Su Ben Poet Free verse

One Autumn Day At Hida Village

Asking tribe’s future to the totem pole that grew higher 
with the stock of fogs, drizzles, snows, suns, moons and stars,
that Haida laid one at a time from the day of their first step 
on the sands, they followed the school of fish riding on the wavelets,
chased the fish plowing the surge of waves, hunted the big fish 
buffeted by the billows because their home is the sea and the winds.

When heap of Haida’s days, 
the days made through with the waves,
the days that lived through with the winds, turn into gray cloud,
and the time when this dismal gray cloud turns around the hillsides 
over this village, drifts along the riversides by that village and falls 
on the water’s edge as a drizzle, the villagers come to the village square 
calling moon and stars above the sky while stepping 
on the fallen leaves on the path that links to tomorrow.

When the moonlight wanes to fall on the water and become ripples,
the stars close their twinkling eyes overwhelmed by deepening night
and fall to sleep in the depths of water, the lads sit around the bonfire
sharing their body temperature with all the tribesmen
to hear the elder’s story regarding relationship 
for the forefathers’ forefather with totem pole.

And as time goes by, the night falls deeper and deeper
the good-hearted artless Haida converse with carved image
that flames in the bonfire light on the top of the totem pole
wearing the masks created with a whole spirit

and utmost devotion to the Spirit 
that lives within the totem pole.


Note: The reproduced Haida village on the backyard of Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia.

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