Iktomi inches to me.
His trip has eight furry legs.
His trap is eight black-ringed eyes.
He’ll walk me too willingly
into his world-weaving web.
Words I spin, strengthen its strands.
The pull teaches me, new tricks.
This is a re-posting of this poem, because the Blogger gods decided to embark on a massive Fail and eat the first try from yesterday.
Iktomi is not actually a "foreign" god, but indeed very native to this land the Europeans so skillfully swiped (and re-swiped as many times as it took). When I encounter him, I try to escort him outside where he can play his tricks on the squirrels and the possums.
5 comments:
Iktomi is one of my favorite manifestations of trickster in American Indian story. Thank you for this piece. The comment I tried to leave yesterday was eaten in the meltdown. Did Iktomi crawl into the system to wreak havoc...?
~Brenda
it feels leggy and stretchy
a good spidery poem =)
Brenda, I'd just seen the movie "Skins" where Iktomi plays a part in the story, and he was also mentioned in "American Gods", so I thought I should pay tribute. I'm a fan of trickster figures, and I've read a couple Iktomi tales, though I'd like to search out a few more. I think I may have conjured him, causing the trouble with Blogger, but don't tell the folks at Google that :).
@Janet I've always liked spiders, so the more leggy the poem, the better ;).
Does this Iktomi have a specific penchant for possum baiting or are you just being flippant?
No living thing is immune to Iktomi's tricks...
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