myth for broadwing combretum

There are the head of the great mountain’s abyssal shadow comes a swelling. Wait, and watch with me as it ripens. The mountains purse their dark lips and open into a smile.

I grasp your hand because the world is ending. We will never be the same. We have drawn with stars. We have lived in swamps. We let the smells of the deepest earth guide us. Then the flood begins. It’s not the flood of cool water like we know. Or even tremendous liquid. It is a flood of something that makes our eyes sting and tear. Our faces soon line with rivers of tears. See the way this being’s host yellow the land, darting through it with its army and painting all things green and brown. We ran but the army caught and consumed us in its golden grip. We did what we could to fight it. For twelve hours we threw spears at it, we cursed it with helpless words. Nothing could stop this thing. We were blinded when we tuned out spears and axes towards it. They melted and our skin. We hurt our friends because we could not see for brightness - tremendous golden light.

The only creature who finally was able to push the sun up and over the mountain of sky was a small bird as it picked at the light relentlessly it grew dimmer. And blood filled the sky with red. The bird’s beak bent from the heat.

When the sun comes up again several hours later - out again from the mountain - it is the mountain’s sun. It is only slightly dimmer. And we can feel warmth. And we can see each others eyes, and hands, and legs, and bodies for the first time. The sunbird, as we soon will call it - the sun bird shines, it’s breast glowing with a brilliant light. Every day it brings down the sun in the form of the Broadwing Combretum plant, making the sun bearable to us - the earth’s creatures.