0041 Unaraluk The Shaman Poem by Michael Shepherd

In the very earliest time,
when knowledge was love
and truth was goodness
and words had power,
people and animals
lived as brother and sister,
parent and child.

Sometimes they were one,
sometimes they were the other
and it mattered not,
for all spoke the same language
and words were magic
and made things happen.

In later times,
only the shamans remembered
and even they needed
the help of spirits.
Unaraluk the shaman
was helped by his dead father
and his dead mother, and
the sun, a dog, and a sea scorpion

and these enabled Unaraluk
to know everything about
what was on the earth
and under the earth,
in the sea
and in the sky.

Nobody could explain this:
that’s the way it was.