Dashmanaug the Great Moth and Zakor

Dashmanaug and Zakor – The Origins of the Ambassadors

“In all our far travels together,” Zakor observed, “I have never asked Zwindar what he was, or why. Somehow, I don't know, it -” She shook her head now, puzzling, “- it seemed to me... Impolite.”

Hm,” Dashmanaug chuckled again to himself, and he saw as the child searched his eyes that a deep inquiry stirred in her.

“Great Moth,” Zakor continued, “I wonder if you might explain to me something I have pondered since first I came here... As I look at your books and carvings, and at the drawings and stories of many earth beings, it seems there have always been creatures who are both man and animal. I think of the gods and goddesses of my mother's religion, of Ganesh and Hanuman. I think on the hieroglyphs of Egypt, where there are godlike beings with human bodies, but their heads are those of the hawk, the wolf or the crocodile... When I was more a child I saw these heads as masks made and worn by people – but then I saw the costumes of the Native American nations, with their feathered bodies and animal faces. And also the nursery rhymes of my books, talking rabbits and bears and foxes who wore clothing. And here, again I see, in the writings and drawings of my own people, these powerful animal beings. Did we imagine so much and for so long as to make you a reality, or have you always existed, and I have only recently become aware of you?”

Dashmanaug chuckled. “Your questions are at times like my answers.”

Now Zakor smiled as well, and the moth man and the little girl regarded each other, with no uncertain barrier between. After a moment of thought, Dashmanaug answered, “We have been children of this world for ever so long as you, small one who is not so small.”

He went to a combed, ornate wall, one of many such facades in his elaborate, airy library, and from a high shelf he retrieved a weathered book on which Miriconian symbols were inscribed. Zakor watched patiently as the moth man leafed through many of the vellum pages, until at last he set the book down before Zakor. The writing, intermingled with flourished illustrations, as was often the custom with Miriconian books, had been laid down by hand to painstaking detail.

At first Zakor squinted – the style of the handwriting made the symbols harder to discern, and of course while speaking to the earth had opened her mind to the language, it was still quite new to her. So as she began to read aloud, if she stumbled upon a phrase, Dashmanaug gently asserted the correction.

Anyafa'hare'a – The Ambassadors

Now know me as the crow or jay whose hoarse voice blades against the draw of morning or of night

and coat of feather cloak me in the laughing glades where oft you find me peering from a height

and know me as the flash of scale beneath the foam who elusive swims in tide or river's run

and though to all above I seem the shadow's kin with a watchful eye can see all that is done

and know me as the light of hoof upon the leaf with antler broad and coat of shaggy hide

subarctic wood I wander under Northern light and staring from the pines keep eyes a'wide

We unbeknownst to those who walk in human ways all hear with ear far better than supposed

and keeper of each deed throughout the human days we take back to nature all so that She knows

Not long ago when humans danced to natures drum we altogether spoke in tongue the same

but wander off did humans most from rhythms old and into knowledge new the humans came

And those of us ambassadors from long before appointed to the tasks of earth and man

we mourned the time when all accord was sought and found and era new to nature soon began

And watch did we ambassadors in earthly form with fur and antler fin and scale and wing

and go we back to nature telling naught but tears we song of separation feared to sing

For spoke no more to us did people through their walls and hacked the earth with terrible machines

Forget they did the wealth of nature's simple ways and sought survival by some other means

Yes break from realm of humans said all voice of earth for they from us have broken long ago

to save all realms of nature for which we do speak we into shadow must agree to sow

And nature's human children they were most estranged but mother wished her children to come home

so some of us were given task to search and find and into human realms were told to roam

Some said too savage were our forms of earthly realm suggesting we make form of man our own

if walked and talked alike perhaps we might reach out and seed of understanding might be sown

so made ourselves part animal and then part man and cloth upon our bodies did we wear

and strode upright and learned the words to plead our case we wandered into every here and there

And when appearing to those in the human realms oft were the closed of heart and mind afraid

but children and the child in spirit did not fear and these in human realms we did persuade

and welcomed into nature's realms were humans few, and awed were they to find a kinder land

and knowledge we did pass between our world and theirs and together did we come to understand

appointed are we yet today a few sharp eyes and ears which close to human deeds do lean

and know that some among do speak in wonderway ambassadors yourselves who intervene

still awe of star and branch and beetle do you hold thinking not in thoughts of profit greed and steel

do reach out to your kin among tis time to speak, and to pose to them a spirited appeal

For as is now must soon be done in better way, and altogether must we change our ways

for all of leaf and meadow sky and sea and stream wish not to see our very end of days

not only for ourselves but for all of life we speak, and for the good of all we must construe

for humans born of earth you all are kin to us, and as such we must also speak for you

As she finished reading the words, Zakor looked up at the Great Moth, and asked, “Can things not go back to the way they were before?”

Dashmanaug thought for a moment before responding. “There are three places of awareness in which we exist. In the first we only know what is, not seeing the change which should be made. The second comes to us when something makes us realize the wrong, and yet we choose to do nothing about it. The third awareness, and perhaps the most difficult of the three, is where we choose to do something, and in doing so, we create change.”

Zakor sat for a while, and so did Dashmanaug, and it was a comfortable silence that passed between them.

“I think,” Zakor said finally, “ that so many of my people know that something should be different, and yet we do nothing. I think only with a sudden, perhaps terrible shift, which is made outside their control, will the people of my world change their ways. And perhaps then it will be too late.”