Primitive Soul

Politely I sit through and listen to another endless so-called staff meeting

With the most proper etiquette, I daintly eat my canape with paté and deliberate with sophistication and wit with my colleagues.

The decorum of the moment slips in my mind as I peer beyond the visages of 20th century culture and society.

My clothes chafe my skin, my ears tune out the nonsense of language. My discomfort is total, I cannot breathe in the stuffy room. I cannot see the forest or birds or life. There is no life in that room.

Inside my primitive soul seethes and rages with fury and frustration at the uselessness of this meaningless exercise in “modern, sophisticated” sensitivities.

I leave that boardroom and escape to a not-so-distant past when meetings were called gatherings, and decisions were made when to have a feast, marriage, or name a child.

The shaman and the chief consult oracles beyond my comprehension and I listen with awe and faith in the rituals they performed.

My bone, feather and shell necklace brushes against my naked skin as I run from deep inside the lush rainforest towards the moonlit, turquoise ocean.

I raise my eagle claw staff to the moon where I see rabbit tracks. The moonlight marks my shadow on the beach. The blueness surrounds and envelops me. The sparks from the fire joint the stars that are pebbles in the sky strewn by the ancient ones in an effort to show us the right path.

I listen to the waves and the cokis call me in unison. My hair flows freely in the soft breeze and I have no shame in my nakedness. My feet leave tracks on the soft sand. I know by morning the tracks will be gone so no one will know of my presence, only the quiet animals of the night.

I hear the sounds of the drum and war cries of my brethen beckoning me, other primitive souls who fail to find truth in a meaningless place. The time is not right, we will wait for a message from the ones who have gone ahead.

I return to the stuffy, dark room filled with pale faces that have no meaning for me. I anxiously await the message.

©2021. Virginia Robles-Villalba aka Virginia Rosario