Yumalaiella
You, Yumalaiella, you weren’t the only special one.
Your brothers and sisters all shined like amethysts in the sun,
but you, Yumalaiella, you were my favorite one.
The oldest was Avix, the first Heaven sent,
and she was known to dissolve like an old Escher print.
From the patterns of her checkered dresses emerged
sky from the light squares and from the dark, birds.
So from peril, from fear, or from murderous foes,
up flew the girl as a murder of crows.
Or in whimsy she might just drop in on a house
as a nightingale watch or a covey of grouse.
…and then the statue said…
Eldo and Odle were born just minutes apart,
mischievous twins with synchronized hearts.
Of course they could chat without speaking a word,
but their other trick was the one they preferred.
They took turns going places, one left, one stayed in
and with an effortless gesture, rejoined his twin.
Oh, I saw folks faint when one vanished like that,
or scream when he'd manifest - rabbit from hat.
You, Yumalaiella, you weren’t the only special one.
Your brothers and sisters all shined like amethysts in the sun,
but you, Yumalaiella, you were my favorite one.
Obsidian eyes and hair just the same,
and just 5 minutes old, your mama gave her her name.
"Obsidia," she said, and then the nurse pulled the blind,
and that baby disappeared, but you could still hear her crying.
She could hide in the shadow from any cloud or tree,
she'd just put up her parasol, then that was all you'd see.
And at night she was vapor, just a shape in the gloom,
a walking eclipse in need of no moon.
…and then the statue said…
Tonque was the youngest and so wild in his heart
was his love for mountains that he made mountains his art.
He sculpted summits and ridges until
his visions were defined by the lines of the hills:
the head of a lion or an old Indian face
in grand silhouette by his power and grace.
And once his three sisters on some Oregon range,
and though the faces eroded, the name hasn’t changed.
One rainy day, you will remember this,
I swear by the gods underground.
I’ll keep reminding you until you sing again,
until the curse is reversed by the sound.
They knew you well and one day they came to you,
one dead, one alive, he with demands:
“Sing back to life this fallen warrior,”
but you saw blood on this wicked god’s hands.
And when you refused, he shouted fireclouds,
he cast a spell from the black thunderhead
and I’m made of stone, so he didn’t see me there,
but in days all your siblings were dead.
And such bitter irony, they stole your memory,
so you don’t even know what is wrong
but one rainy day, you will remember this:
you could bring them all back with a song.
And I was the statue that stood in your yard,
an ornament of marble, a symbolic guard.
And Yumalaiella, you were the one
who sang life into things no less than the sun.
You sang sprouts up from seeds, you sang fruit from the flower,
but now your family’s gone and you’ve forgotten your power.
But I know you can sing back the life in their bones,
you once sang to me and made flesh from stone.