Welcome to the twelfth day of our 30/30!
Your prompt today is:
Write a poem from the perspective of
your totem animal
Guidelines, if you want them:
- Posting your response is not required
- Feel free to post your response 🙂
- This is not meant to be the perfect first draft – respond without hesitation for 5-7 minutes, then keep going if you want to
- While our prompts are geared towards poetry, we welcome all kinds of artists
- Tips & encouragement are here
QuillsEdge Press 
Thank you for this prompt. I did not know my totem until today.
30/30 Day 12
totem day
this day is the day i met
my new apprentice. she
didn’t know about me and
wanted to believe that
the one who led her was
closer to the earth than
the sky and water. she
wanted to believe that
she would be guided by
a grounding totem when
she has always climbed
through life. she wanted
to think she needed to
do what she always did
as if she could not do
more than what was done.
this day is the day i met
one who dreams her tomorrows
one who feels soft whispers
of morning. one who loves
beyond her borders and keeps
herself within the quiet of
becoming, becoming, becoming
like me, a swan, her totem.
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In Praise of My Totem Animal
My father is the owl
and my brother, a great
blue heron. I am Coyote,
the shape shifter, lurking
in shadows, silent, watchful.
I am the loping figure across
the pasture, the lifted head
that scents a kill with which
to feed my young. I sing on
moonlit nights, make fields
come alive with my voice
joined with those of my pack.
I appear to fly when in pursuit
of rabbit or vole but in the autumn
I become a snow goose, only
for awhile, calling out in the
deepest night, taking the lead
in the Vs now and then, beating
two wings, tucking two legs,
but always returning to earth,
the prairie, the wind, the icy
pack of winter. I am dog, and
keeper of the family. I am
wisdom and manic energy.
I am Mandan Sioux and Coyote.
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Bugling, I call to my herd,
knowing that together we are one,
impenetrable, supported, strong.
Even as the snow covers the grass,
pawing and patient,
we find that source of nourishment,
enduring what others cannot endure,
moving slow and steady into remote lands
protected from the hunting masses
that would diminish us to extinction.
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