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—after Joy Harjo
In the time before, it was never written down
No pens. A long line of mouths. A wolfman hovers
beyond the tree line, taste of flesh on his tongue.
A basket over a girl’s arm, crumbs fallen.
The predator prowls the woods,
the path, the outlying cottages. He eats
every unfortunate passerby. What he cannot eat,
he saves for later. He makes wine. Jars flesh. Waits.
Rumors run like pigs. Like school children.
Like a mother’s butterfly stomach, weighted
for the wind’s howl. Like shortcuts loafing
toward full moon twilights. Like a basket
inside a cottage door. A dandelion seed purchased
where there is no wind spell for wishes to float free.
Wait! Not this once. Instead, try
Once there was
a woods that was only a woods.
The village folk used to go birding,
speak to owls, hear the throaty croak of ravens,
listen for the songs of a nightingale.
They had lived together, cooked together,
whispering rumors of red sky mornings.
They had tried to pretend a wolfman hadn’t moved in,
grandmother’s cottage was under construction
and the disappeared had left only damp shadows soaked into paths.
But once again
Once upon another time
Memory failed and the forest shadows grew larger
and toothier with eyes sharp enough to see in the dark—
the fallen fabric of a daughter’s red hood, the ribbon,
the sash, a walking shoe wilting beside the path of pins
the basket lined with cloth for protecting cakes
Start with a different once!
Once, after a lifetime lived inside the village walls
grandmother had moved, longing
for the seclusion of the forest. Trusting
her granddaughter would come, she had left
the cottage door unlatched, curled up
in her nightgown, recalling memories of trips made
when she had been a girl. Choosing her path. Before
If the girl in the red hood starts here
she’ll never make it to the end of her story.
Someone has to keep her eyes open, sings her grandmother
to the day, to the night, to the wind spell
that can carry dandelion wishes to far-off places
where it can seed into the heart’s loam
and take root even as the girl walks
the path of pins or that of needles.
It would not matter. For even if grandmother was eaten,
the girl would have the sense to escape. And she would
find helpers along her journey home.
Yes. Once upon this story.
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