One day Creator was resting, sitting, watching some children
at play in a village. The children laughed and sang, yet as
he watched them, Creator’s heart was sad. He thought, “These
children will grow old; their skin will become wrinkled,
their hair turn grey, and their teeth will fall out. The
young hunter’s arm will fail, and these lovely young girls
will grow ugly and fat. The sweet playful puppies will
become mangy old dogs, and those wonderful flowers, with all
their brilliant colors, will fade. The leaves from the trees
will fall and dry up; already they are turning yellow.”
Thus, thinking these things, Creator grew sadder and sadder.
It was fall, and the coming winter with its cold and lack of
growing things and color made his heart heavy.
At this time though it was still warm and the sun was
shining. Creator watched the play of sunlight and shadow on
the ground, the golden, red and orange leaves being carried
here and there by the wind. He saw the blueness of the sky
and the whiteness of the cornmeal ground by the women.
Seeing these things he suddenly smiled and sad, “All these
colors – they ought to be preserved in some way, so that they
will bring joy to my heart and will be something for the
children to look at and find pleasure in.”
Then, having come to this thought, Creator took out his bag
and started gathering things: a little sunlight from there,
a handful of blue sky from there; some whiteness from the
cornmeal, the splash of brilliant color from the laughter of
playing children; a touch of raven blackness from a little
girl’s shiny hair, the gold, red and russet of the falling,
dancing leaves; the green of the pine needless and the
crimson, purple and orange of the flowers all around. All
these things he put into his bag. Then, so they would not be
left out of this special creation he was making, he put the
songs of the birds in the bag too.
He then walked over to the grassy place where the children
played. “Little ones,” he said, “this is for you.” And he
gave them his bag. “Open it … there is something very
special inside,” he told them.
The children opened the bag, and gasped with delight when
hundreds and hundreds of colored butterflies fluttered out,
dancing around the childrens’ heads, settling on their hair,
hands and shoulders, flutter-dancing up again to touch on or
sip from this or that flower. The children were enchanted;
never had they seen anything so beautiful!
Then the butterflies began to sing, and the children
listened, smiling.
A songbird heard the butterflies singing though and, perching
on Creator’s shoulder, spoke into his ear and
scolded, “Grandfather, when you made us you said that each
bird would have his own special song to sing and make the
world beautiful and people smile – now you have given that to
these new sweet pretty flying things, but they are not
birds! You gave them all the colors of the rainbow … was
that not enough?”
“Oh yes, you are right,” Creator said. “I did make one
special song for each bird, and promised that only the birds
would sing them … I shouldn’t have taken that special gift
and passed it on to others too.
And with that, Creator took the songs away from the
butterflies. And this is why butterflies are so beautiful
but totally silent, and birds have their own special songs to
sing. Each have their own gifts to share.
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