Where The Smoke Rises

Thum, thum, thum beats the drum. Sound of thundering heaven. Sound of hooves rapping at the dirt. A singer sits at a crackling fire. A throbbing circle of light at the center of the world. The smoke rises to the stars and the singer sings a wordless song. And beats the drum. Thum, thum, thum.

From the drum hang feathers. There is an image on the skin pulled taut. A rainbow, a horse, a tree whose roots dig in the damp dirt where the ancestors dwell. The dirt is their flesh. The branches scrape heaven where only birds and gods go. But sometimes men, with their song. The tree bridges heaven and dirt and grows at the center of the world. The drum is made of the tree that the fire burns at the center of the world. And the smoke rises to the stars.

The song is the rainbow plunging from heaven into the dirt where the dead dwell. A bow launches an arrow. Thwack! It hits the target at the center of the world where the tree grows and the drum beats and the fire crackles and the smoke rises to the stars.

You are ill. The song of the drum beats the ground as a horse's hooves in pursuit of the soul that is lost. The song is an ember calling the soul home to the center of the world where the tree grows and the drum beats and the fire crackles and the smoke rises to the stars.