Usually, I use Magnus as an on-line handle, but it was taken on this site. So I went with my second best, Marsman.

Nananananana

Verse One: Whereby The Egg is Broken and The Ducki Emerges

In the beginning, there was nothingness and everything.
Swirling together, contained in the egg of the universe.

From this chaos grew a drake,
yellower than summer sun at rising.
And as he swam the sea of chaos,
grew another drake darker than winter.

As they grew, the egg expanded,
until it cracked into two pieces;
becoming the heavens and the seas.
Verse Two: Whereby Chanticleer Splashes The Ducki's Feathers

When there was no earth,
when there was nothing but endless water,
Then there was no earth, no sun;
then there was no day, no moon;
then there were no stars, no Milky Way.
Then there was water, only water,
and above the water, two drakes flying--
Ducki flying, Chanticleer flying,
flying in the peace of unspoken love,
flying in the joy of endless being.

Then Ducki felt a cloud,
a knot of wind, a fist of water,
a cloud that formed in Chanticleer s heart
as Chanticleer flew just below him.
Feeling the cloud, Ducki wondered:
"Was loneliness better than dark Chanticleer?"

And Chanticleer bent his darkness
down to the water, seeming to drown,
and Ducki was sad;
but Chanticleer spun up at the surface,
his speed foaming the water,
whirling it up, splashing the water on Ducki.

Chanticleer was proud of his dive and splash:
"Hey, Ducki, now you see that I am strong;
without your leave, I chose to dive;
I dove and wet your feathers";
and Chanticleer thought, in his clouded heart:
"More will I do. Instead of diving,
I will rise, rise above the yellow Ducki."

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Verse Three: Whereby Chanticleer Falls

But as Chanticleer thought to soar,
Ducki took his flight from his wings
and he plummeted down
with deadly Time trapped in his feathers.

Plummeting down, Chanticleer cried out
"My Ducki!" but water wrapped his tongue
and smothered his cry.
"My Ducki, I did not know your strength;
Give me release and I will give you praise."

Ducki spoke: "Come out, then: Rise!
With soaking wings, Chanticleer rose
but could not fly, could not rise from the water s grasp:
"Create me a place, O Ducki!
Let me stand. The water is fearful;
its darkness will suck me down.
Create a place, just enough to stand.
I am afraid."

Ducki said: "Let there be a strong rock."
His words searched the deeps
and searching found Inanna's ear,
found Inanna who created a rock
and sent it up for Chanticleer's place.

Chanticleer sat in the tent of silence
that was the world--
there was only water and only Ducki--
being neither, Chanticleer feared,
feared that Ducki s forgetful wing
would brush him off this tiny place,
brush him into the fearful deeps.
Chanticleer thought the rock should stretch,
should stretch and cover the endless water
and hide the water's terrible mouth.

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Verse Four: Whereby Chanticleer Dives

At that instant, Ducki
commanded Chanticleer to dive,
dive to the depths and bring up earth,
bring up a handful of dirt.
Chanticleer dove, dove in fear.
Where he dove he did not know;
where he dove had a light he did not know;
the light was the eyes of Ducki,
where he dove when he dove to the bottom,
was earth. He took a handful and rose.

"Ducki, I did your command.
I beg you make this water above
Like the flatness below,
broad and wide, a place where I may live.
Now I am sure you are Ducki,
now I know your Ducki strength."

Ducki commanded him:
"Throw the earth,throw it on the water."
Chanticleer spilled his handful of earth,
spilled it on the water
where it spread to the end of sight
and even farther than sight it spread.
With shaking and clamor eternity sucked the water down,
sucked it down to give earth room.

In spreading joy, Chanticleer said:
"Ducki, my Ducki, surely you are Ducki
surely you are the Ducki I worship."

Ducki said:
"If so, then dive, hey, Chanticleer,
dive again and again bring up a handful of earth."

Chanticleer grew drunk
with new creation;
the cloud in his heart unfolded and fled
as he dove again to the Ducki-bright bottom.
The water shook
with Chanticleer s joy,
with his drunken dive to the bottom.

