The Story Teller

Lean and strong, chocolate skin, with deeply lined face etched from decades of watchful and active living on the plains, tall with splayed feet from miles of territory covered each day in his ministrations to his tribe, his group, his people, the Story Teller sat at the nightly fire, his cape of warmth slung loosely on his shoulders, his staff bespeaking his status resting angled from the earth to the crook of his shoulder ready for his grasp now and then to make a point. I saw him, felt his presence, heard him speak as I began to read (and hear!) his accounting of the story of Creation in the first three chapters of Genesis. A surprise. Yet he was there each morning of my reading and my writing. He is here now smiling approvingly of my announcing of his presence, his life, his art. Story Teller: shaper of the consciousness of his people.