The Heart Fountain

 
Children’s Children
I am 50 today.
The years run quickly.

And the village changes.
So big, and filled with children.

Soon the village will split.
Villages must be small to know everyone.
This is our way.

My sister, Shanir, is in both councils.
Like elder mother before her.

I whisper to Shanir that we must go climbing together.
Become children, again.

She laughs.
And then the smile fades.
A sad smile, I think.

My children grow up and make this chief proud.
I pretend to my children’s children they are too many to count.
But I know every name.

My first wife still holds my heart.
My heart is young!

Nanik fills me with joy.
Even when I am troubled.

The great cats, the shape shifters, come every day to the village.
They harm no one.
But they stay until I come to greet them.

I stare in their eyes, longer each day.
Then they go.

The orange fire drifts around me.
Stronger every day.

 
Hint of Madness
Nanik jokes with me, as she often does.
I feel rivers of anger.

My arm wants to strike her, the last three days.
I hold the arm, as steady as stone.

Will the arm be stone tomorrow?
Or will it be water, impossible to hold?

The madness comes.
I see it.

I will not die of sickness.
I am strong.

But mad chiefs do not die of age.
They act like fools.

Someone will kill me.
When I act with dishonor.

 
Fire
The fire dreamers find me.
Early morning.

“Chief Jaina,” they say, “do you see the madness?”
I nod.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“The fire grows strong around you,” they answer.
“And the Kalmil visit.”

“Many chiefs grow mad without this.”
“For a few, this brings the madness.”

“Why do the Kalmil come?” I ask.

“We don’t know.”

The fire dreamers and I are quiet together.
“We can pray for death,” they say.

“No!” I answer.
“I choose my death.”
“I will die in the forest, with the Vigla.”

I make a great celebration.
We tell stories half the night.

I do not drink.
I do not trust my arm.

The next day I rest.
I prepare to go.

 
Spirit and Change
I tell no one but Nanik.
We hold each other a long time.
And bathe each other in tears.

Then I go.
I wear little, and carry the long knives.

I go to an old place.
“Two cliffs”, we call it.
Two sharp cliffs, 30 feet apart.

Fire Dreamers say it is a place of spirits.
I know it a different way.

I found it when I was four years old.
It is here the Kalmil (the great cats) picked me up and carried me home.

I began this hunt, looking for Vigla.
But now I look for something else.

I wait two days by the cliff with no food.
I am weak with hunger.

The Kalmil stands on the other cliff.
He watches me.

The world looks strange.
I wait for the Kalmil to attack.

I see something leap.
The Kalmil still stands on the other cliff.
Its eyes look dull.

Something white and sparkling leaps towards me and knocks me down.

I get up.
I feel light.
My hunger and thirst is gone.

The orange fire roars around me.
The world looks brighter, but the colors are dim.

I look down.
My body is lifeless on the ground.
“This must be death,” I think.

“Come,” says a voice.
“Leap with me to the Kalmil.”

I follow.
I don’t know what else to do.

We easily leap or fly from cliff to cliff.
When I land, the spirit turns toward me and exhales orange fire upon me.

I feel strange.
It takes a moment for my vision to clear.

I feel solid and heavy again.
I am low to the ground, near the Kalmil.

I look into its eyes.
And I see another Kalmil reflected within.
I am Kalmil now.

“Follow,” he says.
He turns into a bird, and I do the same.

“Can I ever go back to being a man?” I ask as we fly.
“No,” he says.

“Child changes to man.”
“Man changes to chief.”

“You were always change.”
“You are change, again.”