A character begins to come to life
I came across this poem today. It's a traditional Inuit piece (actually it's credited as "Mackenzie Eskimo"), and I don't know the translator, because the editor (one JR Colombo) failed to credit one. And I suspect this line breaking and punctuation are the result of the collision between oral and print cultures. But still, look at this. Just look at this:
When with a shore wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And thought I was in danger.
My fears
Those small ones
I thought so big,
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach
And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing:
To live to see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns
And the little light that fills the world.
One of the characters for SORROW'S KNOT is a storyteller. He comes from a slightly different background than the other characters, and his view on the ever-present threat of the restless dead is different too. I have been thinking for the last two weeks that he might have to go, because he is such a major character but, for structural reasons, must make his entrance so late. On reading this poem, I change my mind. I am gluing in in my notebook, beside my sketch of his tattoos. My dear protagonist Otter needs someone in her initally suffocating, now ever opening world who knows this stuff. Someone who has seen the sea.
When with a shore wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And thought I was in danger.
My fears
Those small ones
I thought so big,
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach
And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing:
To live to see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns
And the little light that fills the world.
One of the characters for SORROW'S KNOT is a storyteller. He comes from a slightly different background than the other characters, and his view on the ever-present threat of the restless dead is different too. I have been thinking for the last two weeks that he might have to go, because he is such a major character but, for structural reasons, must make his entrance so late. On reading this poem, I change my mind. I am gluing in in my notebook, beside my sketch of his tattoos. My dear protagonist Otter needs someone in her initally suffocating, now ever opening world who knows this stuff. Someone who has seen the sea.