The Voice in the Well

THE VOICE IN THE WELL

Her water broke. She lay beside the well.
her people dug so many years ago.
The pains were starting. She began to yell
the words heard when the winds began to blow
across the well, the source of health and life.
The winds were rising. Labor pains were rising
in a tremendous crescendo of strife.
The voice of life became so tranquilizing.
The howling wind, the howling hollow words,
the same two soothing words, to help the strain
of birth, that calmed the nervous flocks and herds,
the same two words she howled to ease the pain.
So out of labor pains and blood he came,
and "Tan Nigontig" had become his name.