance to the stuff
his dreams were made of,
like an artist sculpting
his dream alive.
Plants, people,
fish, frogs,
flowers
were fashioned
and all creatures
lived in harmony. 

But he made a mistake,
a minor misjudgement.
Only They, The People
were given the pipe
to keep them
calm
and peaceful
high
up on the mountain. 

So all too soon, in serpent-time
the forked tongues flashed
and the fights and floods
drowned his dreams
as the darkness
descended
again. 

Then he saw the turtle.
It didn’t mind the soil
placed there on its back
and he saw its potential
to begin his creation again.
As the turtle grew and grew,
everything else grew and grew.
All was well on his Turtle Island. 

But not all growth was good growth.
and They, The People outgrew
his control
their brains
their being
belongings
their stuff
that stuff
the stuff
of his nightmares,
dwarfing his Turtle,
drowning it in vile violence,
drowning it in creative destruction,
destroying it all as the waters rose higher
and higher. 

Then
he began
to dream
again.