Songs are Thoughts: Poems of the Inuit
edited by Neil Philip and illustrated by Maryclare Foa (Orchard Books, New York, 1995)
Songs are thoughts, sung out with the breath when people are moved by great forces and ordinary speech no longer suffices. Man is moved just like the ice floe sailing here and there out in the current. His thoughts are driven by a flowing force when he feels joy, when he feels fear, when he feels sorrow. Thoughts can wash over him like a flood, making his breath come in gasps and his heart throb. Something like an abatement in the weather will keep him thawed up. And then it will happen that we, who think we are small, will feel still smaller. And we will fear to use words. When the words we want to use shoot up of themselves - we get a new song.
~ Orpingalik
Inuit poet and shaman
from parabola
