Moonchild Plays with the Cat (Dream Fast I)

"Before becoming a fully-functioning member of adult Ojibwa society, the Ojibwa adolescent male undertakes a dream fast and undergoes prolonged social isolation and food deprivation. During these dreams, the young man gets powers from a supernatural guardian spirit in exchange for promises to do or not to do certain acts in the future. He must avoid contact with the earth during the fast, and so he climbs into a tree and perches in a nest specifically built for this purpose. The dreams that occur during this ordeal are the most important experiences of the young man's life and are said to determine the course of the rest of his life."

- Sharon Packer

The moonchild—

She dreams in quiet silence
Until cracked craters and cosmos in reverse
Give way to water and gathering dust (of God knows what)
Over solitary islands fenced off in the void
Where the maw of a black hole slowly chews and grinds a tree root.
And above the canopies just over the stream
Stalks the GREAT B—But shhh
Don’t ask him where he keeps his claw
(Between you and me,
It’s right up in the sky,
Right next to the moonchild’s eye

The Siamese cat—

The one with the Siamese brain
That wells up in its eyes
And leaks out of its nose
As if someone pulled the plug out of a bathtub
(You know, the cat that casts his shadows
over the endless shifting dunes?)
He dreams in waterbirths and ancient temperatures
And dead branches with pretend hands
That grope through constellations cut out of the static
Grabbing at claws or clawing out eyes
Either way, they are staying away from that
(oh no, anything but that)