First Myth: Arop arrive
 At the start of our earth before the Nothing is the Kwan (which means "nameless').  And Kwan is before the Nothing and now and when the Nothing returns.

But in the time between the Nothing and now, Kwan spit out a seed from their mouth. And it fell to the ground and grew into a living thing that could question.  Kwan, in whimsy, named it fut, meaning "Kwan's question."   

Now fut, being one, had no other one.  So Kwan spit out another seed  and from the ground grew a new fut.  The fut, being separate, fought.  So the second fut asked to return to the earth. Kwan struck the second down and the fut returned to the ground.

So the first fut asked Kwan, "What am I to do now that you have spit me?"  Kwan replied  "Two futs fight!"  And fut replied, "There is a way.  Give me spit and seed and place.  And I will seed my own ground. We fut will be of the same earth. And may the eyes of our dreams behold you, our Becomer and the Answer of our questions." Kwan, pleased at fut's words,  hollowed the belly of the fut as a hiding place.  It spit out its own seed. The second fut sprang from the mouth of the first fut.  

Kwan was satisfied. But the first fut asked Kwan, "Kwan, can it be good, but still sad?"  "Good yet sad?"  Fut replied, "Do not be mad with me, but how is next the seed to come, and the one after that? Our seeds are self sown.  What if you get bored with us (and we with ourselves) and go to another sky.  We will reproduce the same forever (for there was no death on the earth).  We have talked together and this is our story:  Give us both part of the seed and one of us the hiding place to hold it until it is ready.  Dig a channel so that the new fut will fall from our earth to the arms of the ground that first held us.  And may the eyes of our dreams behold you, our Becomer and the Answer of our questions." 

Kwan laughed. It was the First Laugh.  But they thought, "we have grown  from ourselves a creature that will not need us."  Kwan took the second fut and made a sac for half the seeds and a finger to plant them. In the first fut, Kwan hid the other seeds and dug  a channel towards earth.  But Kwan also hid a fear of the first fut in the heart of the second.  The fut joined and grew from themselves a great harvest.  And  they called the earth their Holder and named Kwan, their Becomer, and called themselves Arop, people arriving for the harvest.   But fear took root and the Arop soon called Kwan Protector and Judge.

Second Myth:  What We Have Forgotten
Now, there were beings in the sky, but they were kept by the dream of Kwan  ("the nameless").  They did not know anything but Kwan, so they knew everything at once. Kwan called them "the dreamed". There were three, suuk the seer, kultu the holder, and koan the asker, who woke first.  This is how it happened.

Now, Kwan told all the dreamed  that the yellow stones by the river of life were not to be taken.  As long as  the beings in the sky were dreaming, they  were fed by the river of life and did not crave the yellow stones.  But occasionally,  Kwan blinked, and for a short time the dreamed awakened. 

 Everyone knows that once you say "no" there will be one to say "yes."  And this one was suuk the seer.  Suuk was the first to awaken with a craving for the yellow stones.   So suuk went to the river and took one and sucked it.  The dream broke, and suuk  began to see.  She noticed her own form.  She thought, "We are Kwan's dream but not Kwan's form.  I do not want to be endlessly outside my own form.  In my own form, I know only one thing at a time, but this is good. I can suck and savor it."  She stayed by the river for a long time.  She grew lonely, and then thirsty, so she drank from the river of life.  Her form fell to the earth and  she rejoined her people for a while. 

She searched and found kultu the holder.  When Kwan blinked a second time, she held kultu with her and gave kultu a stone to suck.  Then kultu also became form.  They heard a voice and Kwan was over them.

"Why have you cut yourself off from me?" Kwan sighed, "your choice will be your sorrow."  But suuk replied, "I have known only you as me, and now I see myself and you.  I know times of dream and times of not dream.  Your dream will continue in me because you dreamed me, but now I must dream for myself."  And kultu said, "I am still new, but I am one and many.  This is an empty feeling. It s is good." 

Kwan sighed, "You have sucked of the stone of separation.  Surely sorrow will knock together like pebbles at your dancing, bruise you at your falling, stop you from your going, and interrupt your toil.  I will be to you something far up.  You will see my size and be afraid.  You will hear my sound  and hide.  You will curse me, you will cut me down.  You will follow any dream that calls to you.  And the ones who come after you will do this to you.  You will all suck the hardest stone, the stone of forgetting."

"But we are of the same dream, you and I.  We cannot separate completely. You will travel this time of separation hard, but it will bring you new understanding.  I will carry you in my dream until no rock will separate us, till all the seeds of our words are fertile and the soil is black.

"Now, turn to each other and look, because the light of the dream is failing.  It will be many generations before you will know that you came from the same place."

 Kwan left with a mighty silence.  And suuk called herself a moving thing.  She slept in the day and woke at night.  Kultu became grass  and held on to a small part of the dream.  When koan appeared on the earth they walked upright and did not know what had gone before.  That is why they are called "the one who asks."

for Victoria

I. Let’s say you are 60
And you don’t see how
You will stop working, teaching
As an adjunct in a state university.
And you used to make
Theater but there is no time.
Suppose you have a dream
In which there is a mountain
And companions,
You, your young self and your friend Andres
On a path up the mountain.
It’s stony and hard,
And midway, Andres offers you
shoes. Magic shoes, red,
(He owns a pair),
Because  it’s hard to hike at your age
(and you wonder why he tells 
you what you know).

Each day we touch the unformed
Lives of those the fairytales are meant for –
Rose Red, Cordelia, the prince who finds Rapunzel.
After the glass shoes fits, fairy godmother retreats
Til the firstborn needs a blessing. 
Every graduation, it repeats.

We are halfway down the mountain.
In my case, a plateau. Rest,
The tender grass tells us.
No, stay awake, wake up.
A perigree moon ices the wild trees as 
We hike like the magi till we reach
Not where we’re supposed to be, but down past to
The path I’m looking for
into the valley. An old white horse 
gallops up from the meadow.  
We arrive to
find the place (you may say) satisfactory.

II. Come in, she says.
Old enough to be our mother, at a
Wood house on mud path, as it rains
Velvet, wet
Through the bamboo.
We share bread and soup
And once the clouds move,
Prepare to leave as the dream instructs us.
Take something, she opens a closet full
Of closet things – tupperware, old files,
Flannel jacket, red shoes,
frog legs,  baseball cap, old black umbrella. 
That, I say.
She smiles. Belonged to
a Miss Poppins, once.
Open it.