June 2020 Competition Winner

Northern Lights

Sue Hoffman

 

Green-born:

a blessing;

a child to unite tribes.

 

Red-born:

a gift;

a child to bring joy.

 

Yellow-born:

a mystery;

who knows the child’s fate?

 

But I was born

when the night was black,

when the sky-dancers slept,

their coloured capes folded to cushion weary heads,

 

and nothing could waken them;

not my father’s yells

nor my mother’s pleas,

not even the dance-drums of the Elders.

 

And so we live

by sufferance,

cast out from the clan’s heart,

forbidden to sing.

 

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