Why We Tell Stories
WHY WE TELL STORIES by Lisel Mueller
I
Because we used to have leaves
and on damp days
our muscles feel a tug,
painful now, from when roots
pulled us into the groundand because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathersand because before we had lungs
we knew how far it was to the bottom
as we floated open-eyed
like painted scarves through the scenery
of dreams, and because we awakenedand learned to speak
2
We sat by the fire in our caves,
and because we were poor, we made up a tale
about a treasure mountain
that would open only for usand because we were always defeated,
we invented impossible riddles
only we could solve,
monsters only we could kill,
women who could love no one else
and because we had survived
sisters and brothers, daughters and sons,
we discovered bones that rose
from the dark earth and sang
as white birds in the trees3
Because the story of our life
becomes our lifeBecause each of us tells
the same story
but tells it differentlyand none of us tells it
the same way twiceBecause grandmothers looking like spiders
want to enchant the children
and grandfathers need to convince us
what happened happened because of themand though we listen only
haphazardly, with one ear,
we will begin our story
with the word and