burning darts into the lion’s soul
Make him forget to stalk the zebra foal.
And turn him back to where, beneath the trees
His mate awaits, and there to find release
From unpleasant anguish. Bid the warring king
Forget awhile his bloody lance and cling
To his beloved of the pointed breast.
Command the North, the South, the East and the West
To pause from war and thieving, and to LOVE!’
BEHOLD THE FIRST IS BORN!
After her capture
The Tree of Life held the Goddess fast
Never to let her escape again;
And it came about one day
That movements occurred within her,
Movements which increased with the passage of time,
Much to her fear and distress.
At long last, after a thousand years,
The Goddess felt a sudden tearing pain
That prompted her to cry out suddenly
And writhe in anguish in her mineral husband’s tentacles.
The first cruel pains were followed by others—
A third and fourth and the glittering voice of the Goddess
Rang loudly across the plains
To rebound against the stunned distant mountains.
The foolish Tree of Life not understanding,
Thought his bride was trying another escape,
So he held her more tightly in his manifold arms,
Greatly increasing her pain.
As time went on the intensity of her suffering
Increased twofold, and after fifty agonising years
Turned so utterly unbearable that she freed herself
From the Tree of Life’s endearing embrace,
And wriggled and rolled on the barren earth
In efforts to ease her inexplicable agony.
Such was her suff’ring, and desp’rate her efforts,
That with self-hypnosis she counted the stars.
E’en today many Tribes have the saying:
‘To count the very stars in pain.’
The first father, the Tree of Life, kept watch,
With typical helplessness
As his mate writhed and wailed through her birth pains.
But at long, long last the Great Goddess
Was relieved from her hideous pain,
And the first mighty nation of flesh and blood,
A countless number of human beings, was born.
And in their multitudes they spread
To populate the barren Ka-Lahari.
Meanwhile, however, the strangest change came over the Tree of Life;
Green buds burst from its writhing limbs
And clouds of seeds emerged and fell upon the rocky plains.
Wherever they struck the ground they shot out roots
Into the stubborn rock and barren sand,
Breaking through to reach some moisture
And soon all manner of plants grew forth—
A creeping carpet of lush living green.
Soon mighty forests covered the earth,
Contending with the mountains themselves.
Howling winds and sheets of rain
And roots of forest trees
Worked hand in hand to mould the craggy mountains
Into undulating plains.
Soon after all this effort the Tree of Life
Bore living, snarling, howling animal fruit.
From its widespread branches they fell with a thud
On the grassy ground below,
And scampered off into the forests
In their countless millions.
From great cracks in the trunk of the tree
Birds of all kinds came flying and waddling forth,
Filling the air with all their love calls;
Ostriches and ibises,
Eagles, hawks and flamingoes,
The kinds we know and those we’ve never seen,
Like the two-headed talking Kaa-U-La birds.
These we know from legend alone
And I’ll relate about them anon.
The earth which had hitherto been lifeless and dead,
Began to live, and sounds of all kinds
Resounded from the forests and valleys
As beast fought beast—
Beast called beast—
And birds sang their happiness loudly
Towards the smiling sun.
Many, many kinds of beasts
That the Tree of Life brought forth
Since vanished for ever from the face of the earth,
Because Efa the Spirit of Total Extinction
Has long since consumed them all—
