Heart of Hawk (book)

Heart of Hawk

(translated from the traditional dance by Halasteen My'ralika)                                           

Gather round the advent fire
Gather close kindred kind
As fate flickers my voice behind
A ghost telling of a woman
She dared all to learn to fly

Ayvek -- wild girl child blazing bright
Feather light feet dancing
With Sister Spring Breeze
She ran wild with the summer ponies
She ran free along the winter plains

Ayvek --antelope woman runs alone
Her hair a plume streaming behind
No boy catching her willful heart
Dancing among the foals of spring
Weeping during the harvest time

Ayvek - crone woman shadow stick
Silver ice frosts her once-bright hair
Seasons turn one after another
Closing in the dying sun
Yet, she dares to scan the skies

Winter harsh twinge settles frozen
Twisting sharp in her brittle bones
Her left foot touches the life barrier
To step past the southern heath fire
Where the ancestors sleep warm

Shadow silhouetted against ember
A hawk soars free of earth restraints
The vision seizes her, a compulsion
Ayvek feet drum hard on the ground
Run to the eerie of the sheer mountain

Granite rends flesh to bleeding ribbons
Blood oath stains vivid the mountain face
The sun sears skin to blackened coals
The thin air tearing with razor sharp pain
She shudders for breath yet presses on

Her oath vivid, her spirit links weakened
Ayvek sways as she achieves the summit
The hawk's treasure of three sun-touched eggs
Tentative her touch on each precious shell
Until within the last she feels what she seeks.

Ayvek rises stiffly with flailed flesh weeping red
Every bone of her shrieking a chorus of shrill agony
Yet proudly perfect her posture as she sings homage
Bowing honor to the trio of life, she then turns
Hawk seizing the lady of the wind-browned plains

The Woman-shell crumples
Pale dust blown heedless on an errant wind
Within the third of the trio a new spirit now lingers
Patiently waiting for the hatching of the spirit
To unfurl and soar high in flight over the plains

Ayvek may now fly as a hawk soaring high
Yet her blood is ours by all reckoning of time
Her hatchlings our most cherished cousins
Flight of the hawk and the Wind Elvenkind
Forevermore braided tight souls to one fate

Author's note: As the world becomes more intrusive and steals the heart of our young, there is a grave danger that the lore of our hearts and past may be lost. Although I have scribed the intent of the dance, I fear my unworthy quill is not capable of transcribing the grace of each precise movement and every gesture of the scarves of the wind that expresses the layered nuances that the Elvenkind of the Wind imbue within this legend dance. It is highly recommended that the serious student of the Elvenkind experience this in its true from in order to appreciate the full extent of the experience.