The curve of our bay looks east and, under the tuck of its long northern arm, when the mercy trees stain the golden sand red with their flowers and the sun is almost at its height, I tell the people, “The gods are near.” The thatched roofs of Hornish peep over the stockade, the lookouts stare from their platforms as I thump the first stroke on the drum. From now until the sacrifice it must never miss a beat.
All night under the wooden map, I lead the dance; all day I dance and sing in the warm sea, diving, surfacing, spouting water until I flounder in the shallows, the waves withdraw, and the people praise and laugh and carry me up the beach.
And all day and night, the gods are dancing towards us, rising to blow, sinking and swimming again, answering my songs with theirs, dreaming of their people as we dream their dreams all night.
At last the lookouts beat the wooden gongs and cry, “The gods are home.” The drum’s boom shakes air, earth, and water until the world trembles with joy.
I brandish the red torch, plunge it into the dry grass, watch ladders of blue-green flame climb heaps of driftwood white as bone, listen to the fire’s shout, sniff its salt breath.
Line after line of dancers stitch darkness and light, weaving smoke and flame, crossing and recrossing, undoing the boundaries of earth, air, fire, and water until the children of the gods come swimming out of the deep. And welcoming we sing their praise, help them up the beach, glossy, slick, and black in the leaping red light, gasping their message of love as the sea withdraws.
Louder, faster, the drum fills the world, stops, and into that silence I plunge the sacred knife. Under the mercy trees, the golden sand turns red as I drink the first blood, eat the first flesh of the gods’ sacrifice, their children sent to save us.