The Storyteller

Can you hear me?

Do my words have meanings?

do they manifest  insight,

as you hear them,

by the fire?

Or do you just hear the sounds

weaving together,

without the meanings?

“There, I’m done

I heard every word.”

What do you know,

then,

about me?

What insights have you gleaned?

from the stories I have told?

I am more than a set

of symbolic sounds crucially placed

next to other collections.

With each word, each sentence

I paint a picture for your mind

Futures not remembered,

pasts revealed, visions of the present

meanings live between the words

I ask only that you take

what is freely given

I am keeper of the oral history

past, future, and present

I am storyteller, knower of signs and omens

I am spoken

I am poem