The cloud knotted again,
made a dark fist in Chanticleer s heart:
"So if Ducki,
if Ducki cannot, cannot get this earth,
if Ducki must send me,
if his strength lacks my strength,
if my strength completes the strength of Ducki
then I am more than he,
then his Ducki-ness is less than mine."
Thinking these thoughts
Chanticleer filled his mouth with earth for himself and took for Ducki half of a half a handful.
Planning that Ducki would create
half of a half a world
and he, Chanticleer, would create
a whole and secret world for himself.

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Verse Five: Whereby Chanticleer Spits

Ducki looked at the dust,
the grains of dust in Chanticleer s hand,
and said only: "Throw this too,"
and when Chanticleer threw it,
Ducki made it grow,
made it spread wider than water and Time.
At the beginning there was Eternity,
after Eternity, there was Time;
now, after Time, Earth grew,
spreading out to make a place.

Ducki s earth spread endlessly,
Chanticleer found no place to spit his earth,
no place beyond Ducki and Ducki s place,
Ducki's water and Time.
Chanticleer's desire hardened to stone;
as it hardened, Ducki spoke:
"Spit.
Spit and be saved, you who are evil.
Had I not listened to Inanna's sigh,
Create!
you would not be, nor your anger,
nor your lust to be my equal.
Since I made, I will save you.
Spit!"

Chanticleer spit on Ducki's flat, free earth;
the spit made hills,
hills like stumps of yellowed teeth,
made bogs like pus,
made a valley nasty as death.
Chanticleer looked
at the rotten growth of his spit,
and Ducki said:
"Hey, Chanticleer, I made a place for you;
see what your pride has done,
the cloud that spits from your evil heart."

Chanticleer replied:
"I wanted to make my own world,
a world where I would be Ducki,
a world to escape you,
where I could have all power
and you would borrow power from me."

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Verse Six: Whereby Chanticleer Fears

The water twisted, Ducki was silent;
Ducki was silent, the earth shook.
Chanticleer thought Ducki was weak:
"I should be creator not you;
you should dive at my command."

When he spoke, the hills were shamed,
the hills and water and marshes turned
to Ducki for protection:
"O Ducki, keep us from Chanticleer, double and dark.
We are not his, he is not ours."

Their words scratched Chanticleer
with lonely shame,
shame and fear spiked his heart, his breath, his sight.
He grew pale, he grew dark;
he grew dark, he grew pale;
quivering, he turned completely to fear.

"Why do you fear?"
Ducki's words fell soft and white,
fell like feathers from his flight:
"You created because I allowed it;
you created evil
because you are evil."

Chanticleer s feathers ruffled and stiffened:
"You!
you made me, made me what I am.
If I am evil, you made me evil
when you could have made me good.
Answer, answer Duckily, Ducki."
The dark cloud knotted in Chanticleer s heart
spoke these words.

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Verse Seven: Whereby Ducki Speaks

Ducki said:
"We flew together,
but in your pride
you wanted to fly above,
and from this pride,
your pride
your evil came,
not from me.
Is that Duckily enough?"

After these words, all was silent,
all was silent beyond silence,
and Ducki s voice passed through silence:
"Under earth is water;
under water is earth; under all, darkness;
Into this darkness
you shall go,
beyond earth, beyond water,
beyond light.
Go!"

In the silence after Ducki's voice,
Chanticleer fell,
fell to darkness unseen and untouched,
fell where eye saw no eye,
where knee touched no knee.

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Verse Eight: Whereby The Ducki Creates The Tree of Humanity

In that darkness
Chanticleer's darkness darkened;
in that loneliness,
his loneliness grew lonelier yet.

A tree grew on the earth above,
branchless, budless, leafless,
it grew greatly but Ducki said:

"A tree should branch,
a tree should bud,
a tree should leaf;
let this tree bud and branch,
let it be green
from root to tip."

Then the tree grew full, grew bright,
grew full with the fullness
of Ducki's eyes,
grew bright with the brightness
of Ducki's eyes.

Nine times the tree branched:
three branches eastward,
three branches westward,
two branches southward,
one single branch northward,

one dry and yellow branch,
dry and hopeless, stretched north.

The tree spread its branches,
spread its green leaves
over the marshes born of Chanticleer's spit,
over the rotten, broken hills.

