Shaman's Drumsong | Poem

Shaman's Drumsong

Down in the mines,

Where the water is cold,

Down in the weather,

And the feather is old,

Comes the gray mouse

on the run;

Comes the Indian

with his drum;

                        drum!

     dum,

drru-um,                

The sound is in his feathers,
Down in the deeps

Where the great fish lay,
Down in the towns,

Where the drunks are fed,

Comes this day so grayly wed,

To the flower of the raven's blood,

And we are:

drum!                                                     

dum,                                    

drr-um,             
             
                            Dum,                  

in the fields,

where the grey mouse runs,

in the ground

where the green rocks

moan in the arms of roots,

and we are dum, drr-um!

in the raven's eye,

cold as a fox in the middle of the road,

colder than wheat in the drifts of snow,

lank as a bear, in the wind's own voice,

and

comes the answer of the river,

BROAD ARE MY CURVES

under the falling show,

GRAY AM i TO THE ICE-SHEET FORMING

preforming your song of ice and snow!

i

am cold

in the raven's blood,

i

am warm

to the shaman's bones,

down in the weather...

...and the feather is old,

...down in the mines,

...where the tombs are told,

WE ARE THE SPIRIT YET!

...the wind...and the weather...

and we warm the shaman's bones...

- Michael Warren Eliseuson

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