In the fall the valley turns green.
Scholars and mystics have joined hands in attempts to explain why our seasons misbehave.
Weathermen pepper our skies with balloons,
diviners scratch with earth with sticks.
Legends, and curious accounts in leather pouches found in the hollow of a tree,
suggest that the valley was once a lake.
Dogwood blossomed on its banks, peacocks danced in the hills.
Fisherman reported seeing water sprites, twinkling,
no fatter than fingers,
change into bulbous squashlike creatures in the middle of the night.
What appeared to be falling leaves drifted slowly out over the lake,
then turned into metal filings, which rained down hard upon the men.
Nothing was safe.
The shapeshifters smashed turtles, birds, trawlers, anything that settled on the lake.
On shore a chubby boy, an orphan, lived on the pumpkins of the fields.
He longed to swim.
As he had no family, the villagers assumed responsibility for him.
They warned him of the danger in the water,
but he seemed to have an intimate knowledge of the lake.
He spoke of the colors at the bottom as though he’d been diving.
Some people suggested that he came from the lake;
after all, he had no family.
Where did he come from?
One night,
having informed the fishermen that he was tired of travelling the earth,
he jumped into the shallows and swam.
From time to time the townsfolk saw him in the middle of the lake,
riding a shaggy white buffalo.
Eventually the boy wrenched a horn from the animal’s head and tossed it ashore.
A tree laden with heavy fruit sprang up where it landed.
Next the boy surfaced gripping a black obelisk.
The obelisk was slippery;
often the boy lost his grip,
but finally managed to fling it ashore.
An artesian well burst forth, spraying water high into the air.
The villagers danced beneath the spring,
feasting on heavy fruit as the boy battled tumbleweeds, crates, panes of glass.
Each time he hurled an opponent ashore it became,
instantly,
a source of beauty and health.
The people were delighted.
Finally one creature remained – the mother squash, the biggest in the lake.
The boy caught his breath, ate a chunk of pumpkin, submerged.
He was underwater for hours.
The lake boiled.
Orange steam patches off the water.
The water began to blaze.
Women from the village tossed ice into the deepest part.
A mixture of blood –
male and female, mother and son –
hardened on the surface, burst into flames.
It burned until the lake dried up.
Afterwards there was no sign of the boy or the squash –
just a salt deposit, as if from giant tears.
For years boiling rain seared the dogwoods in the valley.
The grass dried up in summer.
He turns out the light. “Good night,” he says.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“That was neat. Will you tell us another story tomorrow night?”
“Sure. Go to sleep now.” (91-93)
– Tracy Daugherty –
