Inuit dream

I saw an Inuit man,
he was standing in the snow
with his back to me
wearing a sealskin parka.

People were approaching him
and he was giving them things,
more and more people came
and he could not refuse them.

Eventually he ran out of things to give,
he had nothing left to give
but they didn’t stop coming,
they kept coming, wanting more
and he could not refuse them.

So he took out his knife
and he started to cut slivers of sealskin
from the hood that protected his head
and he gave those to the people,
they took them without noticing
and still they kept coming.

I walked around to talk to him
and when I looked into his face
I saw it was utterly mutilated.

His cheek was torn open,
his teeth were exposed and broken,
his nose was smashed,
there was an empty, black socket
where one eye should be
and tears were constantly
flowing from his other eye.

I looked down, and in my hand
there was a little sable brush.
I found that if I dipped it in his tears
and painted them on his wounds
they started to heal, but my brush was tiny
and his wounds were immense.

fromagreenhill.com