Analysis of Obsidian Creation



The race of obsidian walk amongst the trees
crossing immobile shadows with their flickering ones
A wind whistles through the tops of the forest
They stop, and lay their molten hands on ancient wood

An enormous conch is taken from the belly of a woman
All eyes turn to it, except for its mother, lowering gaze
to her hand gently feeling her empty stomach
A call bellows through the whispering trees

The ground begins to rumble, then quake
Earth around the withering wood splinters
as the tree of Eloquem begins to rise upward
The flat forest gives way to its new peak

The people hold fast around the dawn of mountain
singing and chanting their morning song
Some stumble when they ascend to the wind
as the forest slowly sinks away

Three times the conch is blown, and all comes to a stop
In unison, they breathe seven times, then hold
Eloquem splinters into two slices
until only a shattered stump remains

Working quickly, the tribe begins to carve
Two opposing groups fashioning flawless twin logs
into enormous bowless canoes, pointing down
The quaking of the ground begins to rekindle

Fire bubbles out of the precipice
and the obsidian race climbs into their boats
Taking hold of the sides, they sing hectically
pitching their heads back and sounding the conch

The sun appears as if out of nowhere
The oarsmen squint at its brilliance
and the bubbling stump begins to spew forth
the magma from which they were made


Scheme AXXX BXXA XAXX BXXX XXXX XXXC XXCX XXXX
Poetic Form
Metre 011010010101 100101111001 01101011010 110111011101 1010111010101010 111110111101001 101101001010 0110101001 010111011 101010011 10111011110 0110111111 010110101110 100101101 1101101101 101010101 110111011101 01001110111 1101110 0110010101 1010010111 101011001011 01010101101 010101011010 1010110100 000100110111 101101111 1011101001 010111111 0111110 00100101111 01011101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,385
Words 250
Sentences 1
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 145
Words per stanza (avg) 31
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Submitted on May 01, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:15 min read
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