Part 2 (1/2)
And a poison leaf from Gethsemane. The streams, the water streams, are shrinking.
Now Many Swans walked over cinders, and there was no sprig or root that the fire had left. Therefore he grew weaker day by day, and at night he lay awake tortured for food, and he prayed to the Earth, saying: ”Mother Earth have pity on me and give me to eat,”
but the ears of the Earth were stopped with cinders. Then, after five sleeps, suddenly before him grew a bush of service-berries which the fire had not taken. Many Swans gathered the berries and appeased his hunger. He said: ”The berries that grow are blessed, for now I shall live.” Yet he knew that he did not want to live, only his hunger raged fiercely within him and he could not stand against it. He took cinders and powdered them, and mixed them with river water, and made his body black, and so he set his back to the river and his face to the mountains and journeyed on.
Up and over the Backbone-of-the-World went Many Swans. Above the peaks of solitude hang the winds of all directions, and because there are a mult.i.tude of winds they can hold fire and turn it.
Therefore Many Swans felt leaves once more about his face, and the place was kind to his eyes with laurels, and quaking aspens, and honeysuckle trees. All the bushes and flowers were talking, but it was not about Many Swans. The oaks boasted of their iron sinews: ”Fire is a plaything, a ball to be tossed and flung away,”
and they rustled their leaves and struck their roots farther into the moist soil. The red firs stirred at the challenge: ”In Winter your leaves are dry,” they called to the oaks, ”then the fire-bear can eat you. But our leaves are never dry. They are whips to sting the lips of all fires.” But the cedars and the pines said nothing, for they knew that n.o.body would believe them if they spoke.
Now when the hemlocks ran away from him, and the cold rocks glittered with snow, Many Swans knew that he stood at the Peak of the World, and again the longing for men came upon him. ”I will descend into a new country,” he said. ”I will be very careful not to swing the sacred implement, truly it kills people so that they have no time to escape.” He thought he could do it, he believed himself, and he knew no rest because of his quest for men.
There was no way to find, but Many Swans went down through the firs, and the yellow pines, and the maples, to a white plain which ran right, and left, and forward, with only a steep sky stopping it very far off; and the sun on the plain was like molten lead pressing him down and his tongue rattled with thirst. So he lifted himself against the weight of the sun and wished a great wish for men and went on with his desire sobbing in his heart.
To the North was sand, to the East was sand, to the West was sand, to the South was sand, and standing up out of the sand the great flutes of the cactus-trees beckoned him, and flung their flowers out to tempt him -- their wax-white flowers, their magenta flowers, their golden-yellow flowers perking through a gla.s.s-glitter of spines; all along the ridges of the desert they called to him and he knew not which way to turn. He asked a humming-bird in a scarlet trumpet-flower, and the humming-bird answered: ”Across the sunset to the Red Hills.” The sun rose and set three times, and again he knew not where to go, so he asked a gilded flicker who was clicking in a giant cactus. And the flicker told him: ”Across the sunset to the Red Hills.” But when, after many days, he saw no hills, he thought ”The birds deceived me,” and he asked a desert lily: ”Where shall I find men?” And the lily opened her green-and-blue-veined blossom, and discovered the pure whiteness of her heart. ”Across the desert to the Red Hills,” she told him, and he believed her, and, on the ninth morning after, he saw the hills, and they were heliotrope and salmon, and as the sun lifted, they were red, and when the sun was in the top of the sky, they were blood scarlet. Then Many Swans lay and slept, for he did not wish to reach the hills at nightfall lest the people should take him for an enemy and kill him.
In the morning, Many Swans got up and made haste forward to the hills, and soon he was among cornfields, and the rows of the cornfields were newly plowed and from them there came a sound of singing. Then Many Swans felt the fear come upon him because of the thing he loathed and yet carried, and he thought: ”If it should kill these people!” The music of the song was so beautiful that he shed tears, but his fears overcame his longing, for already he loved these people who sang in cornfields at dawn. Many Swans hid in a tuft of mesquite bushes and listened, and the words the people were singing were these, but the tune was like a sun wind in the tree-of-green-sticks:
The white corn I am planting, The white seed of the white corn.
The roots I am planting, The leaves I am planting, The ear of many seeds I am planting, All in one white seed.
Be kind! Be kind!
The blue corn I am planting, The blue ear of the good blue corn.
I am planting tall rows of corn.
The bluebirds will fly among my rows, The blackbirds will fly up and down my rows, The humming-birds will be there between my rows, Between the rows of blue corn I am planting.
Beans I am planting.
The pod of the bean is in the seed.
I tie my beans with white lightning to bring the thunder, The long thunder which herds the rain.
I plant beans.
Be kind! Be kind!
Squash-seeds I am planting So that the ground may be striped with yellow, Horizontal yellow of squash-flowers, Horizontal white of squash-flowers, Great squashes of all colours.
I tie the squash-plants with the rainbow Which carries the sun on its back.
I am planting squash-seeds.
Be kind! Be kind!
Out of the South, rain will come whirling; And from the North I shall see it standing and approaching.
I shall hear itdropping on my seeds, Lapping along the stems of my plants, Splas.h.i.+ng from the high leaves, Tumbling from the little leaves.
I hear it like a river, running -- running -- Among my rows of white corn, running -- running -- I hear it like a leaping spring among my blue corn rows, I hear it foaming past the bean sprouts, I hear water gurgling among my squashes.
Descend, great cloud-water, Spout from the mouth of the lightning, Fall down with the overturning thunder.
For the rainbow is the morning When the sun shall raise us corn, When the bees shall hum to the corn-blossom, To the bean blossom, To the straight, low blossoms of the squashes.
Hear me sing to the rain, To the sun, To the corn when I am planting it, To the corn when I am gathering it, To the squashes when I load them on my back.
I sing and the G.o.d people hear, They are kind.
When the song was finished, Many Swans knew that he must not hurt this people. He swore, and even upon the sacred and terrible thing itself, to make them his safe keeping. Therefore when they returned up the trail to the Mesa, he wandered in the desert below among yellow rabbit-gra.s.s and grey iceplants, and visited the springs, and the shrines full of prayer-sticks, and his heart distracted him with love so that he could not stay still.
That night he heard an elf owl calling from a pinyon-tree, and he went to the owl and sought to know the name of this people who sang in the fields at dawn. The owl answered: ”Do not disturb me, I am singing a love-song. Who are you that you do not know that this is the land of Tusayan.” And Many Swans considered in himself: ”Truly I have come a long way.”
Four moons Many Swans abode on the plain, eating mesquite pods and old dried nopals, but he kept away from the Mesa lest the thing he had with him should be beyond his strength to hold.
Twixt this side, twixt that side, Twixt rock-stones and sage-brush, Twixt bushes and sand, Go the snakes a smooth way, Belly-creeping, Sliding faster than the flash of water on a bluebird's wing.
Twixt corn and twixt cactus, Twixt springside and barren, Along a cold trail Slip the snake-people.
Black-tip-tongued Garter Snakes, Olive-blue Racer Snakes, Whip Snakes and Rat Snakes, Great orange Bull Snakes, And the King of the Snakes, With his high rings of scarlet, His high rings of yellow, His double high black rings, Detesting his fellows, The Killer of Rattlers.
Rattle -- rattle -- rattle -- Rattle -- rattle -- rattle -- The Rattlers,
The Rattlesnakes.
Hiss-s-s-s!