Sacred Objects

He attained sacred powers of rain calling From a village woman once forced to depart Based on accusations of Practicing a forbidden practice The tribal council declared her a ‘witch’ She was made to leave Along with the rest of her bodily belongings But to leave offspring and mating partners behind She accidentally wept in her painful tears While trying to quench thirst From a sacred waterhole At once polluted the well in laxity By allowing her menstrual blood To leak into the sacred waters She collected dangerous plants and animals “One day, you would become asacred object” She told each organism recruited She was later killed by baboons For a tree full of ripe berries And when enemies attacked the village The elder son to the ‘witch’ With sacred powers of rearranging clouds Offered them rain to water their crops And a herd of baboons For they venerated a beast as a totem They later encountered inconceivable phenomenon A mountain of baboon flesh defied to be cooked Leaped out and ran into the sacred waterhole Then after the first full moon The guilty species returned to the village And narrated the story of a sacred woman That’s when the clan Adopted baboon as their totem