The Moon Child

 When the meads were covered in thick frost,

And the Sun was worshiped then by most,

Some hundreds winter before us

A Moon Clan child said thus:

“Father, father, bring me that pretty thing up in the sky.

I want no toy but that gleaming one or I will cry.”

And the loving father thus replies:

“I’ll bring you the loveliest squirrel of the wild

But the Moon that is so high my dear child.”

But the child would not bend his will:

“The Moon is just above that dark hill,

Climb on a tree, you can pull it down still."

Beetles, birds, monkeys and things of all sorts,

For the obdurate child, the father brought,

But nothing would please the Moon child,

Who was in full of tears and top of its bile.

Only a tallest tower built by men ever

Could reach that high, thought the clever

Moon clansmen and out to wood they set,

Fetched trees, creepers and all they could get.

Days and nights, rain or sun, they built and built

The knitted tower of woods at full tilt,

Like labouring army of ants while singing aloud-

In their minds the first goal was the nearest cloud.

Many moons like came and like went,

But the nearest clouds were still distant,

While termites colonised the tower’s base -

The clansmen must hurry, it should fall unless.

All Men and women of the Moon Clan

Were up on the tower as it was their plan

To reach the moon as early as they could

And pluck it down to alter the child’s mood.

As feared, the tower had a mighty fall

With the clansmen upon it as tragedy unfolds.

The screams of those falling did reach the moon;

All but a few who did not climb died very soon.

Like this the entire Moon clan almost perished

And names of the dead clansmen vanished

With the dusts of this ruined folklore;

Today their lines have grown a bit more.

--Dahey Sangno (30/7/2013)