Koluskap Ties the Wind

Once Koluskap tricked the wind into a knot,
To show its reckless pride,
And when the trees stood breathless still,
He moved them when he sighed.

In the beginning, the East Wind ran wild, boasting of distance, of strength unbound. It tore at the forests, root and limb, raced north and west, then southward spun, with a mouth full of thunder, and a chest full of pride. It threatened to up root the trees and cut the clouds at their seams.
Koluskap spoke to the waiting pines: “Stand fast. The storm will turn again.”
Their roots held tight in the darkened earth, patient, knowing the test. Koluskap bent by the river’s edge. He braided reeds into cord, looped them lightly, ring on ring, and raised them toward the sky. “You can not lift this higher than the clouds!” he mocked to the boasting wind.
The wind laughed—and seized the snare. It tangled itself in turning loops, twist upon twist by its own force caught, until its roar was bound by its own breath.
Its fury folded small. Koluskap pulled it down from the heavens and held it tight in a ball of knotted twine. The world grew still. Trees held their leaves, listening. Water forgot to ripple. At last he loosed the binding hand. The East wind bowed as it fled the knot, humbled, thinner, newly taught. It rustled softly as it wisped away, “I will remember where I belong.”
Then Koluskap wove the clouds back together, seamless, smoothed their edges, softened their drift, and for good measure, taught every wind, North, South, East and West, the measure of pace—how to sway the reeds without breaking them, how to move the world without harm. No longer racing through the forest crowns, but as a song through leaves,
breath through branches.
As a reminder to the four winds, he cast the ball of twine into the night sky—It floats there still, pale with memory.
We call it the moon. And when the wind now sighs through grass, Koluskap smiles, for it gives him room. It lifts the seeds, but gently now, and lets leaves fall slow, one by one.
So when any gale begins to brag of its and strength and forgets its place, remind it of Koluskap, who tied the East Wind, and loosed it wiser than before. For breath can bless or break the world, but Koluskap can tie it in place.