In the beginning, when the void was still,
before the rivers had names, before dawn grew teeth,
She walked alone through the unbraided dark.
before the rains dreamed of falling,
the Creator stood on the rim—
a place where nothing yet knew her.

From her cupped hands came breath—
so deep it stirred the roots of time.
Planets woke like sleeping stones;
stars blinked, bewildered, into being.
She remembered herself,
and so creation began.

The sky was her cloak, the silence her cradle,
and memory her only heartbeat.
Her feet stirred the dust of the planets.
Her breath warmed the hearts of stone.

She sang.
The first sound cracked the night in two.
It curled into wings,
and the eagle rose,
carrying the memory of heights.

She wove the world with her fingers—
a strand of fire,
a strand of water,
a strand of wind,
a strand of root.
From this braid grew the first tree,
its leaves whispering the names of things to come.

Then the creator knelt beside the sea,
and whispered into the foam:
“You shall be swift, and silver,
keeper of currents,
mirror of moon.”

She sang again,
and the song grew fur—
soft as moss, fierce as frost.
She shaped the animals
Her laughter made the fox,
a sly chuckle.
She carved the deer from her sigh.
She stitched its hooves from the dusk.
Her silence shaped the owl.
The bear she shaped from dreaming,
the salmon from longing,
The turtle she shaped from patience,
the loon from mourning.

Each she sent forth with a gift—
The bear lumbered from the mountain’s belly,
carrying the weight of dreams.
And the salmon leapt, its body a prayer of return.
The deer she gave eyes wide with listening,
wisdom, cunning, grace—
The owl, she gave a question,
then the answers to.
and one command: walk gently.

But the people—ah, the people—
From clay beneath her ribs she drew the women—
strong, soft, hearts made to break and mend again,
to still choose kindness, in brokenness, still sing.
She shaped them from remembrance.

She shaped from clay the men,
and some she shaped from bark—
hands to hold stories, feet to follow wind,
eyes to see spirit in stone.
She shaped men from the echo of ancestors
who had not yet walked.

Together, woman and man made children—
who would listen for her answers
in the rustle of leaves.

And then she vanished—
into mist, her breath lingering in cedar,
her voice folded into the loon’s cry,
her memory braided
into the hair of the children asking,
“Where did we come from?”

The world now made—
fire with water, wind with root—
and the people walked gently.
But among her children,
the ones shaped from bark grew proud.
They hoarded fire,
claimed the river’s voice,
mocked the owl’s wisdom,
and called themselves kings.

She watched.
She waited.
She warned.
But pride does not listen until it is undone.

So she unbraided the wind from their lungs,
turned their gold to ash,
and gave their names to the stones,
so travelers’ feet might remember them.

To the others she gave stories, not laws—
“Greed,” she said, “is a hunger that eats its own hands.”
“Pride is a mask that forgets the face beneath.”
“Kindness is the only fire that warms without burning.”
and the children listened with open hands,
the stories tucked in the folds of dusk.

Still, beneath the mountain’s belly, a hunger stirred—
a beast without name,
born from want and the breaking of promises.
Greed with teeth, pride with claws.
It rose roaring, and cracked the cedar’s spine.
It drank rivers dry,
and whispered: “Take more. Forget her.”

They forgot.

They built towers of bone,
hoarded the sun,
and called the beast Progress.

She watched.
She wept.
She waited.
Then she braided her hair with lightning,
drew a bow from the spine of the wind,
and stepped into the shadow where the beast fed.

It laughed. “You are only a woman.”
She smiled. “I am the first woman. I am the last.”

Her arrow of memory flew—
singing of rivers,
of children’s laughter before dawn.
It struck the beast’s heart,
and from its wound poured forgotten names,
lost songs, the scent of rain.

Still it fought.
Still it clawed.
So she called the bear of dreaming,
with its mighty paws,
the eagle of the sky,
with its feathers strong,
the turtle who remembers all things,
with its shielding shell.
Together they danced a storm of undoing—
of remaking.

The beast fell, unbraided.
Its hunger scattered into seeds.
The children planted those seeds in silence.
From them grew humility, gratitude,
and the slow return of balance.

When silence returned, she wandered—
light-footed, smiling,
joy braided with mischief.
For joy, she knew, must be tested to stay true.

So she donned her trickster mask:
Her feathers dark,
eyes like river stones,
a grin that bent the moon.
And she flew.

She came to the village
as an old woman,
She walked with a crooked cane,
caring baskets braided in bright silk.
She offered the children stories
that tangled like roots.

To the proud merchant she said,
“Trade me your gold for a basket.
It holds what you truly seek.”
He scoffed, but took it,
and found inside a mirror
showing his face as a hungry crow.

To the greedy farmer she said,
“Plant this seed where you share your harvest.”
He buried it selfishly in fenced off soil,
From it grew a vine of thorns
that carved out his name in passing winds.

To the boastful hunter she said,
“Follow the fox, but do not speak.”
He shouted his greatness to the trees—
and was lost in circles
until he begged the silence
for mercy—
She laughed—not cruelly,
but like rain on a dusty path.
Her tests were invitations to remember.

To the child who gave her a pebble,
she gave a feather that sang when held gently.
To the elder who listened,
she gave a dream of the world before naming.
And to those who failed, she gave another chance—
as they walked the crooked path back to truth.

She did not stay. She never does.
Flying away once more,
she left her mask hanging on a cedar branch,
swaying in the wind,
that becomes the breath of a child
who says “enough,”
waiting for the next lesson—
braiding, unbraiding,
restoring the world
with fierce grace.