Tobacco Origin Story, Because Tobacco Was a Gift Intended to Walk Alongside Us to the Stars

From a story of how the tobacco plant came to our people, told to me by my cousin George Coser Jr. It was way back, before there was a way back When time threaded earth and sky. Children were conceived, were born, grew, and walked tall In what we now call a day. There must have been two suns, a bright moon, somehow We had more light than now, sheen Of falling in love playing about Earth’s body In a wild flicker which lit Us up. We who were this planet and yearned for touch. Every planted thought grew plant Ladders to the stars, way back, before there was No way back,Miss Mary Mack. We used to sing along the buttons of her Dress. Our babies are always Our babies. Even back then when time waved through The corn. We knew our plants like Relatives. Their stories were our stories, there Were songs for everything — I Should say “are” songs for every transformation They link between way back and Now, the forever now, a time when a young Mvskoke man and woman Walked through the shimmer of the early evening. They had become as one song. They lay down when it was dark. I can hear their Intimate low-voice talking. How they tease one another with such gut love. Earth makes a bed, with pillow Mounds. And it is there as the night insects sing They conceived their first child. They Will look back as they walk East toward the sunrise. The raw stalks of beginning Will drink the light, root deeply dark into earth. In the tracks of their loving The plant-child emerges, first the seed head, then Leafy, long male body and the white female Flowers of tobacco, or Hece, as the people called it when it called To them.Come here. We were brought To you from those who love you. We will help you.