Jasper and The Tulip Poplars

There was a cold wind blowing down from the mesa and the moon was full. A ring of mesquite trees held the glow of a camp fire and sent giant shadows to dance on the sandstone. A healer knelt near the fire but faced toward the shadows. His back caught the heat and his skin was warm.

The healer was a young man. He was alone and in one palm he cradled an nodule of jasper the size of an avocado. He smoothed the surface of the stone as if giving it a final polish, but it was the stone that was giving. The young man felt its weight and he knew something was wrong. His teacher would live to be a very old man, the rock told him. His teacher would hold his people safe and another prodigy would come. The healer was needed, but it was not here that he was needed. He had never been east of the Great River and the thought of leaving made him feel alone.

He held the jasper out away from his body, turned his hand over. The rock fell through the light of the fire and when it struck the earth the healer was gone. A raven took flight and the slapping of his wings on the down stroke was like a quick echo. The last ribbon of flame tapered out of the fire as the bird flew East toward a rising moon.

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On the eastern slope of the Appalachians a young mother put her son to bed on the summer porch of a log cabin. She smoothed the hair across his forehead and he fought at the tickle with a gnarled, pink fist. He yawned. She touched his nose and then laid down on a canvas cot. A breeze came down across the old, tired mountain and she felt a welcomed chill. Pleasant thoughts of tomorrow floated across her mind with the breeze and the moon was high over head. She drifted into a gentle sleep without noticing the shadow of a large, black bird perched on the edge of her son’s crib.

The bird watched the mother then twitched his head to the sleeping baby. He shuddered his tail feathers and his breast swelled. The raven let out a quiet caw and hopped into the crib and disappeared.

The mother jolted and sat up to check on the boy. She looked into his crib and her eyes met his. He was wide awake and smiling and the light of the moon twinkled in his black eyes. She caught his smile and turned it back. The mother tucked a tiny quilt around her son and returned to her cot.

The breeze rustled through the tulip poplars that skirted the cabin and the sound washed away all of the others. Even the chorus of tree frogs was muffled by the whispering leaves. She returned to sleep but the baby chortled and cooed and watched the clouds passing the moon. It was a long way from the foot of the desert mesa, but everything somehow seemed familiar, somehow right.