The People lived in darkness without Stars,
Unable to hunt or fish, as quiet as ghosts,
But Raven knew where Sun and Moon were hidden.
He flew through a sky as dark as his own feathers
And found a lodge surrounded by daylight.

A great chief lived there with his only daughter.
She came to their water hole, and Raven changed
Into a hemlock needle floating across it.
She drank him, and he grew and grew inside her
Till she lay down on moss and Raven was born.

The chief doted on Raven: his black eyes gleamed,
His beak and tongue were quick, he would play with furs
And bundles of dried light. But Raven saw,
High at the ceiling, three shut bentwood boxes
And knew what they held. He began crying and crying.

They gave him deer-hoof rattles and crowberries,
But still he cried and pointed at those boxes.
They gave him shells and the sweet backbones of salmon,
But he cried and pointed, so the chief brought down
The Box of Stars and gave it to Raven.

He opened it, and there, like herring eggs,
The Stars glistened in clusters, and Raven laughed,
Tossing them through the smoke hole where they tumbled
Across the sky forever. The chief was angry
And closed that smoke hole, scolding at Raven.

So Raven cried for days and would eat nothing,
Would play with nothing, pointing at those boxes.
His eyes turned many colors. He squealed. His mother
Feared he would choke and die, so the chief took down
The second box and gave it to Raven.

He opened it, and Moon gleamed like a fire,
Like pitch-wood burning, like burning candlefish.
He rolled that Moon around the floor of the lodge,
Singing and laughing, but then he cried again
And pointed to the last box on the ceiling.

Closing his ears, the chief brought down that box,
And Raven took it, seizing Moon in his beak,
Broke through the smoke hole, rolled Moon in the sky,
Opened the Box of Sun for the ghostly People,
And flew among them, scattering daylight.