09/12/2025
The Song of Raven
When the world was cloaked in endless night,
the people prayed, their drums calling to the sky.
The cedar smoke curled upward like rivers of spirit,
carrying chants to the unseen world.
From the longhouse, carved with the faces of ancestors,
the Haida gathered, their voices weaving a circle of sound.
Children danced with masks of wood and paint,
elders struck the great drums,
and the fire leapt high, telling stories in flame.
Then came Raven, feathered in shadow,
eyes burning with hunger for mischief and light.
He tricked the old man who guarded the sun,
snatched it in his beak,
and carried it through the smoke of creation.
The people gasped as dawn broke for the first time,
the cedar forest glowing with fire from the heavens,
the sea shimmering like a mirror of the sky.
The Raven’s wings beat against the new day,
and the songs of the Haida rose higher,
praising the trickster, the giver, the thief of light.
At the potlatch, gifts were offered in his honor—
blankets woven with stories,
feathers tied with prayers,
salmon shared as sacred sustenance.
For every gift Raven gave, the people gave in return,
honoring the eternal exchange of life.
And so, in every festival, in every mask,
Raven lives—both jester and creator,
reminding the people that light is born from daring,
and even in shadows, there lies the seed of renewal.