The tree's roots branched in earth;
the tree's branches rooted in sky;
through the tree peace passed,
peace between earth and sky;
in the tree earth and sky came together,
and in the tree was water's fullness.

Then Ducki said:
"Let some birds fly,
a bird for every leaf on every branch;
and let every bird sing,
a song for every fruit of the tree;
let joy descend through the tree,
through the tree let loneliness end,
pain end in the songs of the birds."

Then birds came,
then birds sang,
but no birds came,
no birds sang on the north branch,
the songless, joyless
branch of the north.

The song completed joy,
finished the half-made.
As the birds sang,
moon and sun, sun and stars,
came to be;
day and night, earth and water,
all were full of song;

but something was lacking.

A delirious breeze, a drunken breeze,
blew over a lake,
over the first lake that ever was,
the breeze was a song
that had not been heard;
but something was lacking.

Ducki was still lonely,
feeling the lack of something;
Ducki thought
and found what was lacking;
found people were lacking:

"Let people grow,
a human grow from each of the nine roots."

Suddenly, the tree's roots swelled,
suddenly they burst through the earth;
a cry of sudden joy floated,
harmonious and joyful, among the hills;
the cry's sudden waves splashed,
splashed up to Ducki,
there splashing the song of the nine new persons
who sang the joy of the gift of being.

Three men sang from the three eastern branches;
three women sang from the three western branches;
One man sang from the south,
and a man, thin and dry,
sang from the northern branch,
the thin dry branch of the north.
A woman sat,
a woman smiled
between the south and the north;
her smile hurried south,
her hands hurried north,
she was pulled north, drawn south:
at last she turned
& joined the man of the south.

An owl sat on the northern branch,
the single branch of the north,
and even today sits and whistles there;
and even today the north people
whistle and moan from primal sorrow.

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Verse Nine: Chanticleer's Envy

Ducki, having created people,
having completed creation,
called Chanticleer up from darkness,
called him up to see the fullness of the light.
Ducki, full with fullness,
forgave Chanticleer and called him back.

Chanticleer sped to Ducki's call
but the sudden greenness swamped his eyes,
blinded his eyes with fullness of light;
the tree, the changing, shining tree confused Chanticleer;
the people, changing and shining, confused Chanticleer
with the luster of their new being:

What sort of thing was this,
what sort of thing?

Chanticleer ears were dumb with light,
he did not hear Ducki:

"How is it, hey, Chanticleer,
how is it, how do you like the world?"

At last Chanticleer's ears awoke,
he said:
"Who,
who are they?
what,
what is this?
what are these that sing?"

Ducki laughed:
"These?
These are my creatures,
all my beautiful creatures--
bird, tree, leaf,
wind, cloud, man--
all that Is is my world."

Then Chanticleer cringed and begged,
begged insanely:

"Give me
give me half,
give half, half, O Ducki! Give so that your greatness
is shown in your giving.
After all,
I, I was your first friend,
your first companion."

Ducki replied
with a knife for a voice:
"No,
I cannot give you this world;
I cannot give you
what isn't mine."

"Not yours?
Not yours?
Did you not make it all?
Did you not,
just now,
say it was yours?
Lying is not Duckily!"

It seemed Chanticleer's slyness
slipped through the meshes
of Ducki's knowledge:
"Yes, we created, created all
you see and all you do not see.
We said Be and they were.
But what we created
we created not for ourselves,
but for these, these people."

"Then give me,
give me half of the people."

Chanticleer's eyes and mouth
were a gang of robbers:
"Why I, I am the same as your baby brother,
so let us share."

Ducki's smile was Duckily.
He knew Chanticleer's innerness,
knew with Duckily knowledge:
"Not born, never to die,
we have no brothers;
we said Be and all things were.
Out of our voice came all worlds.
Hey, Chanticleer,
you shall be given nothing,
none of the people will I give you;
but if you can get any,
if you can deceive any of the people,
They shall be yours,
they shall be your people
if they choose."

The power of Ducki froze Chanticleer,
bound him moveless where he was
as Ducki flew away,
as the people laughed and strolled beneath the tree.

Just to add, everyone here has made this web site a great community. People are respectful of each other and insightful and have helped my present gaming experience immensely.

Didn't we have a big thread on this already - I know I typed it up before...hmmm...anyone?