The Sad Tale of Smallest Raven 2

For the image and the prompt, my thanks go to Magpie Tales and for the myth connection also to The Gooseberry Garden

Long, long ago, in the darkest
of dark days beyond recall,
before the human race was born -
or even thought about -
the only land was Spirit Land
where only ravens lived.

So dark was it that Smallest Raven 2,
hereafter simply to be known as Raven -
suddenly as close as any raven ever came
to nervous breakdown or insanity -
took fright and flight, and with
a pebble in its beak, made its great break
for freedom in the wider world outside.
Soon tiring of the pointless pebble,
Raven let it go and watched it fall
and hit the sea, then saw it swell
and go on swelling, long beyond
the point where it became an island,
on and on until it had become
a major land mass, greater by far
than Spirit Land. Now Raven flew
down to inspect what he had caused
to be created, and was overcome.

He saw a clam with tiny creatures
trapped inside. He pecked hard at
the shell until he'd made a hole
through which the prisoners
could find their way to freedom.
They very soon began to grow, becoming
the first humans of the world.
To one of these new creatures
Raven lost his heart: her raven hair
and raven soul held him in thrall.
But this was only to incense
the ruling spirit in the Raven Land,
our Raven's great, great grandfather,
Raven Maximus the Sixteenth.

Raven Maximus the Sixteenth
pecked a hole in Heaven's floor,
bigger than the hole that Raven pecked
in the clam's shell, and through
it poured a mighty flood to drown
both Raven and his lover - and then
the vast majority of that first human race.
Only Noah and all his family were spared.